Talk of the Tide: Looking Back on Steve Sarkisian's Time With Alabama

Imagine being thrust into an on-field coaching role just days before the national championship game with a true freshman signal caller and still dropping 31 points and almost 400 yards of total offense.

That's what Steve Sarkisian did as the University of Alabama's offensive coordinator for the 2017 College Football Playoff title contest against Clemson after Lane Kiffin left for the Florida Atlanta job.

However, Alabama lost in the final seconds that day to the Tigers, 35-31. One could argue it was the Crimson Tide was a Bo-Scarborugh injury or offensive pass-interference call away from winning.

Still, what Sarkisian did that night in Tampa was only a glimpse of what was to come it just took a couple years later to come to fruition.

Sarkisian would go on to take the Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator job and be with the team for two seasons (2017-2018), helping guide a unit that top ten in the league in passing offense and scoring.

After a tough decision to be let go by then, head coach Dan Quinn, Sarkisian found himself jobless until coach Nick Saban gave him a call and the two were re-united as he took the Crimson Tide's offensive coordinator position in January of 2019.

Fast forward two years and Sarkisian is in the middle of final game-week with Alabama after taking the Texas head-coaching gig, preparing for the Ohio State Buckeyes in the 2021 CFP National Championship Game.

He has given fans two seasons marked by offensive explosions that have produced the No. 5 overall pick in the 2020 NFL draft in quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and the 2020 Heisman Trophy winner, wide receiver DeVonta Smith.

Literally, the 2019 and 2020 seasons under Sarkisian have showcased the best offenses in school history.

Starting with 2019, the Crimson Tide averaged 47.2 points per game (a school record) and averaged 510 total yards (second in Alabama history) in 13 games. Tagovailoa and Mac Jones threw for a school-record 49 touchdowns, while averaging 342 yards through the air, another school record.

Tagovailoa's and Jones' combined passer efficiency rating of 199.61 is third-highest in NCAA history.

Along with Tagovailoa, there were three other first-round picks from the offensive unit, including offensive tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. and wide outs Henry Ruggs III and Jerry Jeudy.

Now in 2020, led full-time by Jones, those records have been shattered.

Before the final contest of the year against the Buckeyes, the Crimson Tide has piled up 535 yards per game, 48.17 points a game, and 350 passing yards each time out. All three of those are currently school records.

Not to mention, Smith's output which was 105 catches for 1,641 yards and 20 touchdowns on his way to becoming the first pass catcher in nearly 30 years to win college football's most prestigious honor.

Sarkisian even won the 2020 Broyles Award, which recognizes the best assistant in college football.

Because of the success with Alabama, Sarkisian finds himself back in the limelight. All eyes are on him and what he can accomplish in Austin with the Longhorns.

He definitely isn't the same Sarkisian that arrived in Tuscaloosa after being fired due to personal issues that marred his image at Southern California.

The 46-year old been restored in the coaching world and has a chance to become, maybe, the best rehabilitation-project of the Nick Saban era.

Though his time at the Capstone was short-lived, his offensive genius will be remembered forever.

"I think it's a two-way street," Sarkisian told the media on Wednesday. "Clearly Coach Saban offers guys like myself an opportunity to come into his program, learn, develop as coaches, but I think it's a two-way street in that I think when you come in like a guy like myself, I think you need to come in understanding what your role is. I think you need to come in -- I don't want to call it necessarily humble, but I do think there's a piece of humility that has to come into this. This is the greatest college football coach of all time, and recognize the space that you're in, regardless if you'd been a head coach for seven years, and there's been a variety of us that have come and gone through here. But he's a tremendous mentor, and if you allow yourself to be mentored, I think you gain even more out of this experience.

"That's all I tried to do in my time here, whether it was my year here in 2016 as an analyst or the past two seasons as the offensive coordinator, is, one, coach the kids and do the best job I could do coaching the kids, but, two, really try to be a sponge with him and why he goes about what he does, some of the decisions he makes, so that if you ever get the opportunity like I'm getting now that hopefully you can take some of these things with you to be a better coach down the road."

Bama Central's Tyler Martin breaks it all down in this week's Talk of the Tide.