Sideline Saga Was Just Silly

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SARK.STANFORD

Steve Sarkisian handled the Josh Shaw situation as well as possible last week. When a reporter asked if he consulted with any coaching mentors (say Pete Carroll?), Sarkisian rightly pointed out he was in his sixth year as a head coach and did not need to seek advice from another coach.

So why did he summon Pat Haden to the sideline Saturday? I imagine it is pretty hard for any athletic director to ignore a plea from his coach during crunch time of a big game. So Haden needed to offer his support even though his health is his primary concern.

But why did Sarkisian need to call Daddy, as so many described what happened. Can you imagine Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, David Shaw, James Franklin or Kevin Sumlin calling for the athletic director because the meanie officials are picking on us?

USC won the game so I doubt most fans care about the antics. But the program’s image suffered an unnecessary hit nationally.

81 thoughts on “Sideline Saga Was Just Silly”

  1. “Having to call daddy” is a gross misinterpretation of events. Had he not been 1 penalty away from being ejected, I am sure this would have gone differently. Obviously he had to do whatever it took to ensure that wouldn’t wouldn’t happen.

    But you are right, it is silly– so stop posting about it.

  2. It wasn’t silly. It worked. Sarkesian didn’t allow throwing out the team captain to shift the momentum to Stanford. He intuitively sensed that in the heat of battle. He needed to show his players he was there battling with them. Were you ever in the army in a war? You can’t lead unless you go over the hill first. Then you will do anything for that type of leader. What would Kiffen have done? Pouted like a kid? Sarkesian pressed the officials. The players now know he’s not just an X’s and O’s clipboard coach — he’s battling with them. Invaluable.

    • i don’t recall Patton calling his mommy to come and chew out Rommel.

      Patton whipped him Hombre a Hombre!!! ike a MAN!!!

      “ROMMEL you magnificent Bastard!!!!……i read your book!!!”

      #RealLeaderShip

      • I bet Mora never calls his Mommy. He’s just sitting there watching his little gutties drop in the rankings while they win Ugly-style. I’ve seen this before somewhere. Doesn’t end good. It only took two weeks for a depleted USC to jump over-rated Bridesmaid U. Two. I told you this was gonna happen son. Make sure and eat your Wheaties and buckle up kid. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride, especially since Mora’s never the type to call his Mommy.

          • Bridesmaid U > Clown College
            USC-UCLA rivalry in past quarter century = 11-11-1 (with SC vacating 2 victories for Bushgate).

          • Blaming UCLA for SC’s cheating fiasco = Haden blaming the officials for coming to Baby Sark’s rescue

          • Stanford = six straight wins over the little gutties, aka Bridesmaid U

            USC = 2 straight over Stanford

            Gauntlet: USC 9, ucla 4. Poor little gutties just can’t win head-to-head.

            #WormfoodWoodenlovedtocheat

          • little gutties have such limited goals.
            What happened to your national rank this year? little gutty got your tongue?

      • Patton’s army never directly fought Rommel. Rommel was pulled out of North Africa before Patton’s victories and Rommel died before Patton arrived in the European theater. Your history is as misplaced as your constant presence on this blog. #gobacktoschool #bruineducation

        • Patton frequently relied on Gen. Bradley for advice and was reprimanded by the Supreme Allied Commander, Ike. Still a hell of a leader who made the tough call with lives at stake.

        • Great post. Wolfie barely knows anything about USC football, let alone WW II. Thanks for the info. You totally hammered Crotch Boy. He’s still on the floor.

        • i never served in the military due to a medical condition (Narrow Urethra) but i DID see the movie Patton so i know to a certainty that as mentioned in the film, although Patton did not MEET Rommel on the battlefield, he did defeat Rommel’s PLAN….so, ergo, Patton defeated ROMMEL!!!

          AUUUUUUUUUU-WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

          #CadreWin

        • I would have bet the farm (pun intended) that you were about to say “…as misplaced as your manhood.” I must confess I am not the gentleman you are. Thanks for calling the gelding out on his lack of knowledge of history. He never sees below the surface, just like his gelding twin brother, OWES, who by the way has been MIA. I wonder if he burned the house down over the incident with the tooth fairy.

    • Actually Sark called Haden down because the officials did not give him an explanation for his flag. (which was because he was in the White on the sideling)
      Nothing to do with Pullard being throw out of the game

      • Apparently Sark refused to speak English with the Umpire, so Haden needed to translate Sark’s “Intuitive sense” of anger. SUCC sents in the clowns.

        • Which is why you continually follow and keep informed about everything USC, more than your lame SUCLA bums…
          Keep fighting ON

    • Trying to convince yourself that the coach and AD did not act in an embarrassing, immature, knee-jerk manner = arguing that Global Warming is a passing phase.

      • Haden’s a stud. The Rose Bowl MVP always has been. Both he and Sark have actually won something. Ya, we were real embarrassed beating Stanford. Can’t wait to see the Cardinal take it out on the little gutties in the RB. Nice.

  3. The Pac 12 officials are notoriously bad. The “standing on the white” should have never been called. That can be called on almost any play, on both teams. Do you really want the game to be dictated by a ridiculous call by officials during such a close, hard fought game? How did Sarks standing in the white watching a crucial field goal 40 yards away influence the play in any way. I can see why he went berserk.

    • The reason why it would not happen to Saban? He regularly stands on the field. The camera shots of the Alabama-WVU game showed to pretty clearly.

      It worst thing about this episode it that is overshadows the real issue: From the famous Oklahoma-Oregon game, to penalizing Jake Locker and UW for spiking the ball too hard, to calling a sideline penalty that IS NEVER CALLED, the Pac-12 referees are objectively still the worst of all the power conference referees.

    • Blaming officials for Sark’s tantrum = Homerism
      Not realizing Haden overstepped his responsibilities as an AD who also represents the esteemed Playoff voting committee = Napoleon’s thinking it was a swell idea to invade Russia

  4. Maybe you should get your own house in order Scottie before calling Sark/Haden silly. Your blog has been taken over by trolls who add nothing to the focus of your blog – now that’s silly.

  6. Ya, USC took a big hit Wolfie. Sure pal.

    Haden and the Trojans really seem to be going down in flames – but up in the rankings. USC beats Stanford in Palo Alto, ending the sports’ longest home winning streak (nice) and Haden goes to bat for the Trojans publicly and strongly without yelling and screaming and making a fool of himself as many others have. Sark covers his fanny, so does Haden and neither is the worse for wear.

    Since Urban Meyer and David Shaw both lost this weekend, who cares what they would do. Meyers’s gonna have to deal with having a mediocre Buckeye team (not good in nothingville Columbus) and Shaw just got outcoached by some guy called “Sark”, who knows when to order a field goal to win a close game. Maybe if Shaw had called Daddy, he could avoided a loss in a game his team dominated.

    • … and great motivation for future recruits who know their coach and AD will fight for them.

      And Scottie fails to mention his other preferred coaching prospects – Pedersen (with two slim victories over vastly inferior teams over at UW) and Strong (loosing ugly at Texas to middle-tier opponents).

      • Exactly…. Scottie fails to mention this because it doesn’t serve his agenda very well….

      • Sark left PeTersen a mess at UW, so it’s not really fair to think he’s going to right the ship immediately. Texas is in even worse shape and Strong will spend all year just cleaning house (and “loosing” games – clown college grad).

  7. I get your inferiority complex Mr. Wolf, but name calling is just childish. Wang would never stoop to such silly behavior.

  8. Scott, your grammar and spelling mistakes are silly. The content of your posts is silly. The trolls who infest the comments section are silly. Your desperate attention grabs are silly. Everything about your professional existence is silly.

  9. Daddy?…..USC Family, baby!….. high school football recruits will be glad to know that the AD of this school will have the back of the head coach…. you have players coaches, like Sark and Carroll,and you have AD’s who support their head coaches, like PH….it’s a different landscape in college football today, something that many people, including Wolf, who come from another generation, refuse to acknowledge….How would John McKay have handled this and the Josh Shaw/Anthony Brown situation, especially with an AD on the college football playoff committee?….we’ll never know…..but with this amount of money at stake and amount of media scrutiny, as well as social media, the worst may be yet to come, perhaps from another school….

  11. scott, think about this for a minute.

    let’s assume that after 6 years as a head coach, sark knows a little bit about acting like a head coach. he has never done this before, and he doesn’t have a history of past issues with refs.

    so we have to assume that he called down haden NOT because he needed someone to fight his battles, or “call daddy” as you said. he didn’t call down haden just because the meanie ref is picking on us.

    logically speaking, there has to be more behind the scenes, and more to this story. is there a history behind this particular ref? Was there something said? it’s YOUR JOB to find out why he called haden, rather than take the lazy way out and say “oh he’s just sad because the refs were picking on him”.

    don’t be lazy. be a real reporter.

  12. Swing and miss. The image of the school didn’t suffer one bit! In fact, if you read Bill P., it just showed how enthusiastic Haden is. Should this have happened? Of course not. But you’re making MUCH more of this than is merited. And I know it’s your stock-in-trade. You don’t have any more football-related news, or recruiting news, so you go for low-hanging fruit on this cosmetic crap. Good for you. But no, the program’s image did not suffer. The storyline coming out of the weekend is the rise of USC, and the potential fall of Stanford – everything goes in cycles, but as the years roll on, and the roster fills out, USC will only get better. That’s the story of this highly transitional game. Not about some AD breaking a minor rule by coming onto the field. Next story, Scottie!

      • Sark’s behavior and getting the 15-yard penalty is a separate issue – he obviously shouldn’t have gotten that out-of-control during the game. And calling Haden down was stupid! But the magnitude of event in the scheme of things – yes, the scheme of things – is minor.

  15. Gotta remember the context. Larry Scott’s referees cost USC a game two (?) years ago because they were not going to let a team that was banned from the BCS beat a PAC-12 team like Stanford that could have been eligible to go to the BCS. Everyone knew this. PAC-12 officials will call a game closely against schools that can’t go to bowl games in any tight games against those schools who have a chance of going to a bowl game. So USC coach and A.D. sent a message that they were no longer going to tolerate that. Everything is context.

  16. The AD comes down, and if he goes into a rant and rave or whatever, his passion is showing. This act is going to do more FOR the program than anything he has ever done. Now the players SEE the passion in leadership, it’s contagious, the swagger is back, USC is back.

  17. I was reading BBC news this morning on my phone–ISIL, Putin, Eastern Ukr shaky truce, Ebola, and then just logged on here. I know, I shouldn’t compare the two. Sports–and the enjoyment thereof–is what we do to keep sane and relax from the stresses that life brings (like the tragic stuff above). I get that. But really, the way this Haden thing has blown up is ridiculous! Sark lost his cool (not the first time a coach has done that), and Haden made the unfortunate decision to come to his aid and address the refs. The men have apologized, a fine has been levied, and that’s it. Should Haden be removed from the Voting Committee? Not important what I think. Will he be removed? No.

    So, thoughts about Boston College? UCLA-Texas?

    • A breath of fresh air. This was a 48 hour story–Haden apologized as did Sark (and they should have, they acted unprofessionally). The far bigger issue for me is whether Hayes Pullard will be suspended for a half (I think he should be, but I’ve seen far too many concussions and want a harder line taken with this targeting and leading with the head to tackle). I don’t see Boston College as a trap game at all–I don’t imagine BC has the athletes to compete with USC and I’m mostly hoping Sark can get the freshmen more involved with the weaker opponent.

      I think UCLA wakes up vs Texas. Texas isnt any good this year and I think UCLA has basically sleptwalked through their two wins. I do think the Bruins should worry about how poorly they’ve played thus far with expectations–remember USC started out the horrid 2012 with some wins but played poorly. The Texas game is a huge test as to whether the poor line play in endemic for the team (a number of analysts have said they are worried about the Bruin lines on both sides of the ball) or if it was just a flat gameplan and some looking ahead.

      • I was thinking today about the similarities between the ’14 Bruins and the ’12 Trojans. Both started in the top 10 (and over-rated), and both struggled early against weaker opponents (i.e. SC underperformed against a terrible Hawaii team and a so-so Syracuse team, before losing to Stanford).

        For UCLA, it’s not about depth, but about talent–lack of speed at receiver is a concern, a go-to RB still needs to materialize (although frosh Paul Perkins looked crisp on Sat); UCLA’s hyped up secondary is looking surprisingly porous thus far, as is our pass rush. For SC, it’s the reverse: it’s not about talent, but about depth (see lingering effects of sanctions). Stay healthy, and win double-digit games. If not, and there could be some struggles for the Trojans.

        Pretty steep fall in QB experience in our first stringers (God forbid) go down. (Woullard and Browne have yet to take a college snap.)

        To me, the O line is still a question mark for both teams.

  18. We are all in this together! If Sarkisian would have called Jesus Christ down to get a proper call, I’m ok with that!

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