And the Nominees Are In: University of Washington’s Sarkisian

By November 29, 2012

Sarkisian

You’ve heard of him? Yeah, I hadn’t either until late Monday night. Pete Roussel, the recognized authority on college coaching changes, wrote Monday that several people close to Steve Sarkisian’s current program say he is definitely a candidate at Arkansas.

So, let’s take a look at him. Sarkisian is in his fourth season as the head coach at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Sarkisian is only 38 years old and was born in Torrance, Calif. He played quarterback at Brigham Young and then had a short stint playing in the Canadian Football League.

He started his coaching career as the quarterbacks coach at El Camino College, then went on to be the quarterbacks coach at the University of Southern California.

Sarkisian left USC for a year to coach quarterbacks for the Oakland Raiders but quickly returned to his old job under Pete Carroll at USC.

He took over Lane Kiffin’s offensive coordinator duties at USC in 2007 and held that position for two years. In 2009, Sarkisian was named head coach at the University of Washington.

Sarkisian is under a contract with an increasing salary and is currently getting paid $2.25 million per year.

The Huskies under Sarkisian have had a winning record in three of his four seasons, going 5-7 in his first year in Seattle. However, that year is marked by a 16-13 Husky victory over No. 3 USC.

Sarkisian’s all-time record as a head coach is 26-24 but it should be noted that he inherited a tough situation at Washington and took a team that had not been bowl eligible since 2002 to two bowl games in his first three years.

Sarkisian is married and has three children. He is of Armenian and Irish mixed heritage and despite attending BYU, he is a Catholic.

Here’s a fun fact. Nick Holt is in charge of on-campus recruiting at Arkansas, and his previous job was as the defensive coordinator at the University of Washington under Sarkisian.

Holt’s not the only recent Southeastern Conference import from Seattle. In January of 2012, Alabama hired former Washington offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier to be the offensive coordinator in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Sarkisian has been crucial to recent major renovations to Husky Stadium and he claims it will now be one of the best stadiums in the country.

Sarkisian is known as a great offensive mind and a superb recruiter. He is young and energetic and different from what the SEC is generally accustomed to. I think he would be a great hire and would truly revitalize the Arkansas program.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/UWVK3NDPCGTC2WYLO3V4NOAUBI Coach

    Would take him over Les Miles any day of the week. I can’t believe they wanted les Miles……Makes me sick to my stomach as an Arkansas fan. 

  • Bob

    Good riddance, he is a mediocre coach…

  • NOLA Hog Fan

     I guess image speaks more than results to you?  Les Miles wins a lot.  Granted he is goofy, but he has been extremely successful for 8 years.

  • Kprice

    U know nothing about him and u say that…. Geez

  • Acbytesla

    I can’t imagine a situation where Sark would leave the UW for Arkansas this year.  The Alum there would have to grossly overpay to get this West Coast boy to leave Seattle.  

    Not only is Sark’s Huskies moving into a brand new stadium. the team is also moving into a large football operations facility including band new spectacular coaches offices that overlook the stadium, Lake Washington and Mount Rainier.    The excitement over the new facilities is huge.  

    Imagine a situation where you hired a contractor to build you a big beautiful lakeside home exactly to your liking and daily you watched the progress of the year long construction every day as you did your job.    Would you really leave before you moved in?

    I sincerely doubt that Pete Roussel has spoken to Coach Sarkisian.  Any one can throw names around and I’m very confident that Roussel is doing just that or that his source is doing that.  

  • Gene Bulge

    So Nick Holt went to Arkansas after getting canned at Washington.  I notice he isn’t a defensive coach there because he put together one of the worse defenses while at Washington that I can recall in all of my 63 years.  Both the Huskies and Sarkisian would have a much better record since Steve took over a program that was in shambles if Holt would have put a decent defense on the field while he was defensive coordinator.  Maybe Holt will be more successful at recognizing talented athletes than utilizing them.  Good luck Arkansas.

  • Gene Bulge

    Sark took over a team that went 0-12 the year before he was named head coach.  His teams have gotten better every year and if you look at the teams the Huskies played in the 2012 season it was rated by most publications as the second toughest schedule in the country.  Perhaps if he had gone to a school in the SEC and broke rules right and left like most of the conference maybe he would be much better than MEDIOCRE according to you.