Steve Sarkisian Reveals Biggest Takeaways From Coaching Under Nick Saban

First-year Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian brings more than just experience to Austin. Formerly the main man at both USC and the University of Washington, “Sark” brings with him a wealth of knowledge from the book of Saban – as in Nick Saban, head coach of seven national championship teams.

Earlier this week, Sark rattled off some of the most important things he learned under Saban’s tutelage at Alabama. Telling CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd: “What I learned for myself was to get the trust, and the stamp of approval from him was almost like the last piece of the puzzle for me. He entrusted me to call the game very aggressively. He entrusted me to put our players in a place to be successful. Ultimately, he entrusted to me when he couldn’t be there. I could be the head football coach for a game.”

Sarkisian had two stints on the Crimson Tide coaching staff, a lone season in 2016 and then a two-year stay beginning in 2019 that culminated with the 2020 national championship.

A former quarterback at BYU, Sark is thankful he got to make a second stop in Tuscaloosa: “I didn’t know enough of the ‘whys,'” Coach Sarkisian told Dodd. “I knew what Coach Saban was doing. I knew how he did it. I didn’t know why he did what he did. I just said, ‘I have a chance to go back to Alabama to get the finishing touches on my career, which is to be a head coach again.’

The new Longhorns coach also gained a better of understanding of who Saban is when he’s not between the white lines: “I got to know him beyond the straw hat, beyond the polo on the sidelines, beyond the press conferences,” said Sarkisian, per Dodd. “He’s an amazing man. He’s probably one of the more compassionate human beings I’ve ever been associated with. This is not something most people describe him as.”

Sark, 47, and his Longhorns will have an opportunity to get reacquainted with Saban and the Tide in the not-too-distant future. The schools have a home-and-home series scheduled for the 2022 and 2023 seasons. The 2022 meeting in Austin will mark the first time the schools will face off since the 2010 National Championship, which Bama won 37-21.