Tony Sparano will serve as the Oakland Raiders interim head coach after the team parted ways with Dennis Allen, the team announced in a statement on Tuesday.

Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie announced the decision on their official website where he expressed confidence that Sparano could help them bounce back from a disastrous 0-4 start this season.

Sparano, the team's assistant head coach and offensive line since the 2013 NFL season, has 31 years of coaching experience, including 16 seasons at the National Football League.

"Tony Sparano has a strong presence in this organization," McKenzie said of their interim head coach. "His experience and leadership qualities will serve the team well in helping reach the goal of everyone here, which is to win football games."

Sparano will be the Raiders' coach until the end of the current season. But if the team performs well in their remaining games this year, McKenzie could remove the "interim" tag and officially name Sparano as new coach of the squad next season.

The veteran coach is no stranger to big challenges as he was also tasked to lead a struggling Miami Dolphins in 2008. He immediately proved his worth in his first season as the Dolphins improved their record from 1-15 the season before Sparano's hiring to a respectable 11-5 finish, enough to win the AFC East title.

The 52-year-old coach has yet to map out a plan for the Raiders, but Sparano insisted that there will be changes in "philosophy" in their upcoming games this season.

"I respect Dennis Allen tremendously but I'm not Dennis, Dennis is not me and so on and so forth," Sparano said via NFL.com. "Things can change with philosophies and that will be the case. We will have a different philosophy."

Raiders owner Mark Davis is confident that Sparano is well aware of the things that they need to work to turn their season around.

"I think my evaluation is that we do have some players. And we may be running some schemes that are putting a square peg into a round hole, and that maybe with some changes in that type of environment we might be able to get something out of these players," Davis said via ESPN.

Related