Family Get-Togethers Used to Be So Much Easier for the Sirmons
Justin Wilcox and Peter Sirmon can thumb through their well-worn University of Washington playbooks from 2012 and 2013, when they were Steve Sarkisian assistant coaches, and see if anything at all still resonates.
They can pull out game film from the Cal-UW pairings of the past two seasons — pulsating Bears' 2- and 1-point victories — and look for any lingering and telltale clues.
Otherwise, they approach their upcoming season opener in Berkeley against the Huskies in great wonderment.
Who will be the UW starting quarterback?
What will John Donovan's new offense look like?
"We know they're going to be very talented and very well coached," Wilcox said. "Who's out there and the formations in place, there is the unknown there."
Wilcox enters his fourth season as the head man at Cal, his sixth different school in 20 seasons of coaching.
As Oregon football teammates in 1996-99 — Wilcox was a safety, Sirmon a linebacker — one might think these two have always been somewhat detached from the UW, maybe biting their lips when they pulled Montlake paychecks.
However, Sirmon the coach has game distractions on Nov. 7 unlike anyone else.
His son Jackson likely takes the field as a Husky starting inside linebacker that night.
His nephew Jacob hasn't been ruled out of the four-player UW quarterback competition.
"It goes without saying I'm pretty interested in it, for my work life and my personal life," Sirmon said of the UW QB competition to CalSports Sports Illustrated. "Got a good bead on trying to follow on what's going on. Unfortunately, Jacob is my brother's son, so when we do talk, that's off limits. If football is off limits when I talk to my brother, the conversation is usually pretty short."
That brother he references is David Sirmon, a UW business professor and a former Montana linebacker.
To have all Sirmons deeply engaged in the opener, the quarterback likely will need to beat out or at least sub in for Sacramento State transfer Kevin Thomson, who appears to have become the leader for the job.
"I'm rooting for him because I love him," Peter Sirmon said of Jacob, a 6-foot-5, 240-pound sophomore. "And I'm interested in who's going to play, so when the Cal Bears play our best football and give our team an opportunity to win."
Coach Sirmon expects to have to make immediate adjustments once they see what and who the Huskies have to offer at quarterback.
"This is as unique of a preparation that I've ever been part of," the Bears defensive coordinator said. "I mean, there's no spring ball. There's no media there. There's nothing. I'm watching film from, good gracious, years back that we've gone to to try to get a bead on what might happen or what could happen."
Maybe he should check and see if they have any footage from past Sirmon family get-togethers.
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