The competitive juices inside Steve Sarkisian — the quarterback — have not dissipated.
The current USC head coach is a long way from his days as a signal caller at El Camino College and Brigham Young University, where in two seasons with the Cougars he threw 53 touchdowns and 7,464 yards while earning WAC Offensive Player of the Year honors in 1996.
After having success both playing and coaching the position, it’s safe to say Sarkisian knows what it takes to be a quarterback.
There will come a time during his inaugural season as USC’s head coach when his team will go up against the likes of Stanford’s Kevin Hogan, Oregon State’s Sean Mannion and Arizona State’s Taylor Kelly in three consecutive conference games.
That’s before facing the likes of Washington State’s Connor Halliday and UCLA’s Brett Hundley later in November.
Depending on how things shake out, the Trojans may have to face some guy from Oregon named Marcus Mariota. But that’s looking much, much further down the road.
When it comes to quarterbacks, there is not a conference in America deeper at the position than the Pac-12 is in 2014.
10 of the 12 teams return starters at the position, with Arizona and Washington being the exceptions.
Sarkisian looks at all the talent at quarterback throughout the league and it’s the QB in him who gets most excited.
“I’d love it (to be a quarterback in this conference today),” Sarkisian said. “I’d try to beat them all. I think I would, too.”
Three of the aforementioned quarterbacks — Hundley, Mannion, and Mariota — were semifinalists for the 2013 Davey O’Brien Award, given to the nation’s top quarterback.
Heading into this season, the Pac-12 has eight players on the award’s watch list. The Big 10, Big 12 and SEC are next with five quarterbacks each.
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