Top 13 of 2013 - #4: Steve Sarkisian

Steve Sarkisian was hired to rebuild the Husky football program from the rubble and ashes that Tyrone Willingham left in his wake. He did exactly that.

Regardless of how you may feel about the ultimate heights to which he brought the program, or individual results, or specific recruiting battles, the program is undeniably in much better shape now than when he was hired. There were plenty of bumps along the road, learning experiences and frustrations on the path to getting UW back to a bowl game and then over the 7 win hump, but the program improved every year under Sarkisian and is set up to continue to do so without him.

Perhaps Sarkisian's biggest strength as a coach is his ability to change and adapt his personnel, staff and philosophies to their strengths. Coming off of a season when his changes to the defensive staff resulted in huge progress, he had to make changes on the other side of the ball to get it to match the D. Moving Eric Kiesau to WRs and bringing in Marques Tuiasosopo to coach QBs was a great start in that direction, and moving to a no-huddle attack was definitely the correct move.

The results of these changes resulted in Keith Price etching his name atop many of UW's passing records, Bishop Sankey having arguably the best season a UW RB has ever had and being named a Doak Walker finalist, Austin Seferian-Jenkins winning the Mackey Award, Kevin Smith exploding in his senior year, Jaydon Mickens turning into a dynamic threat, and the offensive line going from "downright terrible" to merely "poor".

He didn't handle his leaving in the best way, but Husky fans have a lot to thank Steve Sarkisian for.