Kenny Dillingham is an admirer of Steve Sarkisian's offensive evolution

Steve Sarkisian is known for his innovative offenses, whether that was at USC under Pete Carroll, in Washington, at USC, or at Alabama before his time at Texas. And he’s had an admirer from afar in Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham.

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“There’s a lot of good offensive schemes out there, and then there’s offensive coaches who change their scheme and are constantly getting better,” Dillingham said Monday. “I think that’s something that he’s done as good if not better than anybody in the country is if you turned on his tape from 10 years ago, it’s going to be unrecognizable to his tape right now. That is very challenging to do when you’re successful. When you’re successful, you want to keep doing what got you successful.

“It’s very challenging to be, in my opinion, to be humble enough to constantly continually adapt to the current landscape to the rules. You can’t cut block on the perimeter, to RPOs and how they change the game in terms of substitution patterns, and now you can slow teams down that sub late. You couldn’t do that 15 years ago. He has always adapted with the game and almost been ahead of the curve a little bit, and that’s really challenging to do.”

Ten years ago, Dillingham was an offensive assistant at Arizona State during his postgraduate years. Sarkisian was in his first year at USC, and Dillingham and the Sun Devils played USC that year defeating the Trojans in Los Angeles, 38-34.

Fifteen years ago, Sarkisian was in his first season at Washington trying to turn around a Husky program that had gone 0-12 the prior season. Dillingham was coaching at Chaparral High School as a Sun Devil student.

How have Sarkisian’s offenses evolved since 2009? Another portion of an answer Dillingham provided on Monday is a good place to start.

“I really remember when he was at Washington way back when, he was a big FIB guy, and he was one of the first people to really dive into FIB and challenge people with how they played the big nickel and what to do, and I was like, what is he doing, this makes no sense,” Dillingham said. “I couldn’t process it. I was trying to learn it.”

What’s FIB? It’s short for “formation into the boundary.”

Think of a normal one tight end, one running back set with three receivers on the field and the ball is on the right hashmark. Offense would previously attack all the space with players on the left side of the formation and force defenses to utilize more defensive backs in space. Three of the typical four eligible pass catchers would align to the field to take advantage of the real estate.

FIB flips these rules on their head. It causes defenses to put numbers to the short side of the field. That means fewer defenders on the wide side of the field for the run game, or fewer defensive players in the vicinity of a top receiver with room to operate. If the defenses don’t cover the players in the boundary, then the offense has a numbers advantage for quick screens.

Northern Illinois (2024)

vs. Notre Dame (Week 2)

GH Counter to the field.

Formation into the boundary and then make the D fit. Good stuff. @NIUCoachHammock

🦴 pic.twitter.com/grXArhdZaU

— Last of the Fullbacks (@TheLastFullback) September 9, 2024

And a clip from Sarkisian’s time at Washington shows how he has a number of ways of putting stress on defensive rules. From under center with two running backs (one a fullback) and a tight end, Sarkisian uses motion to put three eligible receivers on the boundary.

(The presence of a Pearl Jam song in this UW video forces you to have to open YouTube, but it’s only a seven second clip)

Many of those similar principles exist for Texas today, including the FIB. However, how often do we see Sarkisian go under center with his offense? It’s possible Washington went under center more times in this 2009 Apple Cup than Texas has gone under center all season.

But there’s more evolution for Sarkisian to come from this game in Seattle.

Five years later in 2014, Sarkisian was in his first season as head coach at USC. Much of his play-action based offense looks strikingly similar to what the Longhorns run today, despite Dillingham’s claim.

But there was a new innovation that had started making its way into college football that Sarkisian knew he needed to add to his repertoire in the RPO. As a result, Sarkisian went under center less often in order to give his quarterbacks space to make reads that wasn’t available under center.

Sarkisian picked up a few more influences in between his failed stint at USC and his resurgence as Nick Saban‘s offensive coordinator, including Lane Kiffin, the NFL for its passing concepts, and some stuff Saban wanted to remain a part of the Alabama offense regardless of who was calling plays.

That’s all helped Sark become the well thought of play-caller and offensive mind he is today.

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He’s been innovating for a while, and he’s had an admirer from afar in Dillingham, the head coach of his opponent next week.