The quarterback tried and tried again to be what BYU needed him to be that season. He just couldn't quite do it.
"That's what was so frustrating," he said at the time. "The harder I tried, the worse it got."
It's cruel, how football sometimes mirrors life.
Twenty years later, Sarkisian was fired as USC's head coach on Monday after appearing one-off at a team meeting on Sunday morning, behaving strangely before disappearing and missing practice. An unnamed USC player told the L.A. Times that Sarkisian "did not seem right" at the meeting. During a recent game, ironically, at Arizona State, the coach acted less than his normal self.