As of this writing, it’s been 16 days since ESPN reported that Steve Sarkisian turned down the Arizona Cardinals offensive coordinator job so that he could take that position at Alabama.

Nearly 2.5 weeks of dissecting Sarkisian’s potential impact on the offense has been discussed. Alabama fans already freaked out about the reported hire by citing the 1-game tenure at Alabama in the 2016 College Football Playoff National Championship, which was a loss. We’ve already heard all about how Sarkisian was a key part of getting Tua Tagovailoa to Alabama, and why that could be at the root of why Nick Saban decided to bring him back.

Shoot, we even saw Sarkisian rocking an Alabama top at the ALFCA event in Montgomery last week:

Yet still, nearly 2.5 weeks removed from those reports, Alabama has yet to announce Sarkisian as its next offensive coordinator.

In case you forgot, National Signing Day is just over a week away. Sarkisian has reportedly been on the road recruiting, though we still don’t have so much as a simple 200-word release announcing that his return is official.

It’s one thing for Saban to keep things close to the vest. He’s done that before. Butch Jones’ role was a complete mystery until Saban announced that he was an intern. Or an analyst. Or whatever.

But with Sarkisian, we’re talking about a coordinator, and one who figures to be Saban’s highest-paid assistant. So what could be holding this up?

Let’s map out a few possibilities:

My original theory that’s all but dead

When we hit the 1-week mark with this still being unofficial, I had a thought that I’m sure many others did. Sarkisian, as crazy as it sounds, was using Alabama as leverage to get his next NFL offensive coordinator job.

Again, crazy. But think about it.

If Sarkisian really wanted to stay in the NFL but ensure he had a safety plan, it would make perfect sense to agree to the Alabama position without the terms being official. Perhaps his agent floats the report of him turning down the Cardinals for Alabama, and suddenly, it looks like Sarkisian is a hot commodity. Perhaps that prompts another NFL team to try and overbid for Sarkisian’s services when they see a tweet like this:

I know what you’re thinking. Why wouldn’t Sarkisian just take the Cardinals job if he still wanted to work in the NFL? Let’s be honest. We know that Kliff Kingsbury is running that offense. Sarkisian would be an easy casualty if that grand experiment didn’t work out in Year 1, despite the fact that Kingsbury would probably be in complete control. Sarkisian could have been stalling Alabama — knowing it was desperate to fill that position — and holding out hope that another NFL team came calling.

But yeah, my theory is all but dead now.

If Sarkisian were still waiting on other NFL offers, he’s not going out in public in Alabama gear. That isn’t happening unless the deal is all but official.

Barring some wild unforeseen move from Sarkisian, he’ll be in Tuscaloosa. You know, unless he pulls the 2017 move again.

A financial holdup?

I doubt money is an obstacle here, but it’s worth noting that this is expected to be Saban’s highest-paid assistant. Salaries for top assistants over the past couple years increased at an incredible rate. Even though Alabama is plenty familiar with paying an offensive coordinator 7 figures, perhaps there has been at least some holdup on some of the structure of the deal.

It’s not far-fetched to think that Alabama could be trying to avoid paying Sarkisian a hefty buyout should he get the boot, and on the flip side, it’s not far-fetched to think that the Crimson Tide would want to make it difficult for him to break his contract for another NFL gig.

One has to think that Saban is sick and tired of changing offensive coordinators more often than he replaces his Brita filter. It’s brutal for recruiting purposes, but it’s also not ideal to have a once-in-a-generation quarterback have to play for 3 coordinators in 3 years.

I tend to believe a buyout is a more likely delaying this announcement than paying Sarkisian $1.3 million or $1.4 million.

The massive staff turnover has to have something to do with this

In case you haven’t been on the internet since the title game, there are a ton of moving parts on the Alabama coaching staff. Josh Gattis, Dan Enos, Mike Locksley, Brent Key, Tosh Lupoi and Craig Kuligowski are gone.

How many replacements has Alabama announced for their positions? Zero.

Rather than make all of these individual announcements, Alabama might have just decided to announce this new staff together. That’s what the program tries to do for early NFL Draft departures. There are some benefits to announcing these moves together. Public perception won’t be nearly as strong as it would have been with just announcing Sarkisian’s hire 2 weeks ago.

By waiting and announcing these hires all together — something I expect will happen — Alabama can make this seem like it wasn’t some wholesale exit from Saban’s 2018 staff. It can respond to this 2-week stretch when it looked like all Alabama was doing was losing key assistants by saying, ‘Here’s our new core. Let’s get to work.” It makes it look like this wasn’t Saban picking up the pieces, even though it obviously was.

It might have been a decision that was settled a couple weeks ago when we first got the sense that there would be this kind of turnover. If it was, I suppose Alabama deserves kudos for thinking about how this could play out.

So when will this be announced?

My gut says that all of these moves will be announced together. Sarkisian’s official status as Alabama’s next offensive coordinator won’t be in question on Signing Day. I’d be stunned if it were.

In a perfect world, Alabama has its entire on-field staff assembled, and the announcement comes sometime in the middle of this week. It allows the staff to make on key push on the final weekend before Signing Day without having to answer any questions about what’s official and what’s not.

As atypical as that might sound, this is Saban. People close to the program will tell you that he’s never in any hurry to announce a hire if he doesn’t see immediate recruiting benefits with it. Announcing Sarkisian’s hiring individually might not be seen as much of a recruiting benefit.

We’ll find out soon enough, though. And with my luck, it’ll be shortly after I finish writing this sentence.