Steve Sarkisian Looking More Like Lane Kiffin 2.0 After Ominous Washington Loss

LOS ANGELES — Misery loves company, and Thursday night at the Coliseum, there was plenty of the former, even if there was not much of the latter.

The few USC fans who even bothered to show up to witness a lifeless 17-12 loss to Washington didn’t break a sweat fretting about beating the rush to get onto the 110 Freeway after the game. Why would they? 

There are only a handful of people they can talk to about their frustrations with the Trojans in the car. At least hanging out in the stands, after seeing an ill-advised field goal doink off the upright in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter—a perfect metaphor for the night—would allow them to vent in unison.

“How embarrassing is that?” one cardinal-and-gold-clad fan shouted.

“This is pathetic,” another lamented.

“Four million-plus for this? What the…” and you can probably guess the line of expletives that followed from another USC fan, the confused little Trojans fans a row away be damned.

This is the state of Troy in 2015.

This is where the fanbase is after USC dropped its second consecutive home game in a season for the first time since 2001. That was Pete Carroll’s first season, and it’s looking increasingly likely that his two former assistants who have taken over as head coach since his return to the NFL—Lane Kiffin and now Steve Sarkisian—will fall flat once again in re-creating the Hollywood dynasty that once ruled the West Coast.

Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

“At the end of the day, we didn’t play well enough, and we didn’t coach well enough. That’s the bottom line,” Sarkisian said after the game. “This one at the end of the day is on me. We didn’t coach well enough. We didn’t execute well enough. We didn’t manage the game well enough.”

Lane Kiffin 2.0 is turning out to be…well, Lane Kiffin 2.0. Who could have seen that coming? Everybody but USC athletic director Pat Haden it seems. It’s quite fitting that through their first 18 games, both Kiffin and Sarkisian hold the same record: 12-6. 

At least Kiffin won 10 games in his second season. Given their performance earlier this season against Stanford and Thursday against Washington, that seems quite far-fetched for the Trojans this year despite what most consider to be the Pac-12’s best talent.

Sarkisian showed some promise in overhauling and turning around a moribund Washington program before his return to Troy, but he still drew plenty of ire from Huskies fans for his inability to turn the corner in Seattle.

Those same fans, making the trip down merely hoping to be competitive with one of the country’s youngest rosters, reveled in this one. Most of those who bleed purple thought they got an early Christmas present when Sarkisian’s departure allowed the program to finally lure Chris Petersen out of Boise State.

On Thursday, they were doubly sure of it.

“We really haven’t had one where we felt really, really good about, even last year,” Petersen said. “This one is one [the team] can feel good about.”

The Trojans were outplayed in the lackluster loss, but they were more acutely outcoached.

Players afterward noted they had a quality week-plus of practices coming off a bye and felt prepared for what they were going to see out of Washington. When the lights came on and the pressure started to mount, however, the answers on the sidelines were simply not there.

Sarkisian and offensive coordinator Clay Helton failed to stick with an effective running game despite the fact that quarterback Cody Kessler could barely get a pass off behind a patchwork offensive line. Starting tailback Tre Madden averaged nearly 7.1 yards per carry on his way to a 120-yard night.

Freshman Ronald Jones II looked to be the second coming of Reggie Bush with 39 yards on three carries to cap the team's only touchdown drive, but he managed just five other carries on the night.

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As if that were not bad enough, Sarkisian elected to attempt a 46-yard field goal down five points with just under four minutes left in the game. As USC held just one timeout, Washington only needed to pick up one first down to salt the game away.

It did just that and may have sealed Sarkisian’s fate for many in the USC fanbase at the same time.

“I hate to admit to confusion. I’m frustrated, that’s a better word, I’m frustrated because I believe in this team,” the head coach said. “When you have an opportunity to seize a moment and gain momentum…and when you don’t do that, it’s frustrating to me. That’s the puzzle I have to put together to make sure we can do that moving forward.”

How long will he have to do that, though?  

Haden hired Sarkisian in part because he was the anti-Kiffin. The Southern California native grew up around the program, is a good recruiter and, in sharp contrast to his predecessor, knows how to deal with the media in Los Angeles like the best of them. His issues in turning the corner with a program, many said, wouldn’t be an issue at USC with much more talent on the field.

Sarkisian may not be fired at the airport this season (as Kiffin was), but it looks increasingly like he’ll still meet the same fate as his good friend and former colleague. That the two coaches’ records are the same through their first 18 games isn’t eerie but indicative. 

It has become clear that the hire of Sarkisian looks like another misstep for Haden, but one has to wonder if he learned his lesson of keeping a bad coach around too long the first time around.

The former Trojans quarterback and Rhodes scholar inherited Kiffin when he took over at Heritage Hall, after all, but still saw giving a second chance to his embattled head coach backfire after USC fell from preseason No. 1 to a lifeless 7-6 in 2012.

That end result was an infamous early-morning firing at LAX.

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Haden has signed up for several more years as the Trojans athletic director, but even the USC alumnus won’t be able to afford much patience to see what Sarkisian can do with the program in the middle of another lost season for this year’s pick to win the Pac-12.

When asked afterward if he was coaching for his job the rest of this season, Sark was blunt.

“Not at all.”

It was one of the few assertive answers to emerge out of the locker room Thursday night, but at this point, he is being quite wishful.

The state of Troy is plenty miserable at the moment.

At least Sarkisian and his staff may have some company at the end of the line.

You can follow Bryan Fischer on Twitter at @BryanDFischer.