Steve Sarkisian's Resurgence, And Carolina's 2024 Draft

[Fletch59]

Steve Sarkisian's post-Shanahan Falcons showed some downturn.  Dan Quinn's Super Bowl team clearly relied heavily on Kyle Shanahan, who I resented a bit for his leaving the Browns (not that it's my business, but given they drafted Johnny Manziel and that there was friction with Mike Pettine, fair enough;by the way, that 2014 Browns team also came with another name to put a pin in, current South Carolina OC Dowell Loggains). 
Shanahan used the Falcons' season to springboard to the next thing.  Atlanta picked up Steve Sarkisian, who had rumors of alcoholism after being fired from USC (where he had, prior, been a big part of the pre-Seahawks Pete Carroll USC regime - he has similar ties to, but no overlap with, Dave Canales; Canales showed up in 2009 at USC, after Sark left). 
Sark's Falcons regressed back to the mean, and he was let go after two years, yet he kept the passing O up.  It was the run offense that, at the time, failed as they shied away from Devonta Freeman for Tevin Campbell.    He was around Alabama in 2019-2020, the second of which included a freshman Bryce Young, so inevitably there's overlap and recruiting happening.  But by 2021, with a brand new ring, he's earned Texas, and he's landed recruits that include Ja'Tavion Sanders and Jonathon Brooks.  You may have heard of them here. 
I paid some attention to Texas specifically in 2022 as they'd added Brennan Marion, a coach I personally have an eye on, along with Brooks' position coach, Tashard Choice (who himself was a back I thought was underrated and, maybe a little unlucky, coming up at Oklahoma and losing a post-redshirt starting job to some guy named Adrian Peterson).  
But Sarkisian's 2023 really amped up with our two future Panthers' draftees returning along with Xavier Worthy, and the odd adition of Adonai Mitchell from UGA.  Also included some kid named Arch Manning showing up, so the hype is only beginning.  Paul Chryst and Joe DeCamillis being added, really added some oomph.  Marion went on to be OC of UNLV. 
So what does Sarkisian run?   And why is it seemingly a linchpin of what Carolina also likes to do?   By no means, is the Lane Kiffin/Sarkisian WCO from 20 years ago the gold standard, but over time he's evolved.   By 2020, his Alabama stuff included RPO heavy concepts, noting "we're an RPO team that runs the football. If you ... let us run the ball, we will continue to run the ball." Noting, if you want to take away the run, then you throw.   It sounds familiar to the intent of Canales so far, which is, run. 
Sarkisian wants to tailor shots to players, and yet his run mantra comes with an amount of impatience - he notes in in this video, "driving 8-12 plays on a drive without a player screwing it up is hard to do."  Talks of creating explosive plays to bridge that gap.   And here we are in Carolina, a full on lack of explosive plays, two safeties up daring you to run because you don't have those explosive plays, and all of the failure that comes with it (and generally speaking, down at least a score). 
We know generically it's WCO, which reminds that the Texas guys drafted this year follow the same philosophy on offense as their 1st round pick (Xavier Legette also came from a pro style WCO in college).  That's what will be run here, so the natural assumption is, there will be less learning curve. 
So tailoring with base plays, you have some staples:  - Inside zone speed out, spreading the backside and split zoning the front side, reading the position of the SS to the Z and giving the Z the ability to beat the corner on a speed out; 
- Glance, a popular inside zone RPO that lets the Z run a glance route based on the SS' position, in what's basically a more elaborate slant; 
    *both of these were interesting as they were setting up the Z to be isolated, despite there being two other receivers, the TE and RB, to that side, because the read is the SS. Didn't look like either suggested that there was a backside read.  The plays suggest the other receivers are blocking.   That said I wouldn't do a clinic telling everyone everything, I'd hold a little back. 
    *Neither RPO included QB run, which he backs in another video from 2021, where he says the versatility of the back is really important because the QB does not run, it's not zone read, it's RPO specifically with back run or pass only.  He goes on to also note that the back gets the ball extensively and can catch out of empty. Specifically, the versatility of the back is something that's been noted a lot for Dave Canales and I anticipate a lot of the rest is also true. 
- Set pass plays with RPO illusion, so basically, play-action instead of RPO; a lot of deep cross.  X generally upfield, everybody else going both horizontal and vertical.  Man-beaters that include players on the move.  Man coverage beaters. 
- Protection mirrors inside zone and mid-zone more often because outside zone includes a free backside rusher. 



Now, that's by no means the whole offense, they also run the ball in power, I'm sure there is PA off power, the OZ is valuable and everybody bootlegs off OZ (which you may as well call Kubiak derived, as the elder Kubiak, the flavor that the younger Shanahan took from it, and the Kevin Stefanski stuff off of that).  There's inevitably a series of other staple plays, special plays, constraint plays, by no means is anyone (outside of Chip Kelly directly after his one good Eagles year) running four to six plays a game. 
I'm also told that the Bill O'Brien era in Alabama essentially came with an expectation that BoB run a continuation of the same offense within reason (i.e., there wasn't a change in scheme, I assume BoB is Ehrhart-Perkins modified as with Josh McDaniels but there's not a ton of reason to look into it, even if schematically things changed, Young played heavily RPO based concepts as I've suggested to the Tx O above). 

Now, separately, I think that Young, who without looking too hard into it seems a very humble, pious young man, is finding that the offense isn't the only thing common between Sarkisian and Canales - the past addiction problems, the even keel with some excitement bubbling underneath, an almost toxic level of positivity (to be clear I'm not saying toxic positivity, but certainly, at least a cleansing level thereof) and the chain-of-command that puts everyone in step with each other (to be fair, that last bit is most places but clearly Young did not thrive with different voices telling him different things last year). 
So, in short, overlap between what Carolina wants to do and what their key offensive youth (i.e., Young and the O draftees from this year) do. 

Source: http://absolutepanthers.blogspot.com/fe ... ts/default