Would things be different today if Washington had gone to a bowl in 2006?

At the end of the day, the game is still about players and success breeds success. We tend to over rate the coach when things are good and over blame them when they are bad. Stanback had the ability (and did, in fact) of winning the occassional game by himself. If he stays upright, do we win 2 or three of our last seven? Almost certainly. Does a bowl game stop the tide and give us a more firm foundation for the future. Sure it does. It would have improved the odds that a better outcome would have played out for the program.

Now, does that mean Ty should get a pass because of IS’s injury. Of course not. He wasn’t destined to fail when he took over. If IS had been able to get us to a bowl, Ty could have been successful. Who knows? But that did not happen. The bottom line is that it hasn’t worked out. Ty is still a good guy. He has done the program some services in terms of attracting some talent, instilling discipline and shepherding these young men. He probably is a good coach who under different circumstances will be successful again. However, this is not that situation and the clock has run out on his tenure.

I think it would have just put lipstick on a pig.

Think about it this way had Stanback not been hurt, we’d be stuck with mediocre football, at best, for a long time to come. I have no reason to believe that Willingham was ever, or will ever be anything more than a mediocre coach.

Ya, ya, he is a great guy, great leader, great mentor, but he can’t teach guys to win! Players take on the attitude/mentality of their coach, and that’s why are team is so even keel. They just aren’t fired up enough to care whether they win or lose! I’m really looking forward to getting some more passion out of our team.

Willingham will get the boot, and we will return to the top much faster than ANY situation with him as the head coach.

Is building a program that has enough depth that losing a star player doesn’t mean complete implosion. I see many similarities this year with losing Jake to 2006 losing Isaiah… the difference is that the season has already been lost this year where in 2006 we still had a pulse.

I will give Ty credit though for not pulling the red-shirt off of Jake in 2006 but since then Ty has failed Jake. The 2007 season should have been the start of our BCS run culminating four years later in a National Championship with Jake as a senior. Instead you have your best offensive weapon, a Heisman Trophy caliber player, running as the lead blocker on a wide reciever reverse. Now he is gone for the year.

Ty’s failure started his first week on the job when he went golfing instead of working on recruiting players to surround his phenom red-shirt QB.

We have two seasons left with Locker. If Jake graduates without ever playing in a bowl game, or living up to half his potential, it would be unforgivable.

Time for a new coach with creative ways to squeeze every bit of talent out of these kids. Time to salvage what is left in the next two years… and that means not pulling the red-shirt off of any player on the roster this year… and it means not playing Jake at safety or any other crazy ideas that could jeapordize his future. I still believe we could have a very dominant team in 2010 but our new coach has to also be thinking about 2011 with Ronnie as a senior and beyond.

blaming a coach for any player’s injury is just a stupid thing to say. Especially Jake’s injury which was a freak occurrence – bouncing his thumb off a defender’s knee? Please. Criticize X’s and O’s, criticize motivation impact, criticize recruiting, criticize discipline. Whatever you like. But don’t be ridiculous.

..someone else that see’s the biggest flaw with this program (besides Ty) – although “abysmal” might be putting it nicely.

didn’t mean it to be. Just trying to highlight my strong objection to the point that a coach can be held responsible for a player getting hurt doing what football players do every day. Apologies.

and see the more important point being the dismissal of the 4th year Seniors. It’s completely hindsight because at the time I still felt TW was a competent coach and was really getting rid of some deadwood. It’s not that any, and correct me if I’m wrong, went on to do anything great, but more that they would have provided useful experience and almost certainly led to a “WTF?” attitude from the rest of the team.

I wonder if the rest of the team was given the reasons those that were dismissed were let go or were left to wonder what the hell they had to to in the future to avoid such a situation.

If TW explained his reasoning satisfactorily to the rest of the team, cool, the standards are known. If not, it’s like walking on eggshells, bed of coals…pick your poison. I just don’t think it led to a healthy attitude.

Does anyone know if the reasons for dismissal were truly communicated to the remaining players? I’ve read quite a bit and don’t know what the specifics were.

Really? HATE?

yes…hate…anything wrong with an extreme dislike or antipathy? Heck, I hate getting up some mornings, or evenings, depending on my schedule. Big deal. I’m not certain what sinister things you’re ascribing to the word. I mean nothing of the sort when I use it.

the effort it takes to hate, Ty that is. Hate is a very strong emotion and from my perspective he’s not worth it.

Watching him from afar I’ve reached some conclusions; He’s not nearly as bright as he tries to talk, he’s not a good game day coach, he’s not a good recruiter, he’s not the molder of young men he wants to be otherwise he would be able figure out ways to work with kids that don’t toe his line. I’d be surprised if he ever gets another D-1 HC gig again.

I don’t hate him, I hate what he has done to my Husky FB, I’ve been following Husky football since the late 40’s, good times and bad, I don’t like him although I hear from Fetters and Grinolds he’s a great one to talk to in an informal setting.

I just want him gone. The longer they wait the longer it will take to heal Husky football. The real question in my mind…do they really want to heal Husky FB?

I know some hard core fans that will not go to another game until the upper campus proves to them they care. It will take more than a new coach to convince them.

In the meantime there’s salmon and steelhead to catch or hunting, sailing, soon to be skiing, there’s many thing to do in the PNW besides watching bad football and bad head coaching

… because what he inherited was worse than what this is. He got a team with a horrible record and very little talent.

You MUST be mad about what he has NOT done to Husky FB, which is improve in the W’s and L’s. No argument here. But, it is hard to say that he hasn’t at least stabilized the discipline and improved the talent base.

And, “Hate” is a very strong word that would seem to ascribe personal feelings about a human being that you neither know or have ever had a single conversation with. Judging his performance in his job is one thing. Attaching an emotion like that to the human being is quite another and would seem to imply that you have any kind of grasp of perspective. I certainly will not be teaching my children that kind of behavior.

Hate is a very strong emotion and from my perspective he’s not worth it.

I don’t know if I truly hate anyone.

I may not hate him but I have absolutely no sympathy for him either.

I am completey with T-90 on this one.

The state of the team is now worse than what he originally inherited.

on whether or not the program is worse than what it was when it was inherited. I argue that the talent is better and that some of the questionable characters are gone. This is debatable.

But not having sympathy (fine) and hate are two different things altogether.

You mean like the kid Ty recruited from Texas who was arrested for hijacking a Taxi Cab outside a strip club in Lake City?

You might mean the CB Ty recruited who will be doing twenty years in a federal pen for an armed home invasion?

Perhaps you mean the other CB Ty recruited who broke his girlfriends jaw in Pioneer Square?

Was it the underage TE who Ty recruited who blew a .241 reading after taking a voluntary breath test this summer at a local music venue?

Perhaps you mean the backup QB who beat the crap out of another student with the help of a Husky LB this past summer on campus?

This is all so confusing Minny.

I think they have adequate talent in the last two classes, unfortunately college football teams are made up of five classes.

We are in as big, or a bigger hole than when Ty started.

William Gerberding
Barbara Hedges
Richard McCormick
Tyrone Willingham

Put the blame where it needs to rest.

I am so sick and tired of hearing how Willingham cleaned up a dirty program. It is all perception and BS.

We all have heard how horrible acadmics were under Lambright, Neuheisel, and Gilbertson. The newest ratings are out based on a six year span and Washington is #2 in the conference in graduating players. That record was compiled mostly under those three coaches.

We seem to be fighting this myth that the football team was out of control under James, Lambo, Neu, and Gilby but it is all about perception. The same crap that goes on now went on back then with all the same results except under Willingham the team is not competitive.

When you have a group of 85-110 people you are going to have some good apples, and bad apples. The perception that Ty’s team is made up of only good apples is ridiculous.

a post I make on knowing the difference between hating a human being and disapproving of how he has done his job has become another flame session and labeling me as a Ty apologist.

You guys are so predictable its not even funny. You are kind of like little mosquitoes that fly right into the zapper.

It is possible to simultaneously respect another human being and to desire to replace him in his current position. But, I guess you do really HATE Ty. You probably HATE me because you cannot separate a differing point of view from some kind of immutable character flaw. Sad to see such small mindedness rage away on this blog.

PS – I did chuckle at seeing the Gerb show up on the questionable character list.

and my point was merely to say that I use words like love and hate, I guess, a lot more loosely than some. I love pizza and hate brussels sprouts. I absolutely hate chili beer, but love rogue-n-berry. Clay Bennett, the Mariners, Seahawks….Coogs and ducks are a slightly different story:) In the end…GO HUSKIES regardless of who’s coaching!