Dear Coach Sarkisian,
Greetings. I hope you are enjoying the dreary weather in rainy Seattle. We had a good dose of gentle Pacific showers all day today in Pasadena. I am sure your hard work and moderate success with rebuilding the Washington Huskies football program has distracted you from such petty nuisances as the local climate.
Allow me to get right to the point; we miss you in Los Angeles. We Trojans have many fond memories of your days as Pete Carroll's QB coach and Assistant Head Coach, when you drew up plays for Matt Leinart and Mark Sanchez that lit up the scoreboard. Your departure in 2008 that saw you and Defensive Coordinator Nick Holt leave for the University of Washington marked the decline of the Pete Carroll era at USC. We wished you well and knew the Huskies were in good hands. Your enthusiasm and innovation has been rewarded in Seattle, where you took a 0-12 Huskies team and went 5 - 7 your first year. Now, you have them on pace for a nine-win season only 4 years later.
As you are well aware, your "partner in crime" on offense during the Carroll days, Lane Kiffen, has been USC's head coach for the last 3 years. Since you worked so closely with Lane, you understand what drives him. You will recall, in a heedless attempt to achieve his career goal of a head coaching job, he enthusiastically pursued every available opening. He even accepted the disastrous Oakland Raiders position that you wisely declined. It was clear to us that you were patiently waiting for the most ideal opportunity while Lane was ready for anything that moved him up the coaching ladder.
The next year, when you were hired at Washington, Lane was fired by the Raiders and landed in Tennessee. His ability to recruit both players and coaches (including the impressive addition of his father, Monte, the genius behind the Tampa 2 defense) was well on display. But his ethics, first publicly questioned by the late Al Davis in being labeled a "liar" on his way out the door in Oakland, became more problematic in his stint with the Volunteers. He antagonized other coaches and repeatedly made minor, yet technically illegal, recruiting violations.
Tempers that were flared by Lane's antics in Knoxville became enraged just a year later when he bolted for USC to replace Pete Carroll. You certainly must respect the level of cajones Lane showed by leaving Tennessee so soon and stepping into a program facing a then-unprecedented volume of NCAA sanctions. USC AD Pat Haden later described how Lane came to him with a entire notebook filled with his 5 year plan to weather the sanctions. And, remarkably, his plan seemed to be working as USC continued to recruit the best players and managed to separate the bowl ban from the scholarship reductions, effectively halving the impact of the sanctions on the long term success of the program. Alumni dollars followed and the seats the Coliseum remained (mostly) full.
Lane is a remarkable recruiter. And his long term plan for the Trojans is impressive in execution. But aside from his ethics, there is another aspect of his coaching that was never stellar: his sideline coaching. Obsessed with his charts and percentages, Lane spends every moment of the game buried in a giant laminated play card. He remains so disconnected from the game rhythms and his player's emotions. Furthermore, his play calling is questionable at best. When he left for the Raiders and you moved from Quarterbacks coach to Offensive Coordinator, we could see the Trojan offense act more dynamic and more innovative. Under Lane Kiffen, USC looks predictable, slow, and static.
The continued ethical problems this year push us towards a change. Not letting our former hero and your Mentor Norm Chow walk the field before the Hawaii game? Disguising the kicker as another player against Colorado? He condones a culture of poor decisions; How else to explain how a graduate assistant believed it might be ok to let the air out of the footballs when they we played Oregon?
This year began with such promise. The degree of failure of this team is literally historic (only 4 teams in history started the season number 1 and lost 4 or more games). We are ready for a change.
Please come back to your hometown of Los Angeles. You are ready to take the next step in your career and show the world what your ingenuity, charisma, and dedication can do with the pool of talent in the coliseum. The Pete Carroll glory days would return.
Signed,
The Trojan Family.
Fight on,
Hans
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