I don't think we ran him out of town, though he is no dummy as he was aware of the increased scrutiny on him as the season was about to start. They did well until losing to Stanford. They could have beaten Stanford as they dominated both offensively and defensively. Unfortunately, they played undisciplined with sloppy special teams and a lot of penalties, which I believe made a difference in the outcome. They hung with Oregon until the mid-3rd quarter, then fell apart. Coming off of these two critical conference losses, they went on the road to ASU with little motivation.
The drums then started to beat for his firing after those 3 losses and he did what he could to bring the team back on a winning track. He has a chance to succeed at USC for the following reasons:
1-good recruiter
2-good evaluator of talent
3-good communicator with ability to connect with his players
4-great school with world-class reputation
5-he will be happy to be working and living at home in SoCal, where his heart has always been and family nearby
Some of the reasons for marginal success over the last 5 years at UW:
1-just an okay play-caller and game-manager / Norm Chow in my opinion did better as USC offensive coordinator
2-very undisciplined players, especially after going to the up-tempo offense / No. 3 most penalized team in FBS with 100 flags for a total of 908 yards; that's 9 football fields given up to opponents this year:
http://espn.go.com/college-football/statistics/team/_/stat/downs/sort/totalPenalties
3-defense underperformed during his first 3 years
4-was loyal to a fault to senior QB Keith Price this year even though Cyler Miles was clearly better than Price--ironically, I believe his loyalty to Keith almost cost him the USC job as Keith started in the Apple Cup and nearly lost that game with his poor performance; I believe if UW lost that game, Pat Haden doesn't hire Sark.
5-lastly, Sark's ego is larger than the Coliseum--it would surprise me if he gives up the offensive play-calling and upon his departure he stated publicly that the next UW coach will be able to reap the benefits of his hard work (forget the blood, sweat and tears from his players)
Good luck to USC (except for when they play UW). I like USC, storied college football history and great school, but it won't surprise me if Sark ends up going the same way as his buddy, Kiffin.
