He proved it with a shocking move Monday – one that no one could have seen coming a week ago – when he hired former USC head coach Steve Sarkisian as an offensive analyst for the Crimson Tide’s football staff.
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The title of “Nick Saban’s starting quarterback at Alabama” is an odd one.
Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin has answered the question of whether Saturday’s game between his new team (Alabama) and his old team (USC) was personal for him.
According to USA Today, Sarkisian was sacked from USC last October by athletic director Pat Haden.
USC started quarterback Max Browne, but pulled him in favor of Sam Arnold when the game got out of hand.
“When they started doing the book in college and figured out that low outside slider, I’d hit a weak ground ball to second base”.
A 39-yard touchdown strike from Hurts to ArDarius Stewart midway through the second quarter put Alabama on the board and also opened the floodgates.
Houston’s Tom Herman, the most desired coach in college football -yet a coach the Trojans had no remote interest in last winter- beat No. 3 Oklahoma. They finished last season 8-6 and Clay Helton, after taking over for Steve Sarkisian with seven games left, will begin his first full year as a collegiate head coach.
The score, which came on a third-and-13 play when Hurts rolled to his right and then unleashed a long throw from midfield, extended Alabama’s first half scoring streak to 119 games, the longest such streak in the country. “If we can do that and create a few mistakes by them, and maybe they screw a few things up here and there, you never know what can happen”. “What do we need to do to get better?'”
The dual-threat dash brings the zone-read to Alabama’s offense, and Hurts settled in nicely Saturday night in a rousing 52-6 win. However, ‘Bama coach Nick Saban wasn’t pleased. “We scored a lot of points, made a lot of big plays, but still our consistency in execution needs to be much improved”.
“If you want to know the truth about it, I wasn’t pleased with the way we played”, Saban said.
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ALABAMA: The Crimson Tide play their home opener next week against defending C-USA champion Western Kentucky, a week before their SEC opener at No. 11 Ole Miss. “So he said something, and Eddie said ‘Hey man, this is not what we do, we don’t talk to the other team.’ And Ronnie got all upset, not necessarily at Eddie, he was just emotionally upset about the trash talking and Eddie saying something to him”. Anthony Wales and Quinton Baker handled the rushing duties gaining 58 and 42 yards respectively and Nicholas Norris was the top receiver with 7 catches and two touchdowns and Taywan Taylor and Nacarius Fant each had five catches. Hurts stayed in until late in the third quarter when he was replaced by Barnett.
