Every year, there is a call that rings out across the 40 Acres for Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian to give up play-calling on the offensive side of the ball.
Every year, Sarkisian answers those calls with a resounding, "no."
However, it has been six years of the Horns falling short of expectations: not making it to nor winning the National Championship.
So, something has to give, because the "tradition of winning" that Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte loves to point back to simply isn't happening on the football field. Yet, how can we expect Sarkisian to finally change when, throughout his entire coaching career, he hasn't?
This refusal to give up play-calling and refusal to give up on specific plays even when they continuously fail (à la the screen pass without a good front blocker or the zone read that never has Arch Manning keeping the ball) harkens all the way back to his days as the head coach at Washington and USC, most notably tanking the Hall of Famer-filled offense of the Atlanta Falcons.
UW, USC, and Atlanta Falcons could have warned Horns about Sarkisian's stubbornness
Just as he has done at Texas, Sarkisian called all of the offensive plays while coaching both the Washington Huskies (2009-13) and the USC Trojans (2014-15). He went a combined 46-35 with those two teams, falling short of expectations for either program.
He saw his first true success at his next gig, working as the offensive coordinator for the Alabama Crimson Tide, but he was also working under the greatest college football coach of all time: Nick Saban. So, you could argue that even your pet hamster would have success as an OC with that head coach leading the charge.
Then he moved up to the NFL in 2017, taking the job as offensive coordinator fo the Atlanta Falcons.
One year before Sarkisian took over offensive play-calling in Atlanta, the Falcons' offense ranked first in the entire league, with a 10.4 power index. One year into Sarkisian's "tenure," the offense's FPI ranked sixth at 4.0 and remained sixth in the NFL during his second and final year with the team.
He had legendary players littering his roster, including Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, and Mohamed Sanu, and simply couldn't do anything with them. Sound familiar?
Atlanta fans to this day can recall Sarkisian's attempt to call screen pass after screen pass, even when they weren't working. They remember the obscure trick plays that weren't necessary and didn't work.
In other words, Sarkisian has been doing this for over a decade, and it continues to fall short of expectations at every level.
Steve Sarkisian must give play-calling to Kyle Flood or find an offensive coordinator he trusts
None of this is to say that Sarkisian didn't bring the Horns back to relevance. Texas was in a dark era after Charlie Strong and Tom Herman's times as head coaches on the 40. However, if the Longhorns want to be a National Championship-winning team, something must change.
A lot of people are calling for Sarkisian to simply hire an OC for the program, but he technically has one (I know, this might make it even more frustrating).
Kyle Flood holds the role of offensive coordinator of the Texas Longhorns, but he's also the offensive line coach and that's pretty much the only responsibility Sarkisian has actually let him have.
So, it really looks like Sarkisian needs to do exactly what he did with his defense last year: fire the current coordinator and hire one he fully and completely trusts. Texas's former DC Pete Kwiatkowski undeniably made the Horns' defense good, but firing him and hiring Will Muschamp was a move to make the defense great.
It may be time to either demote Flood to only being the O-Line coach, or usher him out the door to hire an offensive coordinator that Sarkisian has enough faith in to fully let go of the offensive playbook.
Those are truly the only options I'm seeing at this point, or it may be time to admit Sarkisian simply isn't the National Championship-winning head coach we thought he would be.
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