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Coach Sark welcome press conference 4 pm


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Just now, Voluminous Banality said:

This pic shows just how ready the Texas fan base was to move on. I don't think Turtle or Coinflip ever had buildings named after them. Sark has been on the job for less than a day and Sark Tower has already been christened.

ha. it helps to have CDC and not Patterson/Ex left tackle. who knows how his coaching hires will go at this point but he nails the marketing shit.

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6 minutes ago, Voluminous Banality said:

This pic shows just how ready the Texas fan base was to move on. I don't think Turtle or Coinflip ever had buildings named after them. Sark has been on the job for less than a day and Sark Tower has already been christened.

I like to imagine one of those cars driving by, hopefully in very slow bumper to bumper traffic, was Mensa's on his way out of town with his just served divorce papers on the dashboard.

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6 minutes ago, Cairn Horn88 said:

Saban ever been fired?

Yes...

"The one time Nick Saban got fired" 

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/17340913/remembering-one-alabama-crimson-tide-coach-nick-saban-got-fired

Quote

It's the day before New Year's Eve in Memphis, Tennessee, and no one from Ohio State wants what's about to happen. The team that tied for the Big Ten championship and is ranked 15th in the AP Poll has somehow wound up stuck in the 1981 Liberty Bowl. The matchup against unranked Navy isn't inspiring. The weather isn't even nice: 30 degrees at kickoff with rain on the way. The coaching staff can see it in some of the players' eyes that they don't want to be there, struggling to find their footing, slipping on the turf as well as their pride.

A long season is about to get longer. Ohio State is supposed to beat Navy handily, but it doesn't work out that way. The Buckeyes' struggling young secondary hits a new low, allowing an offense that couldn't muster more than 50 passing yards per game during the regular season to amass 240 yards and two touchdowns through the air. A blocked punt and three fumbles save the Buckeyes from embarrassment. Final score: Ohio State 31, Navy 28.

Coach Earle Bruce is already fuming over his team's sloppy play as he leaves the field when he sees that his defensive coordinator, Dennis Fryzel, is speaking with reporters. Defensive line coach Steve Szabo would later call it the straw the broke the camel's back. Bruce storms into the locker room, throwing things, yelling, "That's it! It's over! It's done!"

It's sometime around 2 a.m. when the team makes it back to Columbus. Only the coaches are summoned back to the office at 8 a.m. for a meeting. Thirty seconds in, Bruce breaks the news: the entire defensive staff is through. Everyone is stunned. After all, as linebackers coach Bob Tucker put it, "We'd just won a bowl game" and finished 9-3.

Nick Saban has just been fired for the first time in his career. He's suddenly a 30-year-old, unemployed defensive backs coach. He has a tireless work ethic, a mind for complex coverages and an eye for evaluating talent, yet he has nowhere to use it.

It won't stay that way for long. The greatest college football coach of his generation will never face the chopping block again.

* * *

Nick Saban was already on his fourth coaching stop by the time he arrived at Ohio State in 1980. Defensive coordinator Dennis Fryzel, an old friend from their Syracuse days, and offensive coordinator Glen Mason, whom he had gotten to know on the recruiting trail, had pitched coach Earle Bruce to bring him on. He was bright, they told Bruce, and an excellent recruiter, the perfect man to replace Pete Carroll, who had just left to become defensive coordinator at N.C. State.

Defensive line coach Steve Szabo remembers Saban well. Back then, all the defensive assistants shared an office. Saban wasn't very outgoing, Szabo said, but he could see that he took coaching seriously. He and linebackers coach Bob Tucker would joke that while they spoke to Saban they could feel he was "calculating something else." He was constantly working the phones, calling NFL buddies to talk shop. One such friend was Bill Belichick, an assistant with the New York Giants.

Mason still marvels at how Saban was on the cutting edge. The Cover 2 was the craze and Saban was installing multiple looks within the defense that gave Mason fits. What looked like a blitz wasn't. Cover 2 would turn into a Cover 3 in the blink of an eye. But what Mason valued most was Saban's ability to spot talent. Firing up the old 60mm film, he'd say, "Nick, take a look at this guy and tell me what you think." Saban would study the tape and Mason would always follow his recommendation. "And he was always right," Mason said. "To be quite honest with you, it was things I didn't think of, didn't see or didn't evaluate."

Although Ohio State went 9-3 in 1980 and the defense gave up a respectable 162 passing yards per game, the ground was shifting. The middle and bottom of the Big Ten was becoming more of a passing league. During a 49-42 win over Illinois, the Buckeyes allowed 621 yards through the air.

What's more, the secondary was expected to enter rebuilding mode the next season. In the team's own media guide, the defensive backfield was described as "totally new." The situation was "further clouded" by the loss of one of its most experienced returnees, Rod Gorley, who had knee surgery, it read. Against Stanford in Week 3, the defense allowed 280 passing yards and two touchdowns to some quarterback named John Elway. The next week, Florida State threw for 299 yards and two touchdowns in a 9-point loss, the first of the season.

Tucker said the personnel in the secondary didn't match the changing needs on defense. A staff meeting late in the year ended in what Tucker described as "misunderstanding" between Saban and Bruce over recruiting tactics.

"Of course, every high school coach in America has another Jack Tatum -- a strong safety, a hitter," Tucker said. "Well you have eight Jack Tatums and you're on the ropes. Nick's message was, 'Let's get some Tim Andersons -- some more pass defenders since this thing is changing.'

"I understood what Nick was saying, and I'm not sure the head coach did."

What's more, Saban pushed to install more sophisticated defenses and Bruce wasn't eager to play ball.

Meanwhile, there was a growing friction between Bruce and Fryzel. The two were close friends, but miles apart in terms of personality. Where Bruce was more buttoned up, Szabo said Fryzel went by the "seat of his pants." Fryzel was becoming a second voice of the program and that didn't sit well with Bruce, Tucker said.

"I'm trying to say this diplomatically," Mason said, calling it a situation that escalated out of control. "There was a working relationship problem with Denny and Earle."

Said Szabo: "Nick was thrown in the mix because he outwardly was more loyal to Denny."

As the season went on, Tucker remembers the newspapers "blasting us." Then the leaks came with things showing up in the press that should have stayed in staff meetings, Szabo recalled. Bruce's response was to shut down assistants from speaking with reporters.

Fryzel broke the embargo at the wrong time after the Liberty Bowl. All three former assistants who spoke for this story agreed that Bruce was acting on emotion when he stormed into the locker room that night and fired the defensive staff the next morning.

"It was collateral damage," Mason said. "It wasn't because the secondary wasn't playing well, [Saban] wasn't recruiting well or he wasn't doing his job well."

Saban didn't say anything when it happened. He didn't throw anything or pout.

Later that day, Bruce offered to retain Tucker. Tucker said he appreciated it when Saban told him, "You have to stay. You have a family."

Saban immediately moved on. He was content, according to Szabo.

The pair went to a coaches convention less than two weeks later. Saban already had a job lined up to join Belichick's father on the staff at Navy.

All these years later, Tucker remembers picking Bruce up at the airport after a trip to Hawaii for the Hula Bowl. The dust had finally settled. In the car, he said Bruce asked him, "Why did I do that?"

* * *

Five national championships later, Saban stands alone, arguably the best college football coach of his generation.

And if you think he's forgotten about his departure from Ohio State, think again. When Saban was asked about what he learned from the whole ordeal, he first pointed out that the entire staff was let go, not just him.

"It was a little bit of a crazy deal," he said, "but I look back more on the mistakes that I made rather than blaming somebody else."

He may be a grandfather now with some grey around the ears, but Saban remembers it all. He remembers going on Bruce's TV show after they beat Michigan. He remembers the game, the three freshmen and a sophomore who started in the secondary. He fondly recalls shutting down Michigan's All-America receiver to the tune of three passes for 17 yards. (Anthony Carter had 4 catches for 52 yards, but close enough.)

A month later, he remembers being fired.

"What it made me realize is that you have to work to please the person that you're working for," he explained. "I really look back at all of the things that I did, the mistakes that I made -- and even sometimes if you're right -- it's not worth it to be right."

Fryzel has since passed and Bruce is retired, recovering well from a stroke he sustained last year.

Tucker, Szabo and Mason are all out of coaching.

All of them could tell that Saban had what it took to be a head coach all those years ago, but none could have known he'd accomplish this.

"Who wouldn't be surprised?" Mason said. "Not only did he have success, he's had legendary success. I'm not sure how -- and I've been around a lot of good coaches -- but I don't know how you're able to say, 'Oh, I knew he'd win a championship at LSU and multiple ones at Alabama.' It's a perfect storm. You put a guy that's on the cutting edge of recruiting and coaching and works tremendously hard and put him at a school that has the ability to do those type of things. But still it's uncanny the success he's had."

Tucker laughed when he looked back on all of it, how Pete Carroll led to Nick Saban and Nick Saban led to Dom Capers at Ohio State.

It's funny how it works. Carroll has won titles in both college and the pros. Capers was a Super Bowl-winning defensive coordinator with the Packers. Saban has won five college national championships. Yet they were all fired at one point in their lives.

"I tell people, 'Look at those guys,'" Tucker said. "And here I am practicing chipping on the green while the club is closed."

 

Edited by LTtxfan
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1 hour ago, Domedriver said:

I am rewatching last nights game, focusing on the Sark game and I am very gruntled.  I think we are in for some fun!  And I will drink the Koolaid and whatever is put in front of me!  Happiness🤘🙏🏻

So, when Riley starts looking at film before next year’s OU game, he can watch the Bama/OSU film and try to figure out how Sark will call the game!

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8 minutes ago, Cairn Horn88 said:

One thing that Sark has that Saban will never have or get......HC at The University of Texas!

I think this is actually a good point.  Saban or UM may or may not have brought the magic to Texas, but either one would likely have been shorter term.  If Sark is what he says, and brings it every day like his press conference, he could build something great at Texas.  He's a lot more of a hire like Pete Carroll.  Pete had never had a great head coaching stop before he put it all together at USC.  Hopefully, this is ahead for Sark and Texas.

Edited by CycleTex87
Tense
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3 hours ago, SHOOTER12 said:

Bullshit between he Huff and Vince he's the only one who doesn't look like he was dressed by a special needs student what with the athletic shoes with dressy clothes bullshit.

I would just like to point out that my daughter is very careful to make sure that her shoes properly match her outfit and she won’t hesitate to point it out if she thinks I don’t.

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I think this is actually a good point.  Saban or UM may or may not have brought the magic to Texas, but either one would likely have been shorter term.  If Sark is what he says, and brings it every day like his press conference, he could build something great at Texas.  He's a lot more of a hire like Pete Carroll.  Pete had never had a great head coaching stop before he put it all together at USC.  Hopefully, this is ahead for Sark and Texas.
he's DKR. washington.
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7 minutes ago, markstanco said:
12 minutes ago, immamac said:
I mean I'd love to have Sark involved here through a shadow account or otherwise. I don't think it's realistically in the cards though

Id hate for the head coach of texas posting on message boards.

Just waiting for someone to sign up as “Sark”....we may never know if it’s really him!

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Watching the press conference right now.

I agree with TwiceHorn’s take.   I’m confident CDC made a good pick.   The level of confidence in his press conference is remarkably different than Charlie’s and Tom’s first presser.   Charlie had a deer in the headlights look.   Tom was just a dick.  

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57 minutes ago, LTtxfan said:

Per Glen Mason, Offensive Coordinator who brought Nick Saban to Ohio St. in 1980, describing Saban’s recent success;

“It's a perfect storm. You put a guy that's on the cutting edge of recruiting and coaching and works tremendously hard and put him at a school that has the ability to do those type of things. But still it's uncanny the success he's had."

Sark & Texas in a nutshell.

Sark pushing all the right buttons. Scheming your Heisman winning receiver into coverage by a linebacker. 😊😊😊.

Gimme that fire hose, I want some more Kool-Aid!!!

 

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21 minutes ago, Cairn Horn88 said:

Another thing Sark has going for him.....he can actually sell UT as a great academic institution.....unlike Bama!  

You'd be surprised how many people in this country think "University of (insert state name here)" is just as good as the "University of (insert other state name here)."  

It took me a long time of working in higher ed. to realize that.  But I'd say 50% of American adults, if not more, assume University of Alabama is to University of Texas is to University of Vermont is to University of Oregon is to University of Wisconsin.  Only a small percentage are aware of the pecking order of public higher ed.  It's a huge selling point for Texas, but one that requires so much bullshit to overcome.  

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1 hour ago, Voluminous Banality said:

This pic shows just how ready the Texas fan base was to move on. I don't think Turtle or Coinflip ever had buildings named after them. Sark has been on the job for less than a day and Sark Tower has already been christened.

Sark Tower got me thinking... 2021 season thread name... The Sark Knight Rises?

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The off season is now interesting, Tom Herman is gone, I don't have to hear "winning is hard", I don't have to hear "the definition of insanity",  I know I will take my season tickets, Tom Herman is gone, I anticipate less "one possession" games, I feel pretty good about Coach Sark so far.

These are the things I'm happy about in 2021 so far. Oh yeah, and we should start beating back the whole Covid thing.

9945d634-c9a2-4298-9945-bacd40cb3a49_text_hi.gif

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2 minutes ago, 927 E. 41st said:

The off season is now interesting, Tom Herman is gone, I don't have to hear "winning is hard", I don't have to hear "the definition of insanity",  I know I will take my season tickets, Tom Herman is gone, I anticipate less "one possession" games, I feel pretty good about Coach Sark so far.

These are the things I'm happy about in 2021 so far. Oh yeah, and we should start beating back the whole Covid thing.

9945d634-c9a2-4298-9945-bacd40cb3a49_text_hi.gif

And certainly Sark won’t show up in safety vest and sledge hammer for a phony baloney photo op.  

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