Broken Coverage for Week 2: Sam Pittman, Oregon Toughness and The Hail Mary
Arkansas and Texas played 78 times prior to Saturday’s matchup in Fayetteville, mostly when the two shared the defunct Southwest Conference. One game among those 78 shapes the series history for its political intrigue: 1969’s de facto national championship game.
The gravity of that contest weighs particularly heavy for me currently, as I’m in the process of reading Terry Frei’s book Horns, Hogs & Nixon Coming. Without diving too deep into these waters, the elevator version: Richard Nixon used the stage of one of the 20th’s many Games of the Century to declare a national champion and pander to electorates that proved to be vital to his Southern Strategy.
Politics of another, much different nature defined the renewal of this past SWC and future SEC rivalry: the politics of coaching hires.
Certain coaches are groomed for stardom from a young age, either because of their maturity and leadership as players or for emerging as prodigies while working as assistants. Steve Sarkisian fit both descriptions.
A standout quarterback at BYU, Sarkisian mastered LaVell Edwards’ revolutionary offense under the tutelage of coordinator/quarterbacks coach Norm Chow, who Sarkisian teamed with again a few years later at USC.
As quarterbacks coach for the Trojans, Sark had a Heisman Trophy winner in his second year (2002), and could realistically have had another in his third. Sarkisian was already on the fast track with his hire at USC; in just three years, his fate appeared inevitable.
In 20 years, that never really changed. Sark’s first head-coaching job was at Washington, a program with a national championship 18 years prior to his hire and Rose Bowl win the same year Sarkisian was cutting his teeth as an assistant at El Camino College. He returned to USC as head coach after five solid, if not underwhelming years in Seattle, and flamed out in one of the most unfortunate and visible meltdowns in recent memory.
Let’s make this absolutely clear: Steve Sarkisian battling personal demons and addiction while at USC should not have precluded him from ever again landing a coaching post. His recovery and return are commendable; inspiring, even.
And I have strong doubts those lacking his political cachet would be named head coach at one of the most rich programs in college football (both in terms of history and athletic budget) five years after being fired from a program of similar stature for repeated bouts of drunkenness.
Regardless my opinion, the reality is Sarkisian has spent 20 years in the profession and from the outset, was tabbed for greatness — and thus, held jobs only at either top-tier college programs or in NFL organizations.
Sam Pittman represents another end of the coaching-politics spectrum. A decade-and-a-half before Sarkisian quarterback Edwards’ offense, Pittman played at then-NAIA member Pittsburg State.
He broke into coaching at his alma mater in 1984, and began a 10-year tour from NAIA grad assistant to high schools to the JUCO ranks. It set a fitting tone for a journeyman career in the ‘90s, 2000s and early 2010s before getting on with Kirby Smart’s staff as offensive line coach at Georgia.
After playing a vital role in the Bulldogs’ 2017 SEC championship and subsequent College Football Playoff title-game run, and three divisional championships, Sam Pittman somehow, finally, got the call 35 years into his career that Steve Sarkisian received in Year 9.
Perhaps it’s a subconscious bias that isn’t all that “sub” — he grinded for a long time in some oftentimes unglamorous roles before getting his shot at the big time, a career arc to which I can relate — but there was something satisfying about seeing Pittman’s Arkansas Razorbacks absolutely manhandle Sarkisian’s Texas Longhorns.
The two aren’t complete opposites. Pittman parlayed his time on the Kirby Smart Branch of the Nick Saban Coaching Tree into the Arkansas job, much like Sarkisian completed his comeback in the Saban tree itself.
And like Pittman playing a central role in Georgia’s success, Sarkisian helped along the evolution of the Alabama offense, a topic I wrote an extensive feature on before last season’s National Championship Game.
But that’s where the similarities end. Pittman deviates from most power-conference program coaches, including his failed predecessors at Arkansas: the red-hot coordinator who briefly paid some dues at the Group of Five level; the winning head coach at a specific type of university.
Try as I might to be impartial, I appreciate Sam Pittman scoring one for all the grinders and dreamers.
THEY DON’T KNOW WHO THE DUCK THEY ARE
From the moment Ohio State absolutely bodied Oregon in the second half of the inaugural College Football Playoff Championship Game, the Ducks have been trying to get back to that level.
To that end, Oregon’s 35-28 win over Ohio State at the Horseshoe was poetic. It wasn’t just that the Ducks beat the Buckeyes on the road as staggering 17.5-point underdogs, but that they did so imposing their will physically on the hosts.
Oregon hit hard, converge on the ball with purpose, and showed no fear despite the early-game jaw-jacking from both the 11s in scarlet jerseys and the 108,000 or so in the stands.
And the jaw-jacking started early roughly 14 hours before kickoff.
It sure seems more likely with the benefit of hindsight that Ohio State — and, to be fair, most of the college football-following world — it was they who didn’t know who the Duck Oregon is.
Those who have been paying attention since Mario Cristobal took over as head coach know, though. There’s a clear Saban influence from Cristobal’s time as Crimson Tide offensive line coach, but the Ducks’ remarkably quick rebuild back to an upper-tier level isn’t so simply described as a reproduction of Alabama.
From tenures on the West Coast, Tim DeRuyter brought expertise on how to defend quick-strike, spread offenses like that which Ohio State runs. Offensive guru Joe Moorhead brought innovations cultivated while working with standout running backs Chase Edmonds and Saquon Barkley in the Northeast.
The national complexion of Oregon’s coaching staff has elevated the Ducks back to the national stage.
Watching him run wild off brilliant-in-their-simplicity play calls, with the kind of bullying blocking Cristobal’s Alabama lines employed, I couldn’t help but think of something CJ Verdell said after Oregon won the 2019 Pac-12 Championship — not coincidentally, the program’s last conference title since the 2014 season.
“This is a stepping stone in the right direction,” he said. “We’re going to keep going from here.”
THERE IS A CURE FOR TERMINAL PLAYOFF BRAIN
Now, winning a road game over a perennial Playoff contender like Ohio State will inevitably start Playoff discourse around a team like Oregon. And that’s fine!
Discourse wades into Terminal Playoff Brain territory, however, when a marquee win becomes fodder to question a team’s Playoff worthiness. Name cropped because I’m not attempting to pile on so much as draw attention to a noxious brand of conversation that has become increasingly commonplace in the Playoff era:
It’s Week 2.
Oregon was a 17.5-point underdog, playing without two of its three best players (Kayvon Thibodeaux and Justin Flowe).
Ohio State had a 23-game home winning streak coming into Saturday’s matchup.
A lot can happen over the next two-and-a-half months because, again…
It’s Week 2.
Without getting too much into the notation on yards surrendered — most defensive coordinators in this day and age concede that yards will inevitably be allowed with the proliferation of potent, spread offenses — this kind of fixation with the WHO’S IN?!-iness of teams saps so much joy from the game.
But there is hope! Just mainline a couple of these every Saturday, and you can cure even the most acute case of Terminal Playoff Brain.
COCKS OF THE WALK
Last week’s edition of Broken Coverage talked FCS-over-FBS upsets and their value in the college football ecosystem.
Jacksonville State’s defeat of Florida State was particularly noteworthy because the Gamecocks were coming off a shutout loss to another FBS opponent, UAB, beat a Power Five conference program, and toppled one of college football’s premier brand names.
What’s more, it took a Herculean comeback effort even before the walk-off touchdown pass from Zerrick Cooper to Damond Philyaw-Johnson. Jacksonville State had just seven points with fewer than five minutes remaining in regulation.
A final note on the Gamecocks’ win? Not a Hail Mary. A common error repeated among football fans and a sizable portion of media conflates any long pass play at the end of a game with the specific call of a Hail Mary.
Friend of The Press Break Michael Felder wrote an outstanding breakdown a few years ago to spell out the differences.
PROGRAMMING NOTE
I intentionally closed out this installment of Broken Coverage bringing things full circle with Clay Helton, Steve Sarkisian’s successor at USC — but realized the untenable situation in Heritage Hall warrants its own newsletter.