In a move both amazing and predictable, Texas fires Tom Herman and welcomes Steve Sarkisian
Further, Texas boosters must grapple with paying their ex-guy only roughly the same amount not to coach as South Carolina will pay its ex-guy, Will Muschamp. That one has to hurt.
Nor is it amazing that Texas will pay Herman $15 million not to coach four months after layoffs and pay cuts in the athletic department to save $13 million, with one of those prepared statements containing excruciating layoff passages such as “extremely challenging times,” “ever-changing times” and “planning ways to put us in a position for success moving forward.” Some might find that amazing, but remember, the priority of the American football donor is finding the guy who can beat the hell out of the despicable rivals on the schedule, as well as those somewhat less despicable.
No, what’s amazing is that Texas has gone a so-so 78-60 across 11 seasons with all that money, which is humorous if you can refrain from sobbing. And what’s really amazing is thinking back to Monday, Oct. 12, 2015, surveying the landscape of that day, and then realizing that five years and change later, Steve Sarkisian would replace Tom Herman at Texas.
On that Monday, Southern California athletic director Pat Haden fired Sarkisian amid his second season as head coach after his troubles with alcohol found its way into team meetings, practices and events. And on that Monday, Herman’s first Houston team stood 5-0 on its way to 13-1 and a Peach Bowl drubbing of Florida State, making him one of the hottest coaches in the history of hot coaches.
Herman, 40 at the time, had just finished a stint as Ohio State’s offensive coordinator in which the Buckeyes surged to a national championship even through the outrageous inconvenience of two injured starting quarterbacks. Houston’s recruiting roared, and Herman headed for Texas by November 2016 as a choice more obvious than plain-old obvious.
To sit in his office and listen to him in the summer of 2017, before it all got started, was to wonder how some people wind up with this magnetic confidence that others of us would like to try on for a day. To see the whole thing go sideways to 9-10 against ranked teams and 1-4 against Oklahoma and zero Big 12 titles and just one title-game appearance and 32-18 over four seasons at a place that doesn’t crave 32-18 . . . and to see the recruiting rankings for the big-energy young coach plunge from No. 4 (2018 and 2019, per Rivals) to No. 14 (2020) and No. 16 (2021), one spot ahead of, sheesh, North Carolina, coached by Mack Brown, who spent a good while at Texas . . .
Wait, Tom Herman ends up one of those dudes who gets the old vote of half-confidence from the athletic director Dec. 12 and then the sacking Jan. 2?
Texas Athletic Director Chris Del Conte, Dec. 12: “When I look at our football program right now, I see tremendous young men and promising talent. Our student-athletes are developing, and they play their hearts out. . . . I want to reiterate that Tom Herman is our coach.”
Texas Athletic Director Chris Del Conte, Jan. 2: “Decisions like this are very, very difficult and certainly not something I take lightly. As I’ve said before, my philosophy is to wait until the end of the season to look at all the factors in evaluating any of our programs. After much deliberation and a great deal of thought, as I looked back at the totality of where our football program is and in discussing its future, it became apparent that it was in the best interest of the University of Texas to move in a different direction.”
So Herman became the subject of that kind of dialect, so drearily familiar in the American experience. Next, you’re going to say they replaced a 45-year-old Herman with a 46-year-old Sarkisian?
That’s the second half of amazement. The long lens on Sarkisian’s comeback yields something richly impressive, coursing twice through Nick Saban’s Alabama, that portal for the wayward. The trajectory went all the way to the Broyles Award this season as the top assistant coach in the land, coordinating Alabama’s otherworldly offense, the receivers darting about with unparalleled skill and geometric beauty.
Saban had Sarkisian as offensive coordinator briefly in winter 2016-17 after shooing Lane Kiffin before the national championship game after Kiffin, on his way out the door to Florida Atlantic, reiterated that his knacks don’t include silence. Then when Sarkisian left a minute later for the Atlanta Falcons, Saban displayed a notable lack of pettiness when he rehired Sarkisian in winter 2018-19.
“I’ve just tried to be a sponge here, man,” Sarkisian said ahead of Friday’s Rose Bowl win over Notre Dame, calling Saban “the best to ever do it.” He said: “And then a year ago I had a couple opportunities to become a head coach, and I decided to come back because it felt like my work here wasn’t done. You know, I felt like I owed it to him. I made a commitment to him to be part of this program. . . .
“I think probably the biggest thing I’ve learned from him is his ability to balance all aspects of the program, whether it’s on the field, off the field, recruiting, all that goes into being a head coach at a place like Alabama, those are all the things I’ve tried to take in from him because his balance of all of that is what I think is pretty incredible.”
Well, it’s time to do some big balancing now, in a Texas program with a high quotient of self-image above self-results, in the part of college football history when affiliation with Saban can move mountainous contracts. Through that and Sarkisian’s will and with everyone and their booster chasing fresh heat, it ends up that Texas jettisons Tom Herman because it can get Steve Sarkisian — just four years after it jettisoned Charlie Strong because it could get Tom Herman.
