Seattle Seahawks

USC's Sarkisian opines about the play call to end Super Bowl XLIX

Published Aug. 7, 2015 1:51 p.m. ET

foxsports

In three separate stints from 2001-03, 2005-06 and 2007-08, Steve Sarkisian served as one of Pete Carroll's assistant coaches at USC.

After a head coaching stint at Washington, Sarkisian is the head man at USC now and expectations are high for his Trojans in 2015; Carroll has guided the Seahawks to back-to-back Super Bowl appearances and many wonder whether the club has enough to rebound from last season's sour ending.

Sarkisian appeared on the Dan Patrick Show and discussed his relationship with Carroll, among other things. Of course the ending of Super Bowl XLIX was brought up and Sarkisian chimed in with his opinion of how he would have handled the situation.

“I agree with the decision to throw it," he said. "I don’t know, necessarily, about the play call itself because I wasn’t in the game planning. From a tactical standpoint, with three downs to go and only one timeout remaining the correct decision in my mind would be to throw the ball on second down knowing you can run it on third and then you have a run-pass option on fourth.”

It appears Sarkisian agrees with Carroll's decision to pass the ball, but perhaps not that particular play call to throw over the middle.

It's a topic that is still being debated more than six months after the fact.

(h/t NBCSports.com)