Column: No apologies for defending Steve Sarkisian, Pat Haden

Each week during the college football season, national analyst Chris Dufresne will burn a timeout to answer questions and exchange opinions. You can email him at [email protected] and reach him on Twitter: @DufresneLATimes.

Unbuckling the mailbag:

Stop being an apologist for Steve Sarkisian and Pat Haden. Both need to go (NOW!), and you need to stop writing nonsense.

Stevan Colin

It would help if you could provide more constructive criticism of USC’s football program. What you say isn’t going to help the Trojans’ “Fail� Mary defense, or fourth-down play calling at Utah.

Please send me a list of specific reasons why you think Sarkisian and Haden should be fired.

Let’s call this examination of USC football your “Colin-oscopy.�

If everything checks out fine, I’ll see you back at “Mailbag� in 10 years.

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Your piece on Sark could have been written about so many coaches in so many eras, but I happen to be a Trojan. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.

Forest Smith III

Newport Beach

I would have written the story about any first-year coach at any school with a 5-3 record in his first eight games.

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We USC fans don’t blame Sark, we blame Haden. We had the best coach for USC, Coach O. The team played FOOTBALL every play of the game, and we are now missing that element.

How much did Haden pay you to write that article?

Patrick Blight

Ed Orgeron did a nice job as interim coach for USC last year. He went 7-2 and his team played pretty good FOOTBALL — except in the two games that matter most to USC fans: Notre Dame and UCLA.

Had his team played FOOTBALL (every play of the game) against arch-rival UCLA last year, Orgeron probably would have gotten the permanent job.

But his team did not play very good FOOTBALL (every play of the game) against UCLA, which was somewhat disturbing considering all that was riding on the game for Coach O.

UCLA won, 35-14, and Haden decided to go in another direction.

P.S. Haden has never paid me to write an article.

He hardly pays any attention to me at all.

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Thanks for the insightful article on Sarkisian and some of the hair-trigger reactive USC fans over the football team’s 5-3 record. I agree, let’s see what the record is after three full years.

Gus S. Drulias

Gus, you make too much sense. You must be a relic from another era. Do your knuckles drag on the ground when you walk? Can you start a fire using two sticks?

Good to see a few people out there have the patience of Job instead of the patience of Twitter.

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Ed Orgeron did more with less. Thanks to Haden we have a Kiffin retread. They ALL need to go

Curtis Ensley

Orgeron has a track record as a head coach. He was fired 2007 at Mississippi after three years. He was 10-25 overall and 3-21 in Southeastern Conference play. His league wins were not against Alabama, Auburn or Florida: They were against Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Mississippi State.

Orgeron took over a 4-7 team and went 3-8 his first year. Ole Miss went 0-8 in the SEC in Orgeron’s last season.

Sarkisian has a record as a head coach. He took over a 0-12 team at Washington and went 5-7 his first year. Sarkisian then posted three straight seven-win seasons, and, last season, went 9-4 in the Pac-12 North, the second-best division in college football.

Based on this information, was it insane for Pat Haden to pick Sarkisian over Orgeron?

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How much did Sarkisian pay you to write your fawning article on how the USC losses are not on his shoulders? Your reasoning is laughable at best.

RJ Gagliano

Wait, I thought Pat Haden was paying me!

If I don’t get paid by someone from USC soon I’m going to have to start making excuses for UCLA’s head coach.

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Your article on USC’s coach spurred me to contact you. Please do an article on UCLA’s coach and his coaching. Mora and his assistants are terrible. OK, mediocre at best.

Marshal Backlar

Not a chance until I close my account with USC! I will say this: Jim Mora and his coaching staff caught two huge breaks in last weekend’s mediocre, double-overtime win at Colorado.

One: Few people in L.A. (including me) saw the game because it was on the Pac-12 Networks. Second, whatever poor coaching that was going on in Boulder last Saturday was trumped by USC’s alleged game-management butchery at Utah.

It’s obvious the selection committee missed the Colorado game too because it ranked UCLA at No. 22 in its first rankings. That’s three spots better than UCLA currently ranks in the Associated Press media and USA Today Coaches’ polls.

UCLA might be better playing all its games in the Mountain time zone, before USC, on the Pac-12 Networks. At this rate UCLA could be in the top 10 by Thanksgiving.

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As usual, reporters like you think they have the exclusive window on the world, when they not only cannot see the forest for the tree, they can’t see the scrub for the brush.

Mark H. Boykin

I have no clue what you are talking about but I’ll pass along some advice handed down years ago by the great poet Yogi Berra:

Next time you come to a fork in the road, take it.

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I have been a USC fan since my dad took me to the Coliseum to watch Frank Gifford, and you’re right. A lot of USC fans let their brains run loose after a couple of losses.

Jon Parssinen

That’s why we need brain-leash laws in this city. Too many USC brains running loose after defeats. Also, the best USC fans I know, when they go out, take their pickle jars.

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You’ve obviously NEVER played at the D1 level. It is not the three or four plays where players made mistakes. It is the six or seven series where Sark called his usual “turtle,� “let’s not lose� stupid plays that resulted in three and out.

David Langlois

I never played college football but have been writing at a D1 level for almost 35 years.

I’ve been surrounded by terrific offensive and defensive writing coordinators and carry with me, at all times, the best playbook ever written: Thesaurus.

I know my stuff, and probably your stuff. So, I guess what I’m saying is… stuff it.

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You’re article re: USC and Sark WAS AWESOME. THAT is the funniest article you have ever written, and the funniest I have ever read, and I was part of the Jim Murray era.

WELL DONE.

Brian Panosian

I’ve done so much tap-dancing over USC this week I feel more like Arthur Murray.

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Bad column. You got it all wrong… Sark will be lucky to last out the year.

Burt Wilson

USC ’55

Class of 1955? The Trojans went 6-4 that year under Jess Hill.

Wait, don’t tell me. You wanted Hill fired that year and replaced with the Trojans’ fiery team captain, Marv Goux.

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You must still be ticked about Michigan State beating Stanford last season in the Rose Bowl by slotting the Spartans behind Georgia in your “Super 16� rankings.... By the way, the score in the Oregon-MSU game was a lot closer than 46-27, as we led that game for three quarters.

Jerry Gross

Your excellent argument is only lacking facts. You say “the Oregon-MSU game was a lot closer than 46-27, as we led that game for three quarters.�

You must have a different box score: Mine says Oregon led after three quarters, and outscored the Spartans in the second half, 28-3.

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The Bowl Championship Series was not replaced by a four-team “playoff,� but a four-team “tournament.� You should really look up the definition of the words so that you are able to understand the difference between the two.

Ben Shi

I don’t understand much except the postseason tournament being staged this season is officially called “College Football Playoff.�

If you prefer, you can call it the “The College Football Tournament, presented by Webster’s New World Dictionary.�

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