Not to belabor this (I've written this in a previous post and it'll echo what we presume to be true and common sense) but Herman was fired for multiple reasons and how he handled the EOT among them. It's in the basket with how donors and some parents felt they were treated, the fact that the high school coaches hated him, multiple occasions of drinking to excess during or before university activities, including while on recruiting visits. Literally the only stakeholders resistant to a change were blushing at the buyout cost and the volatility of another coaching switch and not because they held faith that Herman would turn it around.
It's something of a credit to the decision makers that they didn't wait until the wheels REALLY fell off or based a decision on the bowl game to make the change.
I still like Herman's embrace of data and Sarkisian will have a much easier road to success as a result of Herman's tenure (at least in terms of updating operations in the football admin to more resemble the Ohio State/Alabama professionalized approach, PWO program, analyst bullpen for fired coaches, etc.). Sterns is likely to join the list of players who will be very public about their negative experience on campus rather than all of the positives available to a football player. Hopefully over time the attention paid to him is dwarfed by more positive stories and on the field success.