AUSTIN, Texas — In 2005, Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian was in his first year as the quarterbacks coach for the USC Trojans and faced a challenge — he was preparing for a season-opening matchup against the June Jones-coached Hawai’i Rainbow Warriors.
And while a game between powerhouse USC at its height under head coach Pete Carroll and the small school in the middle of the Pacific wasn’t an even matchup as Colt Brennan made his first start for Hawai’i, the particular challenge that Sarkisian
faced was in preparing for the defense of the Rainbow Warriors, led by first-year coordinator Jerry Glanville.
The one-time Atlanta Falcons head coach had been out of coaching since Jones took over for him after the 1993 season, a significant resume gap.
So Sarkisian went back and watched the Falcons play man-free coverage keyed by star cornerback Deion Sanders behind heavy Bear fronts enabled by secondary’s ability to take away the passing game.
Against USC, Glanville stuck with what he knew.
“That’s exactly what they did,” Sarkisian said in an appearance on The Stampede podcast.
USC’s offense was prepared and took advantage when given the opportunity — the Trojans opened the game with an interception return for a touchdown before spending more than nine minutes on the field defensively on a 16-play drive by the Rainbow Warriors. Late in the first quarter and finally on the field for the first time, the USC offense mounted an efficient touchdown drive and went on to score 49 more points over the final three quarters in a resounding 63-17 victory that produced 518 yards on 8.4 yards per play.
In Saturday’s matchup against the No. 3 Buckeyes in Columbus, Sarkisian is preparing for new Ohio State defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, the longtime New England Patriots defensive coordinator under Bill Belichick who also spent three years as the head coach for the Detroit Lions.
Sarkisian and his offensive staff don’t have to look back more than a decade to find film on Patricia’s defenses, but because Patricia hasn’t coached in college since he was a graduate assistant at Syracuse in 2003, the game preparation task for the Longhorns is an attempt to meld what Patricia did in the NFL with what Jim Knowles did last year with the Buckeyes.
“Yeah, Patriots, Lions, Eagles, their own stuff from a year ago, because, really, he’s the only new face in that room. Their whole defensive staff remained the same, and they had a very good defense a year ago and a lot of continuity on that defensive staff. So you look at a lot of things at the end of the day — it’s a new coordinator, it’s a new play caller, and so you’re gonna have to execute at a high level, probably gonna have to make some in-game adjustments as we go,” Sarkisian said last week.
The previous matchup between Sarkisian and Patricia, a 23-7 loss by the Atlanta Falcons to the New England Patriots in 2017 when Sarkisian was the offensive coordinator for the Falcons and Patricia coordinated the defense for the Patriots, may not provide much value to this week’s game prep because of the heavy fog in Foxborough that night that significantly impacted the game.
Still, the offensive game management decisions by Sarkisian and Atlanta head coach Dan Quinn mystified the beat writer for Patriots.com.
For starters, the Patriots had surrendered 300-yard passers in each of their first six games this season. So, you would have thought Atlanta would have come to Foxborough wanting to throw the football more than they did. Yet, they thought it more judicious to establish the run for much of the contest, predictably on numerous 1st downs.
That wasn’t Falcons head coach Dan Quinn’s only mystifying decision.
Going for it on 4th-and-long not once, but twice, around midfield? Going 5-wide with 15 seconds to go in the first half, from their own 19-yard line, risking a potential disaster?
What were the Falcons thinking? Whatever the rationale, it wasn’t clear (and that had nothing to do with the weather).
The Falcons totaled 353 yards in the game, but went 2-of-9 on third downs, 1-of-3 on fourth downs, and 1-of-4 in the red zone.
“He hired, in my opinion, a head coach for the defense in Matt Patricia, the guy’s been an NFL head coach, been with Bill Belichick, and the idea that he can really be the head coach on the defensive side of the hall, where Coach Day can really focus on the offense,” Sarkisian said. “I think it was a great addition for them. But ultimately, there’s so much new as much as what was old and I think we’ve got to focus on what we need to do and then be adjustable as the game goes on.”
The similarities between Patricia and Knowles include a focus on hybrid schemes with Patricia evolving from the 3-4 defense he ran with the Patriots to using 4-2-5 and 3-3-5 looks with the Buckeyes during the spring.
Where Patricia may differ from Knowles is in taking full advantage of the versatility of defenders like CJ Hicks, a linebacker-turned-defensive end who could play a hybrid role on the edge, safety-turned-linebacker Sonny Styles, and a defensive line athletic enough to run twists.
On the back end, expect Cover 3 and Cover 5 with robber coverages and a versatile role for star safety Caleb Downs, whose ability to play some at the second level could help the Buckeyes disguise coverages.
“He is an unbelievable, amazing player, very versatile,” Patricia said of Downs. “You look at a guy like that and you think, we’re going to be able to do some really fun things with him.”
The key for Patricia is keeping elements of last year’s defense that he likes to ease the installation and simplify his new NFL concepts enough to teach them effectively to college defenders.
“These are the tough ones — you just try to lean into what you believe in and what you’re good at, and then have the ability to hopefully evolve as the game goes predicated on how they’re playing the game,” Sarkisian said.
