Super Bowl Update

By Kshell

The Washington Huskies(3-4,1-3) were blown out by 30+ points for the third time this season under fourth year head coach Steve Sarkisian. The first two times were to the #2 team in the nation but this time was to the Arizona Wildcats(4-3,1-3) who had lost three in a row coming into this game. Sarkisian the offensive "guru" has seen his offense become a disaster this season. While his defense has improved it is still a very poor defense. Sarkisian now falls to 22-23 as a head coach and is 20-23 vs D-1 schools. He is also 4-15 on the road. Sarkisian despite having some talented players on his roster has proven that he isn't the head coach that many had hoped he would be. I was never a supporter of Sarkisian and I've noticed people are finally agreeing with me on him.

Sarkisian has landed some high profile recruits in recent years. Sophomore Kasen Williams who was a five star recruit recorded eight receptions for 80 yards last game. For the season he has 41 receptions for 442 yards with four touchdowns. Another high profile recruit for Sarkisian was tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins who had a career game against Arizona in catching eight passes for 110 yards with a touchdown. For the season he has 37 receptions for 447 yards with three touchdowns.  The problem for the Huskies is their third leading receiver is running back Bishop Sankey who has 15 receptions for 96 yards. Williams was the only wide receiver to catch a pass until Jaydon Mickens caught two in garbage time. For all the talk of the great job of recruiting Sarkisian has done his offensive line is a mess and his skill guys aren't much better.

The running game despite losing Chris Polk and injuries has done well. Bishop Sankey a sophomore four star recruit had 87 yards rushing on 19 carries with a touchdown. His backup true freshman Kendyl Taylor had 47 yards rushing on three carries. Sankey also had six receptions for 32 yards while Taylor had three for 13. On the year Sankey has ran the ball well rushing for 574 yards on 122 carries(4.7 YPC) with seven touchdowns. Taylor has ran for 96 yards on 15 carries(6.4 YPC). Now a proven successful coach would be running the ball more. Keith Price attempted a career high 52 passes last game. Price has 238 pass attempts on the year while Sankey has just 122 carries. The offensive line can run block decent but can't pass block at all. Yet Sarkisian every game avoids running the ball until the second half when the Huskies are by then down by three scores.

Keith Price is struggling. He was 29-52 passing for only 256 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions plus a fumble. Price has turned the ball over 10 times in the last three times. For the year he is 143-238(60.1%) for 1,336 yards(5.6 YPA) with 8 TD's to 8 interceptions. To make matters worse Sarkisian threw Price under the bus after the loss. For Sarkisian he is now 22-23 he has seen his team lose by 30+ points eight times now. Tyrone Willingham lost by 30+ points only six times. Sarkisian has seen his team allow 50+ points six times while Willingham only did that five times. Sarkisian has only four road wins while Willingham has five. Anytime you are being compared to Willingham is bad. When Willingham is better than you in these comparisons speaks volumes for you as a coach.

Instead of blaming the players like what most crappy coaches do Sarkisian should look in the mirror. He was getting blown out with Jake Locker, now he's getting blown out with Keith Price. He was getting blown out with Willingham's guys, now he's getting blown out with his guys. He was getting blown out with Nick Holt, now he's getting blown out with Justin Wilcox. Perhaps instead of blaming all those guys we finally put that blame on Sarkisian where it belongs. Sarkisian isn't the guy to lead the Huskies to a Rose Bowl title he has way too many red flags. If fans want to continue to ignore these red flags then you are quickly becoming in the vast minority. The red flags are obvious that Sarkisian is closer to being Tyrone Willingham than he is Jim Lambright, Rick Neuheisel and especially Don James(the standard). Sarkisian was a bad hire to begin with as he had no head coaching experience. Hopefully after this year the Sarkisian experiment at Montlake is finally over as this team is no better than the team he took over as head coach in 2009. Actually I think this team is worse than 2009.