Sarkisian Over Kiffin?

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Lane Kiffin believed it’s such an advantage for Steve Sarkisian to coach against USC (even two recruiting classes removed from his day as offensive coordinator) that I’m going to have to ask him if he thinks Sarkisian would have been the best choice to replace Pete Carroll because of his familiarity with the talent.

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  • sureshot

    Do it. I dare you. No, I double dog dare you.

    Scott Wolf, you’re so brave.

  • Trojan Conquest

    I got the impression that Sark wasn’t interested in the job. What was his interest?

  • mtbiker

    I will up the ante to triple dog dare.

  • sdog

    Feelers were sent out to see if Sark would be interested in the SC job and he turned it down.

  • Flyerz73

    What??? How do you spell “non sequitur”?

  • insiderwolfie

    sdog – you’re actually way off. Sark was very interested in the job and inquired deeply about the job. His phone calls were never returned by Mike Garrett, as MG still held a grudge with Sark from his days here at SC. Apparently MG tried to tell Sark how to run his offense, and Sark had some choice words for him and stood up for himself, rightfully so!
    If Pat Haden was in place before the hiring took place, Sark might be gearing up to face his former Huskies this week!

  • Ben Factor

    I enjoy some of Scott Wolf’s commentary, and at the same time, he does make digs at Kiffin’s ability and performance that come across as “bitchy”.

    Kiffin is here. He’s witty. He seems to be a good recruiter. The conventional wisdom is that his assistant coaches are an upgrade from the end of the Carroll tenure. The conventional wisdom is that favoritism is less pronounced in creating the depth chart. The average academic performance of the team has improved. Doesn’t sound bad.

    So far as wins and losses, I think it’s a little early to draw conclusions. Not only does the meat of the schedule lie ahead, but four of those teams beat SC last year. If SC were to lose to all four again, should that be considered sufficient evidence that Kiffin is incompetent? The corollary is that Carroll must have been incompetent. While it’s become fashionable to dump on Carroll and Garrett, I think that Jerry Buss summarized it nicely in saying that that we Angelenos have recently enjoyed one of the golden ages of SC football, even though there was negligence in rule following. (Personally, I think that the athletes deserve a salary stipend, but that is not the rule, and it was negligent not to pay attention to the rule.) Would it show that Kiffin failed to capitalize on personnel changes? How so? If it’s early to draw conclusions, I think it’s early to snipe at Kiffin.

    Second, I distinctly recall that Sarkisian, among others, declined the job. In that Carroll timed his exit poorly and left USC in a scramble, with “signing day” in the near future, who should have been hired? I believe that Scott wanted USC to hire as co-head coaches the UCLA offensive and defensive coordinators. Kind of an interesting idea, but it may be relevant that no major college program operates that way (or so it seems, anyway).

    I enjoy some of Scott Wolf’s commentary, and at the same time, he does make digs at Kiffin’s ability and performance that come across as “bitchy”.

    First, Kiffin is in his first year at USC. He’s witty. He seems to be a good recruiter. The conventional wisdom is that his assistant coaches are an upgrade from the end of the Carroll tenure. The conventional wisdom is that favoritism is less pronounced in creating the depth chart. The average academic performance of the team has improved. Doesn’t sound bad.

    So far as wins and losses, it’s too early to draw conclusions. Not only does the meat of the schedule lie ahead, but four of those teams beat SC last year. If SC were to lose to all four again, even that would not be sufficient evidence that Kiffin is incompetent. The corollary is that Carroll must have been incompetent. For me, Jerry Buss summarized it nicely in saying that that we Angelenos have recently enjoyed one of the golden ages of SC football. Negligence in following rules is not general incompetence. Therefore, even if USC loses those same four games, it’s early to snipe at Kiffin.

    Second, so far as asking whether Sarkisian might have been a better choice, Sarkisian was one of several who reportedly declined the job. One might as well ask whether Nick Saban would have been a better choice, or Bill Bellichick? In that Carroll timed his exit poorly and left USC in a scramble just before “signing day”, who should have been hired? I believe that Scott wanted USC to hire as co-head coaches the UCLA offensive and defensive coordinators. Kind of an interesting idea, but it may be relevant that no major college program operates that way (or so it seems, anyway). And even if all the above-mentioned coaches had wanted the job, it is not so relevant to readers today.

    My conclusion is that Scott Wolfs sniping is not justified, and does not add to the value of his work. I hope that Scott takes a more enlightened and enlightening approach going forward.

  • Ghost of Charlie Bucket

    Bem Factor: how dare you question wolf’s sniping!!!
    what do you want, a vanilla blog??

    you may not know this, but water covers 2/3 of the Earth and wolf covers the rest!!

    wolf does inject some pointed, yet humorous sarcasm, but that’s part of his ample charm!! the same charm, by the way, that causes entire cadres of cheerleaders to spontaneously flock to him on games days, or uber-babes like the Pflu or Erin Andrews to snuggle up to him in a more intimate way!!!

    Ben, be gentle with wolf, he’s the wolfman, the wolfster, the oracle, the best beat writer in the nation (per Petros Papadak)!!! and anyway, how can the thousands of members of the Secret Cadre be wrong????