Bye Ty

The inevitable happened today, as many thought it would. UW euthanized Tyrone Willingham, even though the athletic director had previously said he didn't "foresee" making a change during the season. But this was a mercy killing in every sense of the word. The toxic environment at UW made Wall Street look like Disneyland. 

It was almost too fitting that UW fell to 0-7 on Saturday against the last school to fire Willingham. That meant the Huskies officially could not make a bowl, widely regarded as the only way Willingham could have saved his job. They hit new lows in the 33-7 loss. The Huskies gained only 124 yards while fans derisively cheered each of their 9 first downs. Insult upon injury, Notre Dame executed a fake punt while up 24-0 in the third quarter. 

There had been speculation that Willingham might step down, but he said he had never considered that. On the possibility of resigning, Willingham said, "It's just not in my makeup." So we know he is a standup guy who runs a clean program, but as Stanklin wrote awhile back, people only pretend to care about cleanliness in college football. Winning is it.

Ted Miller writes that Willingham's hiring split the fan base. Add to that some weak early recruiting classes, and Willingham was behind from the beginning. His last two recruiting classes, however, are well-regarded, and the next coach will have some young talent to work with. But he will also have to re-recruit some players who have rescinded their verbal commitments as all of this uncertainty has played out.

The UW administration has been preparing for this day for at least a year. When former athletic director Todd Turner (who hired Willingham) was eased out last December, Ty's days were numbered. Washington clumsily took 9 months to fill the job, as they were no doubt rebuffed by candidates who didn't want their first act to be the firing of Willingham. But the interim AD Scott Woodward was promoted to the job full-time. He is a guy president Mark Emmert brought along with him from LSU, and Emmert surely backed him up on this. An 11-32 record didn't help Ty's cause.

When former Raiders coach Lane Kiffin says to ESPN, "The University of Washington is a great job," that's about as public a lobbying effort as you can get. It's hard to know what kind of head coach he really was in the miasma that is the Raiders, but he rose quickly at USC and the 33-year-old could be the shot in the arm this program needs. Missouri coach Gary Pinkel's name has also been linked to UW, as has Seahawks head-coach-in-waiting Jim Mora, Jr. Would he jilt the Hawks and jump to UW? Remember that he helped seal his fate with the Falcons when he said how much he'd like to coach at his alma mater.  

Granted, Willingham's tenure at UW ended up a failure. But it's worth pointing out that fans are no more mature about these kinds of things than players. Whenever a coach or manager identified as a "players' coach" is fired, inevitably players will say things like, "There was no discipline," and "We didn't have any direction." So a disciplinarian is hired and the team/program succeeds for awhile until the players start tuning him out and then he's canned as well. Then the athletes say things like, "He never treated us like a man." A players' coach is hired again and the cycle continues. 

Fans are no better. Following Rick Neuheisel's shenanigans, UW's program needed a cleansing and fans were embarrassed. They got a Mr. Clean in Willingham, although they were quick to trash him. Of course, this line of reasoning only goes so far because Ty never won at UW. But it provides a cautionary tale for Washington as it considers who it will hire next.