The Texas coaching staff has plenty of CFP experience, while Husky coaches have none
One area where the Texas Longhorns have an undeniable advantage over the Washington Huskies ahead of their Sugar Bowl matchup on January 1 is in College Football Playoff experience among head and assistant coaches.
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Steve Sarkisian and members of his staff have 15 games worth of experience in the CFP. Most of those games took place when Sarkisian and fellow former Nick Saban assistants Kyle Flood, Jeff Banks, and Bo Davis were working for the Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa. Others come from appearances with Notre Dame and, ironically, Washington.
Those 15 games of experience from Sarkisian, Flood, Banks, Davis, Pete Kwiatkowski, and Terry Joseph stand in stark contrast to the amount of CFP experience on Kalen DeBoer’s Husky staff. No Washington coach has one game under their belt in college football’s postseason tournament.
Sarkisian himself has coached three games in the CFP. In 2017 after Lane Kiffin left Alabama for the Florida Atlantic job the week of the national championship game, Sarkisian stepped in to be Bama’s offensive coordinator in the CFP final versus Clemson. The Tide fell to the Tigers in that contest, 35-31.
The next two games of CFP experience for Sarkisian would come during the 2020 season when he coordinated a record-setting Alabama offense on the Tide’s way to the 2020 national championship. During that campaign, Flood gained his two games of Playoff experience as the Bama O-line coach. Banks earned his third and fourth CFP games in 2020 after he was part of the Alabama staff that reached the championship game in 2018 but once again fell to Clemson in the finals.
Davis has CFP experience via Alabama, but his came during a different time than the other former Saban assistants on staff. Davis was the defensive line coach in 2014 for the team that lost to Ohio State in the semifinals and in 2015 when Alabama won its first CFP title.
The remaining three games of Playoff experience come via Joseph and Kwiatkowski. Joseph was on Brian Kelly’s Notre Dame staff when the Fighting Irish were one-and-done entrants in the 2018 and 2020 Playoffs. Kwiatkowski was Chris Petersen’s defensive coordinator in 2016 when the Huskies made their first appearance in the CFP.
Those 15 games are 15 more than the Husky staff has. Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer, whose career began in the Dakotas before he enjoyed success at Fresno State, has never coached in the Playoff. Many of his current assistants, including offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb and defensive coordinator Chuck Morrell, have been with DeBoer during his head coaching stops at Sioux Falls and Fresno State.
The lack of coaching experience on the Washington staff doesn’t detract from how much success the Huskies have had over the last two seasons under DeBoer.
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But it is an area in the upcoming matchup where Texas has a decided edge, and any small advantage could make a big difference in the battle for a spot in the national championship game.
