Welcome to the Hardcore Husky Forums. Folks who are well-known in Cyberland and not that dumb.
The Standards for Success (tl;dr)
Gladstone
Member Posts: 16,419
Washington head coach Steve Sarkisian’s failure was evident long ago, from the 2011 collapse at the earliest to the 2012 Apple Cup loss at the latest. His lack of experience in program building and as a head coach made him unable to anticipate future problems and incapable of implementing changes to correct them. His list of shortcomings is long and condemning, but painfully reiterating what the on-field product clearly shows adds no value other than venting frustration at the most readily identifiable target.
He does, however, deserve some modicum of credit.
In 2008, Sarkisian took a job not many people wanted. Washington had a reputation as a bunch of pansies. It was a lifeless program. The Husky offense was a dreckfest. The secondary was among the worst in the country.
During his tenure, Sarkisian developed two All-American candidate running backs in Chris Polk and Bishop Sankey, and morphed the UW offense into a modern, high-flying unit. Jake Locker went from a relatively unknown local talent to national phenom. While the production of his offense has been vastly overstated both in 2011 and this season, these accomplishments are far from trivial and merit some praise.
Perhaps more important was his work on the recruiting trail. His failures in recruiting OL have been well-documented on this site, but Sarkisian and his assistants deserve credit in their skill position recruiting efforts, scouring the west coast to find talented players like Jaydon Mickens, Kasen Williams, John Ross III, Sean Parker, ASJ and Shaq Thompson. Never again can the old Typologists and their ilk say that UW needs a stellar in-state batch of H.S. players to recruit elite skill position talent.
There is no questioning Sarkisian's effort, devotion or enthusiasm for the University of Washington, and that is ultimately what separates him from his previous two predecessors. Sarkisian did everything he could within his capabilities, and for that his legacy deserves to be remembered better than that of Gilby or Tyrone Willingham.
But with a ~ .500 conference record in year five of his tenure, his best simply isn’t good enough.
Looking back
Much of Husky Nation, myself included, wasn’t sold on Sarkisian in 2008. I was impressed by his success at USC and partially won over by the "kickass" team promised at his introductory press conference. I was more impressed when he took a once-dead Husky program and beat #3 USC in game 3. During that 2009 season I eventually moved from skeptic to believer.
I did this mostly because many of Sarkisian’s attributes stand in stark contrast to UW's previous two coaches.
Sarkisian is brash, confident (almost to a fault), and direct. Willingham was timid, guarded, and lacked transparency (to a fault). Gilby seemed to always have a canned response. Gilby and Willingham fielded offenses that lacked explosion and production. Sarkisian’s offenses set record after record. Willingham was lazy, Sarkisian's work ethic has by all accounts been solid. Willingham couldn’t recruit, Sarkisian has hauled in several highly-ranked recruiting classes (notwithstanding his OL failures).
I feel that the lesson of Sarkisian’s failure is that Washington needs a proven coach who does many things well as an overall CEO/program manager, not one that focuses just on a few select areas.
The Standards for Success
1. Successful head coaching experience is a must. Washington is not a place where you learn on the job. The margin for error is small, and even minor errors are unforgiving. Prior successful head coaching experience is necessary to develop requisite leadership, organizational and time management skills.
2. He must have experience in a college football program with consistent success. Too often coaching hires are based on the performance of one or a few seasons. A coach must be proven through consistent success. Hot coaching names come and go (see Turner Gill's 1good season at Buffalo, Willingham's 1 Rose Bowl appearance), but consistent success in the past is the best indicator of succeeding in the future. It is preferable that this come as a head coach, but many assistant coaches have learned what it takes to succeed from their superiors.
3. He must have offensive or defensive coordinator experience. Part of being a head coach is allocating time and effort of the assistant coaches and players. A head coach must have a first-hand understanding of the effort level and time needed to prepare and implement a game plan in order to properly and effectively allocate resources.
4. He needs to have a well-defined and complementary offensive and defensive philosophy. This doesn’t mean he has to be a play-caller on either side of the ball, but it does mean he needs to hire offensive and defensive coordinators/coaches who are capable of implementing schemes congruent with the philosophies of the head coach. Moreover, these schemes need to complement each other such that the strengths of the scheme on one side of the ball accentuate those on the other.
5. He must be able to recruit well. There is a litany of things that go into this—proven success, being able to relate to high school players, forming strong relationships with high school coaches (especially local ones), working tirelessly, and hiring a staff who can also recruit. We are not a program that recruits nationally, the best way to combat this is to monopolize the local PNW talent as best we can.
6. He must be able to recognize and hire assistant coaches who can develop and utilize the talent he recruits. Talent is synonymous with athleticism and proportional to potential. Players who excel at the high school level frequently do so by being more athletic than their peers. This is not sufficient at the college level when teaching fundamentals that maximize potential becomes far more important to success. Assistant coaches must be able to teach and instill fundamentals, as well as put players in positions that maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.
7. He must be disciplined, well-organized, and consistent, and he must maintain a team with those same qualities. With few exceptions, players take on the attitude and persona of their coach. Discipline minimizes turnovers and penalties. Organization minimizes poor game and clock management. Consistency ensures continued success and sustains player development. The lack of consistency over the past few years has severely hampered the progress of many Husky players.
8. He must have shown demonstrated improvement at several different programs. As a DC, did his team's defensive performance improve upon their predecessor's? If he was OC, how much uptick did the program have after he assumed OC duties (this was something many of us were worried about, Sarkisian's offenses at USC were worse than Kiffin's as OC and far worse than Chow's)?
Thoughts? tl;dr
He does, however, deserve some modicum of credit.
In 2008, Sarkisian took a job not many people wanted. Washington had a reputation as a bunch of pansies. It was a lifeless program. The Husky offense was a dreckfest. The secondary was among the worst in the country.
During his tenure, Sarkisian developed two All-American candidate running backs in Chris Polk and Bishop Sankey, and morphed the UW offense into a modern, high-flying unit. Jake Locker went from a relatively unknown local talent to national phenom. While the production of his offense has been vastly overstated both in 2011 and this season, these accomplishments are far from trivial and merit some praise.
Perhaps more important was his work on the recruiting trail. His failures in recruiting OL have been well-documented on this site, but Sarkisian and his assistants deserve credit in their skill position recruiting efforts, scouring the west coast to find talented players like Jaydon Mickens, Kasen Williams, John Ross III, Sean Parker, ASJ and Shaq Thompson. Never again can the old Typologists and their ilk say that UW needs a stellar in-state batch of H.S. players to recruit elite skill position talent.
There is no questioning Sarkisian's effort, devotion or enthusiasm for the University of Washington, and that is ultimately what separates him from his previous two predecessors. Sarkisian did everything he could within his capabilities, and for that his legacy deserves to be remembered better than that of Gilby or Tyrone Willingham.
But with a ~ .500 conference record in year five of his tenure, his best simply isn’t good enough.
Looking back
Much of Husky Nation, myself included, wasn’t sold on Sarkisian in 2008. I was impressed by his success at USC and partially won over by the "kickass" team promised at his introductory press conference. I was more impressed when he took a once-dead Husky program and beat #3 USC in game 3. During that 2009 season I eventually moved from skeptic to believer.
I did this mostly because many of Sarkisian’s attributes stand in stark contrast to UW's previous two coaches.
Sarkisian is brash, confident (almost to a fault), and direct. Willingham was timid, guarded, and lacked transparency (to a fault). Gilby seemed to always have a canned response. Gilby and Willingham fielded offenses that lacked explosion and production. Sarkisian’s offenses set record after record. Willingham was lazy, Sarkisian's work ethic has by all accounts been solid. Willingham couldn’t recruit, Sarkisian has hauled in several highly-ranked recruiting classes (notwithstanding his OL failures).
I feel that the lesson of Sarkisian’s failure is that Washington needs a proven coach who does many things well as an overall CEO/program manager, not one that focuses just on a few select areas.
The Standards for Success
1. Successful head coaching experience is a must. Washington is not a place where you learn on the job. The margin for error is small, and even minor errors are unforgiving. Prior successful head coaching experience is necessary to develop requisite leadership, organizational and time management skills.
2. He must have experience in a college football program with consistent success. Too often coaching hires are based on the performance of one or a few seasons. A coach must be proven through consistent success. Hot coaching names come and go (see Turner Gill's 1good season at Buffalo, Willingham's 1 Rose Bowl appearance), but consistent success in the past is the best indicator of succeeding in the future. It is preferable that this come as a head coach, but many assistant coaches have learned what it takes to succeed from their superiors.
3. He must have offensive or defensive coordinator experience. Part of being a head coach is allocating time and effort of the assistant coaches and players. A head coach must have a first-hand understanding of the effort level and time needed to prepare and implement a game plan in order to properly and effectively allocate resources.
4. He needs to have a well-defined and complementary offensive and defensive philosophy. This doesn’t mean he has to be a play-caller on either side of the ball, but it does mean he needs to hire offensive and defensive coordinators/coaches who are capable of implementing schemes congruent with the philosophies of the head coach. Moreover, these schemes need to complement each other such that the strengths of the scheme on one side of the ball accentuate those on the other.
5. He must be able to recruit well. There is a litany of things that go into this—proven success, being able to relate to high school players, forming strong relationships with high school coaches (especially local ones), working tirelessly, and hiring a staff who can also recruit. We are not a program that recruits nationally, the best way to combat this is to monopolize the local PNW talent as best we can.
6. He must be able to recognize and hire assistant coaches who can develop and utilize the talent he recruits. Talent is synonymous with athleticism and proportional to potential. Players who excel at the high school level frequently do so by being more athletic than their peers. This is not sufficient at the college level when teaching fundamentals that maximize potential becomes far more important to success. Assistant coaches must be able to teach and instill fundamentals, as well as put players in positions that maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.
7. He must be disciplined, well-organized, and consistent, and he must maintain a team with those same qualities. With few exceptions, players take on the attitude and persona of their coach. Discipline minimizes turnovers and penalties. Organization minimizes poor game and clock management. Consistency ensures continued success and sustains player development. The lack of consistency over the past few years has severely hampered the progress of many Husky players.
8. He must have shown demonstrated improvement at several different programs. As a DC, did his team's defensive performance improve upon their predecessor's? If he was OC, how much uptick did the program have after he assumed OC duties (this was something many of us were worried about, Sarkisian's offenses at USC were worse than Kiffin's as OC and far worse than Chow's)?
Thoughts? tl;dr
Comments
Get a job.
Bullet points are the new 5 page essays.
Why Sark has UW #5 in the Pac North:
* OL - weak, recruiting lite, Cozetto's strategy is to wait for the mustache to come back into style, then he will shine
* Nansen - special teams have improved incrementally to almost high school level
* Muscle shirts make muscles appear larger after power pumps
* In-state recruiting is a disrespectful bitch
* Copying the no-huddle spread = poor man's Ducks
* Too much dependence on finesse
* Sark is not smart enough to handle all the facets of a $3 million/year job - might be better suited as an assistant