Lane Kiffin’s plan to stick out the College Football Playoff at Alabama before diving full-time into his duties as FAU’s new head coach didn’t pan out.
Steve Sarkisian started the season as a TV analyst. He’ll end as Bama’s title-game OC
This has all escalated pretty quickly.
RVR Photos-USA TODAY Sports
Kiffin is gone from Bama a week before the Tide play Clemson in the National Championship, and Steve Sarkisian’s starting his job as the Tide’s new offensive coordinator a week ahead of schedule.
Nick Saban anointed Sarkisian as Kiffin’s successor last month, shortly after Kiffin accepted the FAU job. Sarkisian’s been an offensive analyst for the Tide for just about the entire season, and Saban wouldn’t have given him the OC’s job in the first place if he didn’t think he were up to it.
Having worked on Saban’s offensive support staff all season, Sarkisian is certainly qualified, even though this is a whale of a fire to get thrown into.
Let’s all marvel at how quickly this came together.
Sarkisian was USC’s head coach, but the Trojans fired him midseason in 2015. Sarkisian’s dismissal was necessary but horrible, coming amid reports that he was struggling with alcoholism. Sarkisian sued USC over his firing and eventually settled the case.
It didn’t seem like he’d even have a job with a team for the 2016 season. TMZ found Sarkisian in an airport in August — two weeks before the season started — and Sarkisian said he’d gotten a job with FS1 as an analyst.
“It’s good to be around the game and just be part of college football,” he said. “It’s a great game.”
Word that Sarkisian would join Bama’s support staff came less than three weeks later. Because Kiffin has never tended to stay in one place for long, it seemed a decent bet that Sarkisian would eventually replace him. Now he has, but it’s happened seven days before it was supposed to happen, right before the biggest game of the year.
Now, Sarkisian’s got a chance to complete a fast comeback story in style.
There’s a good chance Sarkisian is ultimately successful as Alabama’s offensive coordinator. Kiffin did a great job updating Alabama’s offense and turning it into a devastating mix of spread and power. The Tide will furnish Sarkisian with elite talent at every position on the field. He’ll be part of a finely tuned football death machine at least for next season, when Bama should again be the country’s best team.
But national championship rings last forever. If Sarkisian can start his tenure by leading the Tide offense to enough points to get past a Clemson defense that just shut out Ohio State for the first time since 1993, he’ll generate a lot of goodwill. He’ll be Alabama’s Championship Offensive Coordinator after a week on the job. He’ll be an immediate Tuscaloosa success story, with a little niche carved for himself in Tide lore.
Clemson is great, and its defensive coordinator, Brent Venables, is one of the best in the business. Sarkisian has a lot on his plate on a compressed time frame, and his job is a difficult one. But this is an awesome opportunity.
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