Sarkisian works on new staff’s mix
Holdovers to fill RB, WR jobs
AUSTIN — For the past couple weeks, Steve Sarkisian has been pulling double duty as Alabama’s offensive coordinator and Texas’ head coach. It’s a tricky tightrope to walk, especially while preparing for Monday’s College Football Playoff national championship game versus No. 3 Ohio State at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla.
While planning ways to confound and defeat the Buckeyes, Sarkisian also has been scouring the FBS ranks for assistants to fill out his Texas staff. At least one holdover from coach Tom Herman’s regime, running backs coach Stan Drayton, isn’t going anywhere, which is good news considering he’s forged a strong relationship with breakout star Bijan Robinson, sophomore Roschon Johnson and incoming freshman Jonathon Brooks.
Wide receiver coach Andre Coleman also appears to be staying put one year after being elevated from an analyst role. “Andre is going to stay with the wideouts,” Sarkisian told the Austin American-statesman.
However, offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich is out after one
season. He's now poised to lead Penn State's offense, replacing the fired Kirk Ciarrocca.
Sarkisian on Sunday told the Austin American-statesman he would call his own plays, though fellow Crimson Tide coach Kyle Flood is expected to hold the official tittle of offensive coordinator.
Unlike Yurcich, Chris Ash's fate remains in limbo. 247Sports reported Ash is in contention to take over as Florida's safeties coach. And Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer reported Ash could join Urban Meyer in the NFL should Meyer leave behind Fox Sports to coach the Jacksonville Jaguars.
“Friday night's meeting in Florida was not the first between the team and Meyer, and communication has been ongoing for over a month,” Breer wrote. “Yes, some of Meyer's old coaching friends — ex-texas coach Charlie
Strong, ex-rutgers coach Chris Ash and current Colorado State coach Steve Addazio were among the names I'd heard connected to the ex-florida and Ohio State coach and Jacksonville over the last couple of weeks — are in the mix.”
But Sarkisian could opt to retain Ash, who last year signed a three-year, $2.4 million contract.
In Big 12 play last season Texas ranked eighth in scoring defense (32.4), eighth in total defense (431.9) and last in pass defense (284.8), though it went out with a bang by limiting Colorado to 378 yards and forcing three turnovers in a 55-23 Alamo Bowl win.
Another candidate Sarkisian could consider is Mississippi State defensive coordinator Zach Arnett.
For the offensive line, Sarkisian is expected to bring fellow Alabama assistant Kyle Flood to Austin, according to multiple reports.
Flood would replace Herb Hand and inherit an exciting offensive line that started two true freshman and one redshirt freshman in the Longhorns' Alamo Bowl rout of Colorado. Flood, 49, served as Rutgers' head coach from 2012-15 then spent two years as the Atlanta Falcons' offensive line coach (2017-18) before joining Alabama in 2019.
Flood could also hold the offensive coordinator tag, though as noted Sarkisian is intent on handling play-calling duties.
Though A.J. Milwee accepted a job as Arkansas State's offensive coordinator prior to Sarkisian's hiring, the current Alabama offensive analyst is expected to join the Longhorns as quarterbacks coach.
During Milwee's time as Akron's offensive coordinator (201318), the Zips won their first ever bowl (2015 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl) and made their third and most recent bowl appearance in the 2017 Boca Raton Bowl.
Milwee will get a chance to oversee what should be an intense quarterback battle between Alamo Bowl breakout performer
Casey Thompson and talented freshman Hudson Card.
Mississippi special teams coordinator Blake Gideon was linked to a role as either the Texas safeties coach or specials teams coordinator by Footballscoop and Horns247 last week. His hiring would represent a homecoming for the Texas-ex.
Gideon, 31, rose from an unheralded recruit to start 52 consecutive games at safety from 2008-11, the second most all-time by a Longhorn. He's had coaching stints at South Carolina, Western Carolina, Georgia State, Houston and Ole Miss.
The Leander native has deep in-state roots, a critical component for Sarkisian, a Californian who doesn't yet have an imprint on Texas. But Gideon could help him make inroads with high school coaches across the nation's most fertile and contentious recruiting ground.