Maybe They Are Who We Thought They Were

Quick, without looking, who's the leading scorer in Pac-10 Conference play? Here's a hint: you won't get it. Arizona State's James Harden is the overall scoring leader who's getting a lot of publicity, but strictly in league play, he's a close second to...Justin Dentmon. UW's senior guard is one of the pleasant surprises for a team that is surprisingly tied for the league lead halfway through the conference season.

At 16-5 (and 7-2 in the Pac-10), UW is ranked in both polls for the first time in two years. The Huskies lead the conference in scoring, rebounding and rebounding margin, and have the league's top individual window cleaner in Jon Brockman. But if Washington is going to make noise in March, it's their trilogy of guards who will make it for them.

Dentmon, freshman stud Isaiah Thomas (third in conference scoring) and Venoy Overton provide the kind of solid guard play that's thought to be a key to March Madness success. In UW's recent win over UCLA, the guards showed the range of their abilities, for better or worse. They looked sloppy and outclassed by Darren Collison and Jrue Holiday as the Bruins jumped out to a 9-1 lead. Then they completely turned it around on the offensive and defensive ends as UW came back and then pulled away in the second half.

Because the Huskies guards can be erratic, they look like a team that could either flame out in the first round of the NCAA Tournament or make a run. ESPN's Bracketology expert has UW tabbed as a rising #6 seed against a Utah State team that's more experienced in March than you think. Brockman's leadership and inside play will be vital if UW's guards go off the rails. Rebounding margin also tends to be a good predictor of March success, so Washington will have to keep banging the boards to stay successful.

Regardless of what happens, the fact we're talking about UW as the conference leader and a tourney lock shows how far they've come. The Huskies were picked to finish fifth in the Pac-10, but their inside-outside combo has been better than advertised. Plus they've been making their free throws much more than last year, when they were the worst in the nation in that category. This is an exciting team that's fun to watch and easy to root for -- in Seattle of all places. The rest of the country shouldn't sleep on UW, even if they haven't heard of the guy who's leading the Pac-10 in scoring.

USC North!

Steve Sarkisian is already showing himself to be a better recruiter than Tyrone Willingham. By landing Nick Holt as Washington's defensive coordinator, UW now has USC's former offensive and defensive coordinators in the fold. And Holt might be the better get of the two.

This was Holt's third year as USC's defensive coordinator, and this season he presided over the nation's stingiest scoring defense (9 points per game) and second-best in total defense (221 yards). Granted, it's hard to know how much power assistants have under Pete Carroll, and since Carroll is a defensive coach, he probably pulled a lot of the strings. Still, Holt likely could have gone almost anywhere from USC. That he landed at UW -- and made what appears on the surface to be a lateral move, or worse -- is a coup for the Huskies.

Holt initially rebuffed Sarkisian's entreaties to come to Seattle, but a big raise certainly sweetened the deal. This hire shows UW is willing to spend money to get better; an average of $700,000 a year for a defensive coordinator is a lot of coin, and Holt is now the highest-paid assistant in Washington history. Some reports say he might have been intrigued to run a defense free and clear a head coach's interference. And if he can turn this defense around, Holt would have a good shot at a head coaching job elsewhere in a few years. (He had an unsuccessful two-year stint as head man at Idaho, where he provided Willingham with his first win at UW.)

It's hard not to like what Washington is doing to improve its football team. Getting guys from a program with the pedigree of USC can only help. Then again, there's nowhere to go but up for the Huskies.

A New Year and a New Result

Could it be that Seattle actually has a winning team to cheer for? Perhaps, after the Huskies routed Wazzu 68-48 in Pullman Saturday night in the Pac-10 opener for both schools. UW is now 10-3, although this is the team's best win of the season. 

The numbers don't lie: Washington shot 48 percent from the field, while holding WSU to 41 percent. They outrebounded the Cougars 36-20 and even did something they hardly ever do: they made their free throws. They did it without a big game from Jon Brockman, while freshman Isaiah Thomas handled himself well, with 19 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists. Granted, this isn't the same WSU club of the last few years, but the Cougars still have some pieces left over from their previous NCAA Tournament runs. And breaking a 7-game series losing streak to your rival on the road is nothing to sneeze at.  

UW has played better since a close loss to Florida (which followed a blowout to Kansas) and the Huskies might just be what we thought they were: a potential 20-win, NCAA-caliber basketball team. After the city's horrendous sports year in '08, at least one Seattle team is creating sports hope in '09. 

Huskies Football: Coming Soon to a Theater Near You

UW has released a video to get us pumped up for the new era of Huskies football. It's your basic action-movie trailer: fast cuts, speeding graphics, and a shrieking orchestral score only slightly less bombastic than Carmina Burana.

The quote from Sarkisian is pretty good, though maybe they could've done a bit more judicious editing so he didn't start by saying: "This is 2008." Well, yes. It is.

What do you think, fellow SGBers? Are you ready for some non-losing football?

Hi, I'm Steve

You can't judge a coach's ability by his first press conference, but if Steve Sarkisian's initial media meet-and-greet is any indication, he realizes the importance of public relations. At least on TV, the event had the feel of a pep rally, and fans packed the Don James Center. Sarkisian hit all the right notes, honoring UW's past glory -- including the school's defeat of BYU in 1996, when Sarkisian himself was sacked 8 times -- while pumping up supporters for a bright future.

The 34-year-old Sarkisian oozed passion and energy, even as he lapsed into oxymoronic coachspeak (example: when asked how long it would take to turn the program around, Sarkisian said, "It's going to take some time, but that doesn't mean it can't happen fast." Huh?). But what you took away from this stagecraft was that UW has a young guy who will be a dogged recruiter ("The top players in this state should never leave") and will relate to fans. The loudest applause came when Sarkisian announced he would open up practices to the public and the media, something Tyrone Willingham was criticized for not doing. Sarkisian apparently learned a few tricks from Pete Carroll's PR manual and he knows how not to be Willingham.

What other Pac-10 schools may be privately applauding is that Sarkisian will continue to call plays for UW. Some USC fans bashed his play-calling while urging him to be fired. Still, he preached protecting Jake Locker better and intimated that he'd like his QB to run less and pass accurately more. Sarkisian has worked with some of the best college quarterbacks in recent years, so Locker should benefit from his new coach's experience.

Sarkisian will continue working for USC through the Rose Bowl, then take the reins here on January 2nd. It will be months before he has a chance to win a game for UW, but Sarkisian already appears to have won over many fans. Unlike his predecessor, Sarkisian seems to realize the importance of first impressions and how big a role PR plays in a job like this.

Sarkisian, Sarkisian: He's Our Man!

Well, apparently the search is over and UW's hire is a guy who was barely mentioned the last few weeks. That could mean Steve Sarkisian was way down on Washington's list or the administration was really good at employing red herrings. Either way, it sounds as if he aced the interview. According to Bob Condotta of the Times, "One source said (UW athletic director Scott) Woodward was blown away by Sarkisian's interview and decided to go with a young, energetic face to take over for the fired Tyrone Willingham."

Here's what we do know: Sarkisian is the 34-year-old offensive coordinator for USC, and is also reportedly USC's recruiting coordinator. The hire is getting mixed reviews on one Husky blog, which is natural when you bring in a relatively unkown quantity like Sarkisian. On its face, hiring a kid with no head-coaching experience smacks of a mid-major or the Oakland Raiders. Then again, some point out, Bob Stoops was never a head man before Oklahoma lured him away from Florida.

Consider several points here that could make this a very good get. If Sarkisian has as much to do with recruiting as his title implies, then UW should welcome him with open arms. USC has talent to burn every year, although that's more about Pete Carroll than Steve Sarkisian. (And this year SC's defense is more dominant than its offense.) Still, Sarkisian had to have made some solid California recruiting connections that he can bring here.

Sarkisian also no doubt had a hand in developing former Heisman winners Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart, since he was twice quarterbacks coach at USC (sandwiched around a year with the Raiders). He is a former QB himself and led BYU to a 14-1 record in 1996 (who plays a 15-game season?), with the only loss, ironically, against UW. This hire had to be made with Jake Locker in mind, who would be clapping at this news if he didn't have a broken thumb.

Sarkisian comes from good coaching stock, having worked under Carroll and former USC offensive coordinator (and current UCLA OC) Norm Chow. Chow is known as an offensive genius and is probably the best coach never to get a head job. He was also Sarkisian's offensive coordinator at BYU and hired him at USC in 2001. What is troubling here, though, is that Sarkisian and Chow apparently haven't spoken in four years. This LA Times article intimates that Sarkisian helped push Chow out the door in 2005, although Carroll seems to be at least as culpable for this as Sarkisian. Lack of ambition seems not to be an issue with young Sark.

On the other hand, some in Trojan Nation had become disenchanted with Sarkisian's playcalling. This article shows surprising fan vitriol against Sarkisian's abilities, especially compared to Chow's. Perhaps Lady Dice could weigh in on this.

With this hire, UW officials had to go in the opposite direction of a Tyrone Willingham, and they did. In getting a young energetic coach, the school is hoping to fire up an unhappy and shrinking fan base. Despite his youth, he's a guy who already has a recruiting track record and success working with quarterbacks, the position most crucial to UW's potential success. From afar, he seems barely indistinguishable from another potential UW coaching candidate: Lane Kiffin, now the head guy at Tennessee. Of course, some are already grumbling that Washington didn't get a high-profile head coach with previous success, a la Mike Leach; what about that big splash UW was supposed to make? Of course, nobody is going to please everybody, and as with any decision that's hours old, we'll just have to wait and see what happens. But either way, it's a gutsy move on UW's part, with all the risks and potential rewards that come with it.

A Tale of Two Searches

What do shadowy airport sightings, parking attendants and anonymous sources have in common? They've been the public face of UW's search for a new football coach. We knew Fresno State's Pat Hill and Texas Tech's Mike Leach interviewed for the job because of leaks. Initially we found out Hill was on his way to Seattle because two parking attendants said they saw Hill's car at the Fresno airport.

Granted, Sunshine Laws don't apply to coaching searches. Administrations and front offices don't have to tell the public anything along the way, and most don't. So that's what makes Mariners Jack the GM unique. He gave almost daily updates on who he was interviewing for the manager's job and then allowed them to talk to the media as well. Of course, he's not above making Captain Obvious statements like this (referring to possibly trading Adrian Beltre and JJ Putz): "I'm in no mood to give anyone away. I'm in the mood to improve this ballclub." But following Bill Bavasi, who combined KGB-like secrecy with FEMA-like ineptitude, at least Jack the GM is reaching out to a fan base that badly needs a hug.

Two coaching searches for two crummy teams, done in two totally different fashions. I'm not surprised by UW's approach, but the Mariners' path shows more accountability and respect for fans. UW could take a page from the Mariners, and how often have we been able to say the M's are worth imitating?

UW: The Nadir

I was snookered. Consider it the last time I overestimate an 0-10 team. After the Huskies stole defeat from the jaws of victory in a 16-13 double-overtime Crapple Cup loss to the Cougars, it can't get any worse for UW -- except that it can. The Huskies will be heavy underdogs against Cal Saturday in a quest to go 0-12. Wow. The only winless team in major-college football is also one that made a Rose Bowl this decade and won a national championship during the last one, all the while a Top-20 program. The fall from grace is complete. So how did Tyrone Willingham drive this train so far off the rails? It's instructive to look at Willingham's past to see how his present is so bad.

It's hard to remember that four years ago Willingham was a hot coaching prospect. He had success and moral outrage on his side after getting canned by Notre Dame. His ouster after a three-year record of 21-16 caused consternation among some Irish faithful who felt the school debased itself in the name of winning at any cost. Prior to that, Willingham was successful in Palo Alto, where he brought Stanford -- Stanford! -- to a Rose Bowl. (It's also hard to remember a time when USC didn't have a stranglehold on the Pac-10). But what those schools have in common are high academic standards. Willingham was a success working under those circumstances, but apparently doesn't have what it takes to operate outside them.

I imagine Willingham in living rooms coming across as a military recruiter, exuding confidence and integrity, while appealing as much to parents as he does to the athlete. When you're recruiting people considering Stanford or Notre Dame, you're dealing with kids who are real student-athletes, insofar as they exist in major-college football. Presumably they're successful at juggling the rigors of football with long hours of classwork. By and large, they're self-motivated. But at a place like UW -- or most schools, for that matter -- where more external motivation is needed, Coach Ty fell flat.

Willingham clearly failed as a motivator. He has the charisma of dry toast, and his press conferences and interviews are notoriously bland, even by the diluted standards of coachspeak. You don't have to be a quote machine to be successful, but it helps to change your expression once in a while. Pete Carroll, Nick Saban and Mike Leach are different in that they're affable, slick and quirky, respectively, but they all have personality. In addition to being good recruiters, they seem to get through to their players most of the time. But Willingham never got through to his UW teams. (Also, Willingham didn't recruit well early on, but his recent classes have been better. I bet a better motivator has more success with Ty's players next year.) His stoic demeanor looked more distant and icy as the losses mounted. At schools like Stanford and Notre Dame, Willingham could get away with the edict-from-on-high thing, but that didn't cut it at UW. Willingham didn't motivate his players, and if you're not a motivator, you're not really a coach.

Despite all this, I still think Willingham can be successful elsewhere. UW fans probably don't care where Willingham goes, just that he is going. But install Ty at a service academy or a brainy school and he can win again, and some schools fitting this description might soon have openings. It's not hard to picture Willingham at Vanderbilt, where Bobby Johnson has the Commodores poised to go to a bowl for the first time since 1982. Certainly bigger programs will come calling, and Johnson's name has been linked to the Clemson vacancy. Northwestern has won 9 games under hot young coach Pat Fitzgerald, but it's not clear if he wants to leave Evanston; Fitzgerald was a linebacker on the Wildcats team that made the 1996 Rose Bowl. Rice is also uncharacteristically bowl-eligible, and the Owls' fan base might approve of an established name like Willingham if that job were to open up. (Lt. Daniels could weigh in on this). But it's also quite possible that Willingham's reputation is so bruised by his UW failure that he has to take an assistant job somewhere.

Fans might disagree, but I think the UW program is in better shape than when Willingham came on four years ago. That's not saying much because he took over a house in shambles, following a 1-10 season in 2004. The team had little talent and was still dealing with the aftermath of Rick Neuheisel's malfeasance. These days, the program is cleaner, and if you surround Jake Locker with a modicum of talent next year, UW will win at least a few games. Nonetheless, much of UW's failure clearly lies at the feet of its coach. He didn't recruit well enough early on, and his style was a bad fit at a place like Washington. It's almost too bad because it confirms the old adage: nice guys finish last.

UW head coach rumor mill

The news came out yesterday that the University of Washington interviewed Notre Dame offensive coordinator Michael Haywood to replace Ty Willingham. I can't imagine that Haywood is a serious candidate, because 1) Notre Dame's offense stinks and 2) he is not even calling the plays for the shitty Notre Dame offense.

More significantly, I think he's not a big enough name that will appease the fans. The school wants someone who creates buzz and I just don't think the mastermind of the shitty Notre Dame offense is that guy.

The Dice Game and Lady Dice were at dinner with some friends talking about this news when Dice Friend, an individual who happens to be in the know about these things, shocked us. I asked, "Dice Friend, who do you think is going to be the next UW coach?"

"Jim Mora, Jr."

Isn't this the same individual who is under contract to coach the Seahawks next year? The chosen one? Dice Friend said it doesn't matter and that the Seahawks will not hold him to the contract because of the PR disaster it would cause locally if the team prevented him from taking the UW job. Even more surprising was the next name thrown out by Dice Friend.

"Mark Richt."

The Georgia coach? Why would he leave a top flight SEC school with fertile recruiting to come coach at UW? Dice Friend says money. Georgia is apparently not compensating Richt that well and UW is willing to pay to make a big splash. Richt can recruit, but can he coach? Is there a more disappointing team this season in college football than the Georgia Bulldogs? That whole idea seems crazy to me.

One coach that had been mentioned -- Gary Pinkel from Missouri -- seems like he's now off the market for the UW job.

I just share the knowledge. Y'all can discuss.

Sour Apples

On November 23, 2001, college football fans from Piscataway, NJ to Berkeley, CA -- and nowhere in between -- eagerly awaited the kickoff of the Cal-Rutgers game. Each team hoped the other would cure what ailed them. And that season, there were nothing but ailments for both clubs. Rutgers entered the game 2-8, while Cal sported an 0-10 record, in a contest that featured future NFL underachievers Kyle Boller and L.J. Smith. AND, the hype had been building all season. The game was pushed back to November from mid-September because of the 9/11 attacks. So as fall eased toward winter along the banks of the Raritan, the excuses were over. The Battle of the Beatens was on!

That tilt is the closest I can come to approximating Saturday's Apple Cup. Like Cal, UW comes in 0-10 (I'll get to some more exciting parallels later), while Wazzu is 1-10. While we've documented the Huskies' putrefaction in this space all year, the Cougars might be worse. Aside from beating Jerry Glanville's hapless Portland State squad, WSU hasn't been competitive in a single game. They've given up at least 58 points six times and injuries forced them to hold an open-campus casting call for a quarterback. Consider that Saturday's loss to Arizona State represented the smallest margin of loss since October 4th. Consider that WSU lost 31-0. Since UW "only" bowed to ASU 39-19 last week, give the Huskies the edge. Meanwhile, Dennis Erickson is petitioning the NCAA to let the Sun Devils play WSU seven times next year, and UW the other five.

But unlike that pillow fight seven years ago, this Sour Apple Cup is a rivalry game. You know, you can throw out the records for this brawl. If only we could. Both sides always say that beating the other validates their season. For this year's winner, it'll be like a cherry on top of a triple turd sundae. 

Rivalry or not, is this not the worst game between two BCS schools since Cal-Rutgers? Let's open up the phone lines. Hello? Hello? Um, is this thing on? With a nod to Stanklin, cue the tumbleweeds. When you consider that UW and WSU have both played in Rose Bowls this decade, Saturday's game is even more shocking in its awfulness. 

But a history lesson from The Battle of the Beatens could offer solace to both UW and WSU. Late in 2001, Cal's head coach Tom Holmoe resigned as the season circled the drain, while UW's Tyrone Willingham is also "stepping down" at the end of the season. Cal brought in Jeff Tedford, who has turned the Golden Bears into a winning program, while now being mentioned as an outside candidate for the Husky job. Meanwhile, 2001 was current Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano's first year. Since then, he's brought the Scarlet Knights to unprecedented heights and rebuffed offers from bigger programs. WSU is also led by a first-year coach and former WSU football player Paul Wulff. Coincidence? Of course not. 

On November 23, 2001 in front of 18,111 fans, Cal beat Rutgers 20-10, sending coach Holmoe out a winner and euthanizing a season for two piss-poor teams. Ergo, my Sour Apple Cup prediction: UW 20, WSU 10, with Tyrone Willingham getting a turd sundae shower in place of Gatorade. 

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's to blame for it all?

In honor of Rick Neuheisel's return to Husky Stadium on Saturday, we thought we would serenade him with the lyrics of the hip-hop icon whose nickname he has been bestowed.

Best believe monas a virgin
A virgin? ! honey needed a slap
She tried to tell me shes a virgin -- with her yea wide gap
I said, it dont matter, see, Im not picky (word)
Let me spell my name out for you, its ricky:
R -- ravishing
I -- impress
C -- courageous; so careless
K -- for the kangols which Ive got
That I wear everyday and
Y -- why not?

Good lord, pay your respects to Rick the Ruler!

The liberal Seattle elite media has filled its pages this week with stories about how Slick Rick is to blame for the state of UW's football team. While I have no love for Slick Rick and hope to see him fail miserably at UCLA, he's not to blame.

Let's think about this. After Slick Rick left Colorado, the program lost five scholarships for one year, and was put on two years' probation for 51 rules violations while he was the coach. It's impossible to commit that many violations in a four-year period of time without leaving fingerprints. Did someone at UW perform some due diligence on this guy? How hard would it have been to go over to Colorado and see if the players go to classes? Are the players completely out of control?

Either UW knew what it was getting in Slick Rick and looked the other way or it didn't know because it didn't check thoroughly into his background. Either way the blame rests with the people who hired him. Slick Rick only did what comes natural to him. The scorpion and the frog. As Too Short once asked, "why you tryin' to turn a ho into a house wife?"

A Winning UW Team?!

We know the Sonics are gone and the Seahawks and Huskies are awful. What we could find out, however, is that a UW team might be good this season. The Huskies basketball team has some arrows in its quiver and should finish in the top half of the Pac-10.

UW looks to rebound from last year's losing record because head coach Lorenzo Romar is much better than football coach Ty Willingham in one key area: recruiting. As Stanklin recently noted, Lute Olson's retirement allowed UW to persuade Abdul Gaddy to stay home. That's luck more than anything else. But Romar has convinced more local talent to come to UW than his predecessors. And he's done it at a place that's historically a football school.

New to the team this year is Isaiah Thomas (not the suicide-attempting one, although the younger version got his name because his dad lost a bet during 1989 NBA Finals between the Pistons and Lakers). The 5'8" Tacoma product is a guard in the Nate Robinson mold: he averaged 31 points his junior year, before spending two years at a prep school in Connecticut. He's ranked as the #23 shooting guard by Scout.com, although he'll probably play the point at UW. Either way, he should be able to contribute immediately.

The big gun returning is All-America candidate Jon Brockman. The senior from Snohomish averaged nearly 18 points and 12 rebounds last year and, as they say, leaves it all on the floor. And according to his bio, Jay Bilas considers him the best rebounder in the nation. That should count for something, no?

Junior guard Quincy Pondexter should also be a solid contributor, as he moves back into the starting lineup after coming off the bench most of last year. He is the last vestige of UW's version of a Fab Five recruiting class. Led by Seattle product Spencer Hawes, that group was expected to anchor the team for years. But Hawes inadvisedly jumped to the NBA after one year (he would be a junior this year if he'd stayed), and others transferred, but that's hardly Romar's fault. Such is life in college basketball these days.

The Huskies have reached unprecedented heights under Romar. They were a #1 seed in the '05 NCAA Tournament, and that was the first of two straight trips to the Sweet 16. Those squads were led by Nate Robinson and then Brandon Roy, two Seattle studs who chose to stay home. Romar could easily have jumped to a higher-profile program after that, but the UW alum also chose to stay home. If Hawes had wisely chosen to hone his game here rather than languish on the end of the Sacramento Kings' bench, we might be talking about a top-15 team.

As it is, the Huskies are being picked to finish fifth in the Pac-10, but that was before Olson bolted from Arizona. UW has gotten some Top-25 votes, and they could make some hay in conference. UCLA is still stout, even after losing Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love, and Arizona State and USC are also expected to be strong. But Washington State should be down after losing most of last year's starting lineup and there's flux elswhere: four Pac-10 schools have new coaches.

UW's out-of-conference schedule ranges from brutal (Kansas) to cupcake-esque (Portland and Portland State, Cleveland State and Lehigh among others). But it definitely tends more toward more tomato cans than bullies.

Continuity at the coaching position and solid recruiting give UW basketball fans hope for the future. But the present doesn't look so bad either. 20 wins and a run at an NCAA berth are realistic goals for this year's team. And at least we know this basketball team isn't leaving town.

Easy Come, Easy Go

Lute Olsen’s retirement has resulted in a boon for UW basketball, as Abdul Gaddy (Bellarmine Prep, Tacoma), the number 2 rated point guard in the nation according to Scout.com, withdrew his commitment to Arizona and announced that he will sign a letter of intent to play for the Huskies.

Sound good? It gets better -- Gaddy will be 17 when he enrolls. Some quick math tells us that he’ll have to spend at least two years at UW before considering pro ball due to the NBA's asinine age limit. [SGB readers are reminded of this old chestnut: "Old enough to fight for your country, old enough to make a crapload of duckets playing pro ball]. I suppose there's a chance he could go all Josh “I have a butler and a free house” Childress on us, but we won't worry about that now.

Some highlights (cruelly, put together by some site called GoAZCats.com):



Finally, while we're tangentially on the subject of Lute Olson, I feel compelled to impart this nifty anecdote from the March 2006 issue of Wine Spectator:

“[My wife and I] went to Joseph Phelps after we made the Final Four in 1988, which was the first time any Arizona team had ever been rated No. 1. The fellow who met us was a U-of-A grad, and a big fan. He looked at my Final Four watch and said, "Would you consider trading it for a case of '84 Insignia?" I had about a dozen of those watches in the drawer at home, so I agreed. He sent us a case of '84 Insignia, signed by the winemaker. My wife and I went out of town the weekend the wine came. We arrived home Sunday night, and as we were walking by the trashcan on the way into the house, we saw bottle after bottle of Insignia. One of our sons had had a party at the house. And they could have been drinking Boone's Farm, for all it mattered to them. Easy come, easy go.”

Um, I woulda whupped that kid’s ass. Just saying.

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. 

Dog Bites Man: P-I Edition

From Tuesday's P-I on the supposed duel between Charlie Weis and Ty Willingham:

...[T]he current leader of the Irish doesn't spend time exchanging small talk or inside secrets with the man he replaced at Notre Dame in 2005.

Weis, whose team invades Husky Stadium on Saturday for a 5 p.m. battle, said Tuesday he is cordial with Willingham and talked to him in January at the national coaches convention, but the two are not exactly on speed dial or each other's Fave Five phone lists.

Let's see. The guy who's gone 26–17 chooses not to seek coaching advice from the guy who's gone 11–31. Stop the presses, Joe, I've got a hot one!

A Visit to a Magical Place

"Mistakes were made." This was a common refrain during SGB's junket this weekend to a different and better world: Austin, TX. It's a world where the National Beer of Texas sometimes costs a buck. It's a world where you can't help but fall into a food coma at places like The Salt Lick. It's a world where a strip club sponsors a free tailgating party and the students are hotter than the strippers. It's a world where the number-one team in college football turns a contender into a pretender. Even high school football fans are so gung-ho that they wear their old varsity band jackets a decade and a half after they graduated.

It's not that it was a mistake to visit Austin; it was a mistake not to have gone there earlier and more often. For SGB staffers who went to small Northeastern schools, the difference between UT campus life and our college experiences is like the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing a bullet. We hit bars and restaurants that kept raising the bar, so to speak. We saw dozens of students camped out at 3:30AM waiting for ESPN College Gameday to dawn. And we were a few of 98,000 fans screaming our support for UT over Missouri, even though the Longhorns didn't need our help. Texas' 56-31 win over Mizzou wasn't even that close and quarterback Colt McCoy completed a ridiculous 91% of his passes. UT strengthened its hold on the top ranking in a place that feels like the center of the universe.

As great as the Austin trip was, it's still nice to return to Seattle, a place that orbits in the same firmament of cool cities as Texas' capital. But of course we come back to a sporting scene as bleak as our October skies. It's even more disheartening because it didn't used to be this way, at least on the collegiate level. At halftime of UW's loss to Oregon State, Washington honored its 1978 Rose Bowl team, reminding fans of better days. During the Don James era, UW probably looked a lot like UT does now, minus the beautiful weather and even more beautiful coeds. Now the Huskies are 0-6 and the vultures circling over Ty Willingham's head are flying lower every week.

It's easy to forget how much excitement and pride a winning team brings to your town when you experience nothing but losing -- losing games and losing teams -- like Seattle has recently. Of course Texas will always have more rabid football fans than the Northwest. But if or when UW returns to gridiron prominence, think how much support the team will get from the school and community, even though it's not the only game in town. It would, however, be the only winning game in town.

Austin probably feels different when the Longhorns aren't winning, although I don't know when that would be. Seattle's self-worth isn't as tied into the performance of its teams as other places, but it's easy to de-emphasize sports when you're losing. We can pretend we don't care, but we're really just trying to control our anger. Yes, mistakes were made, but at least some of them can be undone.

An SGB Challenge

Defend - or, hell, just explain! - Tyrone Willingham's decision to burn two redshirt by playing Terrance Dailey and Cody Bruns. I believe Dailey played all of 3 downs.

Nightmare on Montlake Part IV

It may seem like we're running out of options to explain the myriad ways the Huskies are losing. But Saturday's 35-28 loss to Stanford is easy to get a handle on: no Jake Locker = no chance. When the sophomore stud QB broke his right thumb in the second quarter while blocking, any chance of UW winning quickly dissipated. Yet they made a game of it, and redshirt freshman QB Ronny Fouch wasn't bad.

Regardless, Washington is 0-4, Locker could be out six weeks and the coaching staff is running out of answers. The calls for coach Willingham's head grow louder, and the opinions on the Seattle Times' Husky blog predictably espouse firing Ty (and hiring Lane Kiffin) or recommend that he do the "honorable thing" and step down. 

If fans want to spew venom at the coaching staff, some of it should go in defensive coordinator Ed Donatell's direction. UW gave up 466 yards to Stanford, a season-high for the Cardinal, and amazingly, the Huskies still don't have a single sack this season. But Donatell is no joke. He was a longtime NFL defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach, including a stint with the Broncos when they won two straight Super Bowls. Maybe he's turned into a terrible coach, or maybe he's dealing with an inexperienced unit that still should have a bright future.

Willingham deserves a mulligan this season. With a brutal non-conference schedule and now dealing with the loss of their leader, the Huskies are living in a bad dream. But kicking out a good recruiter and solid citizen like Willingham under these conditions is not only unfair to him, it could potentially scare away established successors. Think about what it would look like to the rest of the country if UW fired its coach four games into a season that featured three games against top-25 clubs, a terrible excessive celebration penalty and a major injury to its starting QB. UW isn't a top program any more, and the administration can't think they would get top-shelf candidates if the head job were vacant. But the decline started before Willingham got here. Let him see this through and no doubt next year will look a lot better. Besides, UW isn't even the worst team in the state; it's only 54 days till the Apple Cup. 

The Worst Is Over

A national championship contender from a tradion-steeped Midwestern program visits the West Coast, in what turns out to be a blowout. USC-Ohio State? Of course not. We're talking about a battle played deep in that game's shadows, surely seen by dozens of viewers on ESPN. They saw Oklahoma ruin a beautiful afternoon at Husky Stadium, crushing Washington 55-14. UW's same old problems cropped up: poor tackling, dropped and airmailed passes and a frightening 591 yards given up. Now the Huskies are 0-3 and staring at the abyss, with chants for the coach's head growing louder. But really, this is a script anyone could have seen coming, so let's not get rash.

I heard a radio caller on the Huskies postgame show say that the Huskies were more poorly coached than mighty Bellevue in their victory over Bothell. That's Bellevue High School. Really, is this what things are coming to? Now "fans" are calling in to say Tyrone Willingham couldn't even outclass his opposite number on a high school sideline? People need to get a goddamn grip.

This is where we step away from the ledge. Everyone knew the Huskies' first three games were an unholy trilogy that would probably leave them winless. Those three opponents -- Oregon, BYU, and Oklahoma -- are ranked 17, 14 and 2, respectively. Yes, UW took a step back after last week's hearbreaker, but OU is going to make a lot of teams look foolish this year. And if it's possible for a team to take refuge in its conference schedule -- because it's so much easier than its non-conference slate -- then the Huskies can be that team.

UW has a bye week, then plays three of its next four games at home: Stanford, at Arizona, Oregon State and Notre Dame. All of those are winnable. Suddenly, the Pac-10 looks very weak. The conference went 3-7 against non-league foes on Saturday, lowlighted by inexplicable losses by Cal-Berkeley to Maryland, Arizona State to UNLV and Arizona to New Mexico. UCLA, thought to be resurgent under Ricky Neuheisel after an upset of Tennessee, got whacked by 59 points to a BYU team UW took to overtime last weekend -- oh sorry, I forgot. Aside from USC and Oregon, the Pac-10 now appears filled with teases, have-nots and never-will-be's.

Conventional wisdom said Willingham needed to make a bowl this year to save his job. So UW would have to go 6-3 onward to get there. That looks unlikely, but fans need to use a different ruler to measure success from here on out. Let's see how hard this young team plays for its coach. If they still put up a fight and are consistently competitive, then Willingham deserves a chance to keep coaching his talented charges. If they roll over and die and go 0-12, then we'll talk. But if that happens, impatience dictates that Willingham would be long gone by then.

UW's Good, Bad and Ugly, or, How Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

Wow, that sucked. Washington's first game of the rest of Ty Willingham's coaching life and they produce this? We know that Oregon is a top-25 team and this was the only conference matchup of any BCS schools on a day when most teams gorged on cupcakes. And it helped make for a really ugly day of football in Seattle, as WSU got thumped 39-13 by Oklahoma State at Qwest Field. But 44-10? Really? UW face-planted with a much louder thud than anyone expected, and it could set the tone for things to get really ugly around Montlake. But a measure of patience is urged. 

For all the talk of how this team would be different, the Huskies did just about everything the same from their hapless 4-9 campaign of last year. The offensive line didn't or couldn't block, and UW averaged a paltry 2.2 yards on 43 rushes. To call the O-line sieve-like is to disrespect sieves everywhere. The lack of protection forced Jack Locker to run for his life like Fran Tarkenton in an old NFL Films reel. For Locker to become Tim Tebow West, he needs to stay upright. But if the protection against Oregon is any indication, he will spend way too much time in the scrum this year. Also, Locker's accuracy continues to be an issue; he completed only 12 of 28 passes. However, he's not the problem here, but he will figure prominently in the solution, if there is one.  

The defense came out in a snazzy new 3-3-5 alignment, but often opted not to tackle. One of the results (or three): it gave up three touchdowns of 25 yards or more. And this wasn't against the juggernaut offense of Dennis Dixon and Johnathan Stewart. Injuries forced the Ducks to resort to their third- and fourth-string quarterbacks in the second half. You might recall that was the half in which Oregon pulled away, outscoring UW 30-0. If ever there was a time to catch Oregon in a bit of lull, this was it. Consider the opportunity squandered. 

But acknowledge one glaring fact: UW is a young team. 24 true or redshirt freshmen traveled to Eugene. They represent a potentially bright future, coming from two heralded recruiting classes. But they have to grow up fast. BYU and Oklahoma come calling the next two games and these Husky pups are playing for their coach's neck. The specter of 0-3 is staring them in the face and the calls for Willingham's dismissal will grow louder.

It's kind of funny to think that if Coach Ty had just scheduled, let's say, Idaho and Louisiana Tech as non-conference foes the next two weeks, he'd be fine. Dust yourself off after the Oregon debacle, crush a couple of tomato cans, and you're 2-1 going into the meat of conference play. Supporters just want wins, and it doesn't matter who they're against. At the end of the season, fans will call "early-season victories against inferior opponents" by a shorter name: wins. At any rate, give Willingham integrity points for scheduling tough non-Pac-10 teams. Unfortunately, UW fans probably won't hear that argument over the din of calls for his head. Washington should feel lucky to have Willingham as its coach, and doubly fortunate that Rick Neuheisel's baggage and chest-thumping are someone else's problems. But if things don't change soon, boosters will run him out of town. Then -- a la Charlie Weis' 19-6 record in his first two years at Notre Dame after Willingham's ouster there -- another coach will swoop in and get the credit for leading Ty's talented recruits to brighter times. And then fans will know that they were right, right?