After a great coach leaves any program or organization, it’s a very easy, understandable, and all-too-human inclination to want to replace that coach with someone from his circles, someone he taught or supervised in a time of prosperity.
On some occasions, this inclination works out. Gary Moeller and especially Lloyd Carr succeeded Bo Schembechler at Michigan. Alabama stumbled around for a period of time in the 1980s, but when it went to one of Bear Bryant’s “Junction Boys,” Gene Stallings made the decision look like a stroke of genius. He gave the Crimson Tide a richly successful tenure. Oregon — at least so far — has done well by staying in-house with Mark Helfrich and resisting the impulse to hire someone removed from Chip Kelly’s sphere of influence. Boise State seems to have hit a home run by bringing Bryan Harsin home to continue what Chris Petersen developed.
However, staying in the family doesn’t guarantee success, and at USC, what’s noticeable about its last two hires as permanent head coaches is not that they aren’t skilled; it’s that they’ve had chances to show how good they are but have not delivered impressive results. In spite of the facts — not because of them — the Trojans have made two highly questionable decisions.
One fell apart.
We’ll see if the second one leads to the same unsatisfactory outcome, or takes a turn this year in the other direction.
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It’s one thing to promote an assistant coach to the top spot. That’s an internal move marked by the retention of continuity. What USC has done, though, with Lane Kiffin and now Steve Sarkisian, is watch coaches fail at other places — Kiffin at Tennessee and Sarkisian at Washington — only to welcome them back to Los Angeles, anyway.
None of the examples above — Michigan, Alabama, Oregon, or Boise State — match the USC situations with both Kiffin and Sark. Michigan and Oregon promoted internally. In Stallings, Alabama hired a coach who had won the Cotton Bowl with Texas A&M many years earlier and had accumulated a wealth of coaching experience at the NFL level. Boise State took Harsin back after he made a bowl game with Arkansas State, generally showing that he was capable of being an effective head coach.
With Kiffin at Tennessee and Sark at Washington, USC witnessed two coaching tenures that failed to deliver on their potential. Yet, because both men are young and capable of great feats in the world of recruiting — and had forged meaningful connections within the USC athletic department — they were selected to follow Pete Carroll, their boss, as head coaches of the Trojans. USC seems to be chasing the shadow of its last great gridiron leader, but without convincing evidence that these members of the Carroll coaching tree can deliver on gameday.
Late in the 2012 season, it became clear that Lane Kiffin was not likely to turn things around at USC. He deserved the chance to start the 2013 season and see what he could do, but once it was apparent that his efforts were failing, Pat Haden rightly pulled the plug on the project. That prudent act suggested that a more seasoned and highly-regarded coach was on his way to L.A., but USC settled for a man that Oregon Ducks fans loved having in Seattle at U-Dub.
The Trojans brought “Seven-Win Sark” back to campus, and after a wobbly first season in the presence of ample talent, this second season will quickly give us a sense of whether Sarkisian is ready to do what Kiffin couldn’t: Succeed and, in the process, validate the decision by Haden to keep football within the family.
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There’s no need to step lightly around the point or pretend it doesn’t exist: While James Franklin at Penn State, Petersen at Washington, and Bobby Petrino at Louisville face important second seasons, Charlie Strong at Texas is the only second-year coach at a major FBS program who can come even remotely close to Sark in terms of encountering a hugely significant moment in his life. This second year for Sarkisian could very possibly determine the larger trajectory of his entire coaching career — that’s not a certainty, but it’s not an unrealistic statement to make, and it’s definitely not an exaggeration of the situation facing USC.
At Texas, Strong is being undermined by his athletic director and has continued to have to deal with off-field issues beyond his control. People in the college sports business know that Strong needs more time in Austin, even though being the head coach at a signature program brings with it an inordinate amount of pressure. Strong has a lot to do in year two, but with that having been said, Sarkisian is the second-year FBS head coach who simply must perform at a reasonably high level in 2015 if he doesn’t want to occupy the hot seat.
There was no excuse to begin with when the 2014 season ended. Sark got his feet wet as a USC head coach. He knew he’d have a copious quantity of returning talent this season, featuring quarterback Cody Kessler. The recruiting classes have dazzled, but those big hauls on the trail have only increased the focus on Sark’s coaching acumen — how much of it exists?
UCLA, under Jim Mora, is 3-0 against USC after losing 12 of its previous 13 to the Trojans. The Bruins, however, don’t have Brett Hundley at quarterback anymore, so this is a year in which USC is definitely expected to win the Victory Bell. The Trojans host Arizona and Utah — they’re expected to win those games.
If USC doesn’t win the Pac-12 South this season or fails to win 10 regular-season games in the absence of a major injury or some other similarly adverse circumstance, Sarkisian’s going to feel some heat from his fan base. If USC slips to 8-4, he’ll be on the hot seat entering 2016. If he goes 7-5 or especially 6-6, he’ll still probably stay, but Haden will feel a lot of pressure to pull a quick trigger. The recurrence of the Kiffin endgame — with a new season being quickly terminated after a bad start — would become a distinct possibility in 2016.
Beyond the fact that USC is loaded with talent, the Trojans heard the news that Oregon running back Thomas Tyner is out for the season. This isn’t a death blow to the Ducks, but it certainly limits their depth and makes them more vulnerable to the Trojans, who face them this season. If USC can beat Stanford in an early-season home game, the Trojans will immediately vault themselves to the forefront of the conversation in the Pac-12. Not remaining at the forefront of the league, and not beating Oregon or Stanford in the Pac-12 Championship Game, will leave an empty feeling in the hearts and minds of many Trojans, who not only hope this season will restore the program, but are not off base in thinking the resources are there for a big run.
Sarkisian isn’t working with the restrictions which admittedly handcuffed Kiffin for a period of time. He got to be “the guy AFTER the guy” who endured NCAA-based constraints. Sark has the players. A former offensive coordinator under Pete Carroll, Sark has the experienced quarterback a coach craves in a season of heightened value. Unless USC suffers a string of injuries that would make Iowa running backs or Maryland quarterbacks take notice, Sarkisian has nowhere to hide in 2015: He will either deliver the goods and authoritatively vindicate himself… or he’ll be in deep trouble. There probably won’t be much of any room between those two scenarios, either.
Pete Carroll didn’t make sense when he was hired as USC’s coach back in December of 2000. Neither did Lane Kiffin nor Steve Sarkisian.
This situation with Sark feels like Kiffin all over again… but if Sark succeeds, he’ll pleasantly surprise his fan base and put himself in position to author a distinctly Carrollian kind of story.
It’s deja vu all over again at USC, but maybe Steve Sarkisian is ready to make an abrupt turn and deviate from the script first written by Lane Kiffin. If this all-or-nothing season breaks in the right direction, Steve Sarkisian will transform his reputation while also leading the Men of Troy to a new dawn of Roses, riches and regained respect.
