Steve Sarkisian shares what he learned from Nick Saban, Pete Carroll

Steve Sarkisian’s coaching journey took him across the country. From Los Angeles to Seattle to Tuscaloosa, he was around plenty of different programs before becoming Texas’ head coach.

But it also allowed him to work under two notable coaches who left an impact on his career: Pete Carroll and Nick Saban.

“Those two guys, Coach Carroll and Coach Saban, they’re championship coaches,” Sarkisian said Monday.

Sarkisian was Carroll’s quarterbacks coach at USC from 2001-08 — with a quick stop as the Oakland Raiders’ quarterbacks coach in 2004 — and helped the Trojans to a national title in 2003. He then became the head coach at Washington from 2009-13 before returning to USC in 2014, where he was let go in 2015.

That took Sarkisian to Alabama, where he started as an analyst under Saban in 2016 and eventually took over as offensive coordinator for the bowl game. After two years with the Atlanta Falcons, he returned to become Saban’s full-time OC from 2019-20, winning another national championship in his last year in the role.

Sarkisian was able to learn plenty under both iconic coaches. Those lessons are important at Texas, which is now at the forefront of the college football conversation. He’ll be able to apply them in the coming weeks after the Longhorns knocked off Saban and Alabama in Bryant Denny Stadium.

“They’ve, whether it was a seven-year straight run that Pete Carroll had at USC or what Coach Saban has obviously done here at Alabama, the consistency in which their teams played. And it wasn’t about the opponent” Sarkisian said. “It was about the way they prepared and the way they practiced and then, ultimately, the way they played.

“That’s the challenge for us. That we come right back to work today, prepare really well, practice really well so that we can perform really well Saturday night.”

While Nick Saban left his mark on Steve Sarkisian, he also made an impact on the Alabama program during his time there. Saban talked about that in the lead-up to the game, preparing for his second matchup with a coach whose career he helped save.

“I think Sark is one of the best coaches we’ve ever been around when it comes to offense,” Saban said. “He has great disposition with the players, he has great understanding of the game. He really understands defense and how to attack defenses, but he has some really good concepts on offense that are hard to defend.

“Understands how to present that in different ways so whatever you practiced, it doesn’t come up that way in the game, which makes it hard on our defensive players.”