TAMPA -- It's not just that there is no precedent in major American sports for the decision by Alabama head coach Nick Saban to elevate Steve Sarkisian from back-of-the-shop analyst to front-of-the-sideline offensive coordinator one week before the national championship. It's also that Saban hasn't been excoriated for the extraordinary timing of such a personnel change.
Two things: One, when you win five national championships in the past 13 years, you get the benefit of the doubt. And two, for all the pains that Alabama and the departed Lane Kiffin took to paint this as a mutual decision, when did Saban ever make a mutual decision? The Crimson Tide org chart, like a river, flows in one direction.
That's why Sarkisian, and not his longtime buddy Kiffin, will be calling plays for the No. 1 Crimson Tide on Monday night against No. 2 Clemson in the College Football Playoff National Championship Presented by AT&T (Monday, 8 p.m. ET on ESPN). Sarkisian hasn't called a play since the 2014 Holiday Bowl, when his USC Trojans outscored Nebraska, 45-42. The next season, Sarkisian handed playcalling duties to offensive coordinator Clay Helton, and five tumultuous games later, Sarkisian was fired.
He spent an hour Saturday at Amalie Arena answering questions about his new gig and deflecting the ones about his battle with alcohol "for another time." Sarkisian spoke with the confidence and unruffled affability that has always defined him.
"I don't think I could have foreseen four months ago when I was contemplating doing TV [that I would] get into this situation," Sarkisian said.
There is so much to consider. Since Saban hired him as an analyst early in the season -- Saban said Saturday he purposely waited until after Alabama opened the season against the Trojans -- Sarkisian has been allowed in coaches' meetings but not allowed to work with players. He made suggestions, not decisions.
Monday night, he must make decisions. Having unscripted periods in practice this week helped him flex those muscles, Sarkisian said. As for the past four months, "I've been on the headset," Sarkisian said. "I've heard the rhythm of the offense and how the substitution patterns go and those types of things. There are going to be some moments. I'm not naïve. We're going to have a couple of glitches. But how we respond to those glitches is going to be key."
He isn't Kiffin, who for all his quirks and drama led the Tide offense to unprecedented success over the past three seasons. They ran the USC offense in tandem for Pete Carroll in 2005 and 2006, with Kiffin as offensive coordinator and Sarkisian as assistant head coach and quarterback coach.
What will be interesting as Sark calls the plays on Monday night is whether the difference in the Crimson Tide offense must be measured by a microscope or a first-down chain. He said he will not try to call the game as Kiffin would call it.
"I have to call them the way I would call them, because if not, it just wouldn't fit right," Sarkisian said. "It wouldn't do right. It wouldn't be in the flow of the game. ... Ultimately, I have to call what I feel. I can't try to call it the way somebody else would. It would never come off right."
It is logical and also true that every playcaller has "a signature kind of DNA," as Helton, now the USC head coach, put it. Helton someday will be the answer to the ultimate Kiffin-Sark trivia question -- name the interim head coach who finished Kiffin's last season at USC in 2013, and Sarkisian's last season at USC two years later.
"I'll be honest with you," Helton said on the phone Friday. "I've been around the game 21 years. And two of the best offensive coaches I've ever been associated with in my life are Coach Kiff and Coach Sark. I learned more football in my time at USC from those two men than maybe my 15 years previous to that. They are absolutely brilliant when it comes [to] the offensive game, from game-planning to playcalling."
Asked about Sarkisian, Helton made several references to "Coach Kiff and Coach Sark," as if they were two horses out of the same stable, if that stable were equipped with a whiteboard and two Sharpies.
"A lot of guys have to wait all the way until halftime to get the information and be able to diagnose it and change," Helton said. "Those two guys, you know, they change not only within series, post-series, but sometimes in the middle of the play. I watched both of them. I know you've heard Coach Kiff whistle [when he wants to change a play]? Sark's the same way. He's like, 'Hey!' and all of a sudden he will signal a receiver route within the play call from slant to slant and go. Both those guys have the innate ability to be able to adjust really fast in games."
Former Oregon defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti went 7-4 against Kiffin and Sarkisian in their various iterations as offensive coordinators or head coaches at USC and Washington from 2005-13.
"Although they are different personalities, they are very similar guys as far as their offensive mindset and playcalling," Aliotti said. "I really see this as a very smooth transition. I really do."
Aliotti recalled Sarkisian loving to put a wide receiver in motion right to left and then throwing the ball to him quickly on the opposite side of the field. But Aliotti cautioned that at this point, Sarkisian's favorite plays aren't as important as quarterback Jalen Hurts' favorite plays.
"I just don't know how much Coach Saban is going to let him change," Aliotti said. "They kind of want to not screw it up on offense, is the way I see Alabama's offense for so long, and win it on defense and win it running the ball and being physical. So I don't see a lot of wrinkles."
Saban obviously learned enough about Sarkisian in the past four months to feel comfortable hitting the eject button on Kiffin.
"Sark has done this for a long time, and he's called plays for a long time," Saban said Saturday. "He's got a lot of experience; he's got a lot of knowledge. I think he's very well-organized in his approach."
On Monday night, Sarkisian will reveal just how closely he has paid attention to the Crimson Tide this season.
"How well does he know those guys?" asked Stanford defensive coordinator Lance Anderson, whose Cardinal defense held Sarkisian's USC offense to a season low in a 13-10 Trojan victory. "How well does he know what they're good at? In his mind, has he gone through that stuff this year? I know a lot of people do. I know before I was a coordinator, a lot of times, you have that in your mind. 'Boy, if I did this, this is something I would [do].'... I know the more he's thought that way, the easier it's going to be."
Sarkisian began his job as analyst hoping to learn. He learned from Saban. He got to experience SEC pageantry for the first time at Ole Miss, Tennessee, and, of course, Alabama. He begins his new job as offensive coordinator with the chance of winning a third national championship, adding to USC in 2003, when the Trojans shared the national title with Saban's LSU Tigers, and in 2004.
As unprecedented as Saban's decision is, Sarkisian described it as totally within the head coach's character. Saban is not as conservative as the image of a defensive-minded coach would suggest.
"Actually, he is an aggressive-mannered coach," Sarkisian said. "He'll do things aggressively. He likes to play the game aggressively. He likes to coach aggressively. I think this is just another example of that. However all this played out at the end of the day, he was willing to go with this move. He entrusted in me the faith ... to go do it, and like I said, I'm humbled. I'm honored that he did."