Three Barks for Sark! (…we guess)
Constable Echelon
espn.com
According to espn.com, Steve Sarkisian is the new head coach for your Washington Huskies.
First order of business? Tepid denial! Way to own your first story, Sark!
For the fans? Lose your shit! The Dawgman chatroom was supremely entertaining Thursday night. And if you’re wondering, the crowd was 99% on the side of TERRIBLE HIRE. I’m not there, yet, but I see where these guys are coming from.
Washington Football is in a dangerous place right now and needed a home run hire. Steve Sarkisian is most certainly not a home run hire.
Let’s have a rundown of the pros and cons:
PROS:
Not Tyrone Willingham
You have to make this a blanket category, so that Sarkisian’s pros list doesn’t inflate to include things like “practice will be open”, “better relationship with media”, “doesn’t speak in third person”, “has pulse”.
NBC Sports
Cheap
Or, since the terms of the contract have yet to be announced, he better be cheap. This is the second pro by the way and neither have anything to do with Sark’s coaching ability. Which is why I’m not trying to overthink this or even think about this rationally. At least we’ll have money to hire assistants…but we’ll get to that below.
Wants the job
Again, nothing to do with his coaching ability. At least with Sarkisian we’re not dealing with a guy who is feigning interest in the UW gig to get a bigger extension. The buzz seems to indicate that he gave one hell of an interview that knocked rookie AD Scott Woodward off his feet.
Has experienced Husky Football
USA Today
The 1996 BYU Cougars had a stellar 14-1 campaign with Steve Sarkisian as their starting quarterback. (Though their schedule was weak and I don’t understand how they played 15 games.) That one loss? In Husky Stadium. If you go through a year where you lose one, you remember that one. As in, “We had a great team that year, but Washington!”
West Coast recruiting experience
This is Sarkisian’s biggest strength. He knows California. Of course it’s a lot easier to convince Cali kids to play for USC when they all want to go there anyway, but his familiarity with the area certainly can’t hurt.
Used to winning
Not much to explain here. Winning is contagious. It’s easy to do when it’s all you know. Like losing actually in that regard. But Steve Sarkisian is, by proxy, a winner.
CONS:
ZERO head coaching experience
Imagine you have a once powerful program that has endured terrible coaching for 6+ years and is all of a sudden in the crapper. You make the correct decision to fire your joke of a coach, and when the chips are down and you can’t afford another mistake you hire…SOMEONE COMPLETELY UNTESTED? Not just at your level, but at any level. Wow.
No evidence that he’s even a good Offensive Coordinator
You know, since Norm Chow left, USC’s offense has somehow been their achilles heel. Maybe John David Booty wasn’t a great quarterback. Maybe Mark Sanchez isn’t a great quarterback. But if you have superior talent at every position, you should be able to trick me into believing that at least one of those guys is great. Maybe they go conservative at USC because they have such a terrific defense to rely on and Pete Carroll’s orders are simply “Don’t do anything stupid.” I don’t know.
34 years old
Not that I’m an ageist or something like that. I would have been pissed if we hired a 60 something coach as well. So maybe I am an ageist. I just wanted a coach who has been around the block between 39 and 55. It will be 2014 before Sarkisian can give the old “I’M FORTY!” rant.
thedenverchannel.com
Who in god’s name is Sarkisian going to hire as his assistants?
This is an extension of the 34 year old problem. Who is in his coaching network? This is also a USC problem. Why would any of their assistants leave Troy for Seattle? Especially if all you need to do is show up there for a few years and someone gives you a Pac-10 coaching gig? We could be headed for an all graduate assistant coaching staff. Shoot me.
Outlook:
He’s not Tyrone. He’s not Tyrone. He’s not Tyrone. Honestly the more you think about this hire the worse it sounds. I guess if you want a positive spin you can look to the late great Bernie Mac who said “I don’t believe shit until shit happens.” That’s good shit and bad shit. It’s possible Sarkisian injects vitality into our moribund program. Nobody was fired up for the Romar hire and that worked out well, after all. Sometimes the right guy is just the right guy.
It’s just a shame that after a half decade of “Maybe this will work” (it didn’t) all we are left with as Husky fans after the hire of Steve Sarkisian is “Maybe this will work.”
(It _______ )
Steve Sarkisian from petecarroll.com
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At least he looks like a young Ray Tennison. That guy did pretty well for himself.
I like the hire.
Who exactly were you expecting to walk through that door?? I feel like Husky fans maintain some very unrealistic expectations regarding the status of this job. The last four coaches at the University of Washington left under very unceremonious circumstances, all of which had their reputations severely damaged in the process. This is not a dream job people.
You make a great point about Sark’s Cali connects. The key to success at the UW is to keep the in-state guys, pick up a few studs from out of state here and there, and fill out the roster with the second tier guys from California (mind you, the second tier Cali guys are probably better than the first tier guys just about everywhere other than Texas and Florida). I think Sark is an excellent candidate for fulfilling those requirements.
We needed some youth and energy to be infused into this program. As far as his play-calling (which has been questioned from some of my USC friends), I think it fits perfectly for what the UW wants to do. SC runs a pro style offense that possesses the ball and leans on its physical defense. Isn’t this exactly what I have heard everyone bitching about?? That we want a power running team and intimidating D, like the days of yore? Not to mention the fact that pro prosects like playing in pro style schemes. Obviously we aren’t going to recruit like SC, but its not a bad plan.
Would I have prefered Nick Saban or Mike Leach, sure, but they didn’t want the job. Im actually satisfied with how this process played out and optimistic for the future of the program in Emmert, Woodward, and Sark’s hands.
Amen, Sparko. I think it’s a great hire. Sark’s enthusiasm is contagious. Just watching videos of him on Youtube made me excited for next season to begin.
Think of the parallels between Obama and Sark. Both hot, yet unproven commodities. Both tasked with turning around one glorious programs that are in the tank. Both relatively young for their profession. Both with connections to entities with questionable religious ideologies (Rev. Wright, BYU). The nation and the Huskies shall rise in unison! Yes we can!
Or Sark is more like Palin.
WTF? I can understand passing on the Scientologist, but either of the two Mormons would have been fine. But no! We get the Armenian. Borat’s next door neighbor is the new Husky fooball coach. The good news is that if it doesn’t work out, the buyout should be pretty inexpensive. Maybe a herd of goats. The bad news is that if he is as successful as we all hope he will be, Sarkisian will be the next USC head coach. Keep in mind, he’s been there three times already. The next thing you know, Woodmert will name Petros as Washington’s new Sports Information Director. God I miss Barbara Hedges.
Sheesh. Hey Dad, the corpse of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk called – he’d like to get together for tea and discuss the problem that you seem to share. Truth-be-told, the Armenian people have been enormously successful in American society, plus the dude is half-Irish…
I’m with Sparks and Shaggy, considering the state of the program, I think this is a great hire because of his grounding in fundemental offensive football strategy and west-coast background. People had better start scaling back all the negativity…
Agreed. While I think the fan backlash was at least a factor in getting rid of turner and willingham, we absolutely need to get behind this guy 100%. Our fear is that he would go 5-7 and get an extension.
But absolutely positively this program is worse than those of us with purple colored glasses think. We needed a young guy or a proven commodity. Assuming reports that we turned down leach are false, I don’t think anyone wanted this job!
The only thing we can do now is support this guy through thick and thin and cheer on these guys until our vocal chords and lungs are shot.
It’s time to get excited and do anything we can to help this team win, because like the administration or not, protesting or complaining will not help whatsoever. It’s clear that a new direction has been set and we have no choice but to buy into that philosophy and give this program a chance to succeed.
Going through another losing cycle to rid these characters will doom us to a syracuse/illinois type status for even longer. Wins will help and I for one will do whatever I can.
Who knows maybe these seniors pull a rabbit out of a hat and get a W to go into the offseason?
One point that the good constable seems to have missed about hiring Sark, the positive impact he (hopefully) will have with J. Locker. Who hasn’t daydreamed that if Locker had an accurate arm, he would be unstoppable? In the Willingham era, even with a redshirt season, J. Locker’s accuracy is not good. Notice that Matt Cassel (the technically sound and accurate, Cassel) is leading the Patriots to the playoffs without playing a significant snap in college. Here’s hoping Sark had something to do with Cassel and the other USC quarterbacks; maybe he has some kind of magic accuracy potion.
I also agree with Beef and Sweden Rocks, it is time to get excited again. Ironically, the last time the fans turned Husky Stadium into a difficult road game was on September 6, against BYU (finishing BCS 16). The stadium was loud from start to finish and that made a difference. Although I have selectively forgotten the specifics of that game, our defense looked slightly below average. Contrast that with ever other game where I thought our loud “our defense is possibly the worst in the nation.” We can make a difference.
Is it wrong that I suspect Jake Locker may be beyond saving as a passer? This is just where I’m at as a Husky fan – I’ll believe it when I see it.
The argument that he may leave UW to coach USC someday does nothing for me. We should be so lucky as to have to defend ourselves from other schools trying to take Sark in 3-4 seasons. It will mean we have a winning record and are going to bowl games again.
It may well be that Jake Locker is to a passer what John Brockman is to a shooter. Staying with that formulation, our local sports media appears to be to Sarkisian what the national media is to Obama. In any event, based on today’s call-ins to KJR, it appears that there was more than enough Kool-aid to go with the free popcorn today’s press conference. Woodmert bet his job on this one, and hope he wins that bet, but I’m also in the “wait and see” category. On the other hand, this could well be the second Trojan horse to pass the Dardanelles since 1991.