Alabama Crimson Tide offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian drew a warm reception from a Mobile audience during a recent appearance at L’Arche Mobile’s 25th annual Football Preview Dinner, a signature summer event that has become known for giving South Alabama football fans rare face time with the coaching staff behind Nick Saban’s program.
The dinner, a longtime fixture on the Mobile sports calendar, benefits L’Arche Mobile, a local organization that supports adults with intellectual disabilities. Each summer it draws a headline guest from the Crimson Tide coaching staff, giving fans in the Mobile area a chance to hear directly from a program that otherwise operates under a notoriously tight lid on public comment. Alabama head coach Nick Saban has long enforced a “one voice” approach to media availability, a policy that keeps assistant coaches, including coordinators, largely out of the public eye during the season even though Southeastern Conference rules call for offensive and defensive coordinators to be regularly available to reporters.
That policy is part of what makes the L’Arche dinner stand out. Because Alabama assistants rarely speak publicly once the season begins, the annual event has turned into one of the few reliable opportunities each year for fans to hear personally from the coaches shaping the Tide’s gameplans. Previous headliners have included offensive coordinator Jim McElwain, who later went on to a stint as head coach at Florida, and longtime strength and conditioning coach Scott Cochran, whose high-energy appearance the year before had audiences buzzing amid the quarterback competition between Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa.
Sarkisian’s turn on stage carried a different tone. Attendees and organizers described him as approachable, comfortable in the spotlight and well-suited to a public forum, qualities that trace back to his own playing days. Sarkisian was a standout quarterback at Brigham Young before moving into coaching, where he went on to serve as head coach at both the University of Washington and Southern California.
Sarkisian returned to Tuscaloosa as offensive coordinator for the 2019 season after spending two years calling plays for the Atlanta Falcons. He also has a brief and unusual entry on his Alabama résumé: a single game as the Crimson Tide’s offensive coordinator at the end of the 2016 season, when he stepped in after Lane Kiffin’s abrupt departure for Florida Atlantic in the days before the College Football Playoff. Thrust into the role with little preparation time, Sarkisian called plays in Alabama’s 35-31 loss to Clemson in the national championship game, the only blemish in a stretch that saw the Tide go 16-0 immediately before that game and 27-1 immediately after.
During his remarks in Mobile, Sarkisian spoke at length about his admiration for Saban and his reasons for returning to the program.
“I think Coach Saban is a tremendous football coach, obviously that goes without saying. He doesn’t need my endorsement for that,” Sarkisian told the crowd. “He’s very detail-oriented, he’s very organized. There’s a reason behind everything that we do. I appreciate that. I operate that way. I like having structure, I like knowing what the plan is for the day. We’re extremely efficient when we work. But more importantly, he’s a really good man. I think sometimes that gets missed in this, the compassion that he has for his players and his coaches, the desire he has for all of them to have success. It was a pretty easy decision to come back and work for him again. I still have a lot of room to grow as a coach, and when you can get around somebody like Coach Saban to work under, to learn from, it’s a hard opportunity to pass up.”
Organizers said the evening once again delivered on the promise that has kept the Football Preview Dinner popular in Mobile for a quarter century: a chance for local football fans to connect with the program up close before another Crimson Tide season kicks off, all while supporting L’Arche Mobile’s mission in the community.