Steve Sarkisian opened up about his personal life, his coaching journey, and offered some valuable perspective during an interview with The Pivot hosted by former NFL stars Channing Crowder, Ryan Clark and Fred Taylor that was released yesterday.
The portion of the interview that has gotten a lot of attention the past 24 hours is the part where Sarkisian shares that Nick Saban saved his coaching career during a point where he couldn't get an interview after being fired at USC.
"Somewhere in there, someone has to extend an olive branch to you. In 2016, I was ready to go do TV, I couldn't even get an interview for a job, and Nick Saban saved my career."
That job was an analyst gig that payed $30k, and Sark shares he was willing to do it for free, but Saban insisted on the minimum salary so that he could also get benefits.
"I am forever indebted to him, because at some point in life we all need a second chance, and it totally changed my perspective on how I coach, how I deal with our players because everybody is going through stuff, you just have to find a way to get through it. So I can be the one to extend that olive branch to our players as we go through this journey."
Sark also admits that leaving Washington to take over at USC was one of the biggest mistakes of his coaching career, sharing that he had his sights set too far on the future, and not what he and his staff were building at Washington as the Huskies made the College Football Playoff two years after he left under Chris Petersen.
While all of that is great perspective, it is how Sark answered a question about why it is so hard for College Hall of Fame caliber coaches to find success in the NFL.
During his long-winded answer, Sark offered an interesting nugget on the mindset of players anytime a coach is talking to a player, and I found the insight really interesting.
"Anytime you speak to anybody, whether it's in a room, or it's this interview, or it could be talking to a team, or in a position meeting, every time somebody speaks everybody is asking themselves a few questions."
Sark then lays out those three questions that get asked on a subconscious level.
"A) Do you know what you're talking about? B) have you ever coached anybody like me? And C) have you ever done this before?"
"If the answers are 'no, no, no,' you might as well just reject everything the guy is saying already, and you might as well just leave because you're going to reject it anyway."
"But if there is a 'yes' in there, you start to accept some of the messaging or the fundamentals, or the techniques that are being presented to you."
Hear Sark's full comments below.