The honeymoon between former USC offensive coordinator and current Washington head coach Steve Sarkisian and the folks in Seattle is officially over.

SeattlePI columnist Jim Moore had a few things to say about the new Husky football coach:

STEVE SARKISIAN HAS now committed three NCAA violations in the past two weeks, which concerns me.

It’s an impressive start for the new UW football coach, but I’m worried that he won’t be able to keep the pace. He’s gotten out of the blocks so fast that he’ll probably fade in the coming months and might actually start following some of the rules by April. Nah, May.

If I’m a math teacher who graduated from Washington State, I’ve got a new story problem for my students — “Class, if Coach Sark committed three violations in his first two months and maintains that pace for the next seven months until his first game, how many violations will he have?”

I understand Sark is under tremendous pressure to win now, but there is a certain way that you conduct yourself when faced with such a challenge. After spending some time recruiting for the Trojans, there is no reason why Sark shouldn’t already be well-versed in the NCAA recruiting rules. Putting himself in the crossfire with these stupid secondary violations will only agitate Washington supporters and do little to improve the image of an already downtrodden Washington program.

Sark’s strange actions on the recruiting have also irritated his former boss, Pete Carroll. From what I’ve read Sarkisian’s relationship with Carroll is a bit strained after Sark intentionally targeted some recruits that had previously committed to USC. I understand the “always compete” mantra, but there were still a ton of remaining players for Sark to nab.

Personally, I’m not really bothered by Sark’s actions, but if you’re trying to rebuild a program after a winless season than it might be a wise idea not to irritate too many people.

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