USC Morning Buzz: Ed Orgeron v. Steve Sarkisian

Photo/Image of Sport-USA Today

Photo/Image of Sport-USA Today

It was a week ago that Steve Sarkisian was announced as USC’s new coach. A lot of readers have asked since why Pat Haden did not want Orgeron? In one sentence, Orgeron was a blue-collar guy while Haden is white collar.

That’s why Orgeron did not give Haden a “gut” feeling that he was the right choice for the job.

106 thoughts on “USC Morning Buzz: Ed Orgeron v. Steve Sarkisian

    • Unfortuantely, Haden is a silver spoon in his mouth punk, who focuses on yes men vs bottomline results. O or Peterson or the guy from Fresno State were better hires. Nice to waste an early jump on the coaching search. Where is the rest of the staff sark is supposed to have lined up? Was this not addressed in the interview?

      • What a ridiculous statement about Haden – silver spoon? Based on what? Hard work? He’s a former qb for USC a former qb in the NFL and a Rhodes Scholar – in addition very successful in the business world with Richard Riordan and Bill Wardlaw.

        He was chosen by Nikias to bring reason and decorum to the AD office – Haden was truly patient, to a fault, with Kiffin. Haden is not hot headed, unlike a formerly employed interim coach that comes to mind.

        Petersen would have reminded us of someone under siege once he met the media.

      • That post qualifies for the most insipid, ignorant comment on Wolf’s blog, which is no easy feet. In fact, to post the dumbest comment on Wolf’s blog is akin to proving the Riemann Hypothesis.

        You win!

        • Sorry you won that award. In school you were the kind who thought filling up your blue book with your mindless blather would guarantee you a B because the teacher would give up reading half way through.

  1. Off topic, but would you rather watch No. 25 SC vs No. 20 Fresno State with the top quarterback in the country, OR

    SUCLA vs unranked Virgina Tech?

    • It would have to be Fresno State thumping SuC since it is 10 days before the UCLA game! Fresno State is going to light up the Toejam’s secondary so much so that Josh Shaw and Sua Cravings quit football entirely!

      • but wait, Sua Cravens is the best freshman EVER! Oh wait, that’s MILES JACK, who plays for THE MIGHTY BRUINS!

      • IF USC shows up motivated it will be a blow out. Carr will be under duress the whole game, mark my words! This will be the best team Fresno has played all year.

      • Toepick it has to be tough to NEVER have one anything. War Hurricanes. So close, but always a failure.

    • Always watch the BRUINS! They’ll thump VT at a bowl that would rather take nobody than see SC cr*p it up again. They’ll also have every Texas recruit on their radar out for the game – Lane missed this part last year, apparently too busy watching his players fight each other.

    • VTech could pose problems for UCLA if they aren’t careful. That team is unpredictable and serves as a trap for many. Still, they haven’t really played anyone and they have some low scoring game.

      USC is going to be a test for Carr. He can rack up points on lesser teams, but let’s see how he handles a blitz happy defense. I’m intrigued to see the game plan for USC. They need an answer to the short passing game.

  2. B.S. That’s a weak reach, even for you.

    The reason is Ed Orgeron is too volatile to be a head coach. And quitting in a snit fit, before a bowl game, creating unecessary drama when not offered the job proves Haden was right, at least when it comes to Orgeron.

    Listen, Orgeron wasn’t even sniffing the Southern Miss job before he was named interm HC. He had an opportunity and he showed that at least he wasn’t the overmatched disaster who coached at Ole Miss.

    But he lost the two rivalry games, and the UCLA game was most bothersome. By his own account, the kids were too amped and hyped, too emotional, and when things immediately didn’t go there way, they crashed and burned.

    And if Oregeron were hired, that would be USC until he fired three years later. A far too emotional teams, “upsets” followed by numerous embarrassing defeats.

    Look, Orgeron won six games chiefly because he was not Lane Kiffin. But he screwed the pooch by quitting on the team before the bowl game. He just telegraphed to every AD in the country that in many ways he is still the volitale meathead who took a talented 9 win SEC team and coached them to 3 conference wins in three seasons. Haden may be wrong about Sark. But he was right about Orgeron.

    • Not to mention he wouldn’t be able to raise BIG money for SC (Sark got the stadium at UW finished).

        • Another jealous p r I c k. Hahahaha. Sark GOT the job AND a FAT paycheck. You’ll be sucking up by game time.

      • This is what it’s about. O’s a marble-mouth from the South. PetersEn is too much like Lane. Sark can’t coach, but they apparently think he can raise funds. Beg ON!

        • Petersen doesn’t like the media nor does he have Pac 12 experience or the recruiting ties to So Cal. At the very least, Sark pulls in recruits and gets USC to limp along. We’ll still pull recruits over you.

          Now, off to see the doctor to cure your gonorrhea.

          • your past couple posts are starting to concern me Stu. You’ve smelled your own *sshole and Max Wittek’s nards. Dude you are such small time. I almost feel bad for *ucking you up. Almost. War time.

        • Why can’t Sark coach? You even follow football, or is it just the hate line you love so much.

    • I love the revisionist history. Ed came in when the program was in chaos and could have quit on the season and instead he led us to a huge win over Arizona. He almost revived the team in time to beat the Irish in South Bend and then led us to five straight wins including a glorious victory over #5 eventual Rose Bowl bound Stanford that knocked them out of the BCS title game, before the letdown game against the ruins. The bottom line is people like Pat Haden and Jaimie McCourt couldn’t have Ed at their prissy cocktail parties.

      • Let me know when Ed O lands the big HC coach job you say he now deserves so much. Guess what genius, it ain’t happening anywhere else for the same reasons it didn’t happen at USC. But that bottom line is way above your little head.

        • We should be talking about how long it takes for Orgeron to settle for an assistant coach position at a fraction of the salary he turned down at USC, cuz like you said he sealed his fate for a HC job by walking out.

        • If someone picks him up, it’s because he’s a great recruiter.

          USC should hope O levels out and comes back.

          • I’d be good with that. He’s a great asst, one of the best USC has ever had. He turned down an incredible amount of money from Haden to stay in that capacity. A very foolish move in my opinion but I wish ED O the best. He did a lot for USC. Too bad he got mad and left in the manner he did.

          • I would love to see him come back now that the dust has settled, we can use him no doubt.

      • There’s more truth to this than people think.

        One of the first things a HC must do is schmooze with boosters and donors. I remember a professor of mine (also a donor) who hated Lane after her experience with him at said cocktail party. She thought he was incompetent, probably due to him being reserved.

        Even after 50-0, she still hated him with a passion. Yes, winning is important, but a NC or winning season does not mean people automatically like you.

        Plus, O continuously said this: “It doesn’t matter about the fans, all I care about is this team, this boys, and their happiness.” Yeah, say that at some cocktail party and see the reaction: in the heads of the boosters, it is all about the boosters and their opinions and winning.

      • You comment might make sense IF ED ORGERON DID NOT QUIT ON HIS “BELOLVED KIDS” BEFORE A BOWL GAME.

        We can all make conjectures whether or not Pat Haden “prissy” (he is not, but if believing so makes you feel tough and manly, rock on!), but here remains on irrefutable fact:

        Ed Orgeron quit.

        On the team.

        Before a bowl game.

        For no other reason than he was “hurt.”

    • How quickly you turn on him! I guess Trojan for Life means Trojan for Now!!!
      Remember, Sarkiffen doesn’t have Idaho and Eastern Washington to pad his seven win years.

  3. Predictions: UW with Petersen will win a Rose Bowl before Sark, Coach O gets HC gig and wins major bowl before Sark.

  4. I love Ed, but it’s tough to tout your blue collar credentials when you very visibly (and audibly) turn down millions from a school that wanted to make you the nation’s highest paid assistant head coach.

  5. Independent hit a home run on this one – well said!

    Another ‘fact’ missing in Wolf’s hit piece – Pat Haden witnessed every day for 3+ years living with the greatest coach in USC lore – John McKay. He watched the ups and the downs he saw a man up close and personal and absorbed what a true talented individual this top 5 program has to have to guide it – Colin Cowherd said it best last Monday after Orgeron quit – hanging around the Buddy Ryans and Jerry Glanville’s for a beer is not just passe it’s downright suicidal – the coaches today have far more intellect and skill that are necessary to win games – BIG games!

    Orgeron sadly but thankfully revealed to all why Pat Haden was justified in offering the job to another and again sadly Ed hadn’t the ability to rein in his emotion and wrose lose out on a $1 mil. salary.

  6. I wish Orgeron the best of success, but unfortunately he would have been better-positioned to be a head coach as the #1 assistant coach of a top program and not as an unemployed coach who quit on his players when they needed him. His coaching style was based 99% on emotion and that’s what gotten him into this position as a coach.

    • I don’t think O would have lasted long as an assistant for multiple reasons. First, I think he enjoyed getting to lead and make decisions after he saw the disaster that was Kiffin (which, if you’ve seen Kiffin’s TV interviews post USC, I can start to see how he convinced someone to hire him – he is much more pleasant one on one).

      Would O shut his mouth if he saw the same mistakes being made? How would Sark react if the fan base embraced O? If things went downhill, the fans would chant for O.

      Would the players embrace O over Sark? It might turn into a situation of good parent/bad parent.

      • FightOn – bingo on how Kiffin acted with the 4th estate – outside of that constraint – not liked by: athletic staff, Heritage Hall staff and most importantly hs coaches and the recruits – he really enjoyed ‘power’ then again most people do. The pressure he would use on potential recruits was startling – phones up out of the blue and after confirming he was who he said he was gives a recruit 90 seconds to make up his mind or the offer is gone.

        • I know many donors didn’t like his attitude from day one. Had a lot of season ticket holding professors complain about Kiffin, even when he was winning. He just never played the game with uni staff. Being a coach is political – most don’t realize that.

          Kiffin pulled that crap at Tenn with the whole gas station comment and it seems like he pulled the same things with recruits. I heard Woods thought about staying but Kiffin’s attitude (and concentration on Lee) was the final straw.

          I do have to apologize for earlier, I mistook you for a UCLA troll, but it seems you know your USC.

      • Helen, FightOn: you two are right on. My son and I took an “Orgeron – Change We Can Believe In” sign to GameDay on homecoming morning in the same style as an old Obama campaign sign. We had drunk the kool-aid. But his persona was emotion, and in the end he was a “sugar rush,” as someone else put it.

        • I still don’t think O would have been terrible. Actually, it’s pretty interesting, USC has been hiring a lot of professors that are big on emotionally connecting with students. It’s an interesting shift. Though, I think we saw the emotions run empty at the ND and UCLA games.

    • How did Ed quit on his players when Haden fired him? And you diss Pete Carroill for hiring him in the first place? You must be one of Bucket’s sock puppets.

      • I think you’re confused gohome22 – Haden gave Orgeron a fat raise and promotion. It was Orgeron’s decision to leave. Orgeron is a great DL coach and top recruiter, but that doesn’t make him good head coach material. He would have been in a much better position for a head coaching job elsewhere had he stayed at USC and coached the bowl game. He probably would have received an offer after the bowl games are over and other teams start looking for new head coaches.

        • Coach O prior to being promoted to Interim HC was ALREADY (1)Assistant HC, (2)Recruiting Coordinator, (3)Defensive Line Coach and (4)one of the highest paid assistant coaches in college football. You might want to rethink his options if you were in his position. The real skinny is going to eek out one this days and it is going to reek. Coach O nor Pollimau (excuse spelling) is not talking …something SUCKS!

  7. If I was to pick one sentence to sum it up, that sentence wouldn’t make my top 50 sentences.

  8. Coach O has NEVER been a coordinator. I think that was his undoing for this job. When Papa Kiffen left, why wasn’t Coach O the defensive coordinator. That was telling when they brought in Clancy P. I think Haden thought Coach O was going to be too dependent on his assistants, oddly enough the opposite of Kiffen.

  9. Wrong. Wrong. And wrong.

    Petersen has to go through Oregon, Stanford and Pac12 championship game. Sark won’t have Oregon every year.

    Coach O will land as HC at Army or as a Pac 12 assistant that is desperate for Califa recruits.

    Sark will eventually make Haden look like a genius. Besides, Nikias wants his own legacy to be that he kept a Rhodes scholar over a Heisman trophy winner (Garrett). Can any other university president in the country claim that?

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