The Monday Morning Wash
by John Berkowitz on Nov 3, 2008 7:39 AM PST
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PrintWashington faces Arizona State this week in a game that is going to be very anti-climatic for both teams. Going into the season most pundits had the Sun Devils ranked near the top of the Pac Ten conference standings.
Most people felt that even though ASU had some holes here and there that coach Dennis Erickson could get them filled as he usually does. Instead of competing with USC the Sun Devils have ended up looking more like UCLA this season crawling to a 2-6 record as the UW game approaches.
The story is simple the Devils haven't been able to stop anyone on defense. Injuries and attrition have widened the holes on offense so they haven't been out scoring anyone. A nagging mid season injury to QB Rudy Carpenter and the lack of being able to establish a running game have doomed the team this season.
Last weeks game against Oregon State on the road is a classic example where the Sun Devils were intercepted going for a two point conversion to tie the game with 21 seconds remaing. The result was a 27-25 loss to Oregon State who at 5-3 are only one game away from qualifying for a another bowl game.
Going into the season I had this upcoming game circled as a certain win for ASU. I still have it circled as a win but only because Washington now is a broken team without it's star player led by a lame duck, inept, and fractured coaching staff. It's obvious the team and it's coaching staff have thrown in the towel for 2008.
Count on the Huskies to lay down and play dead like they have for every single game since losing to BYU. Look for ASU to finally find some balance to give Carpenter the time to throw the ball. I figure the Sun Devils will finish with around 400 yards in total offense which should be enough to hold off the Huskies who should have trouble going over 200.
UW shouldn't lose in as bad a fashion as it has over the last two weeks against Notre Dame and USC. Look for the Huskies to be able to punch it in to the end zone a couple of times but the end result will be a 31-14 loss to a struggling 2-6 football team.
What we have learned about ASU.
This article from an Arizona illustrates the difference between the two struggling clubs. ASU hasn't given up and Washington has.
That "fight through it, keep practicing hard" mantra you've been hearing so much is working. The Devils were their most physical of the season on both sides of the ball. Getting field goals in the red zone instead of touchdowns remains an issue.
Moral victory for ASU?
What Arizona State's Dennis Erickson would allow Sunday about his team's sixth consecutive loss, 27-25 at Oregon State, is that it "reinforce what we're trying to get done. It was a heck of a game to watch, very physical on both sides. We didn't make the plays at the end we need to make.
Willingham Rumors
Last night a few rumors were still swirling around Tyrone Willingham. Word on the street is USC may have been his last game on the sidelines despite the goal of keeping him as coach for the remainder of the season.
The theory was that keeping Willingham would stabilize the situation over the last five games of the season. He would keep the kids in class and prevent the team from descending in to a chaotic situation. What is happening is the exact opposite as it seems his staff is now so fractured they are barely on speaking terms with each other. The impact on the players is obvious.
As usual we will have to wait till the press conference this afternoon to see if Willingham steps all the way down. We know he doesn't want to do it but as I said after the game this situation is actually burying his career rather than making a statement to help it. The team is close to going Mackovic which is the one thing Woodward and the administration want to avoid.
Whatever happens it will be Willinghams situation because while UW may suggest he step down for his own good they aren't going to force his hand. If he wants to go down with the sip it will be his own decision. One thing we have learned about Willingham over the past four years is that he thinks of himself first rather than the good of the program so stay tuned.
Steve Kelley from the Seattle Times chimes in on the subject
If you thought this program still had some pride left, if you thought these players who have given so little this season, might, just might, give it up just this one Saturday afternoon in tribute to the coach who recruited them, you were sadly mistaken.
Nathan Ware and the Seattle PI Dawg Blawg will be having his own Election
While the nation votes for a new president on Tuesday, we'll be having our own little election here on the Dawgblawg. Between 9AM and 4PM, I'll be putting a series of polls on the Blawg. A new poll will appear every 30 minutes. We'll be voting on topics ranging from the Husky Stadium renovation to who you like for the next coach. Make sure you visit the Blawg all day and cast your vote.
A thank you to Bob Sherwin
Seattle Sports Examiner Bob Sherwin filled in for me last week doing the game thread against USC. Bob is one of the top sportswriters in the Pacific Northwest and it was great of him to help me out last weekend.
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Kelley
nails it.
We’ll find out this afternoon if the fraud will be on the sidelines again this Saturday
They could win if
TW was to quit this afternoon. The team is splintered and have quit. Hopefully TW will want to avoid driving the final nail into his never will coach again coffin by resigning.
A sick part of me wants him and the nation to witness the humiliation of playing out the season with a team which no longer puts out any effort at all, despite the few quotes in the papers from players supporting him. Hopefully TW will want to salvage what little credibilty he has left in his coaching career (I assume someone might be dumb enough in the future to hire him) by not being around during the routs, and he can blame it on other factors, like he did this game. Maybe Scott W. needs to point out the Mackovic analogy, who has never coached again.
The other part of me wants to salvage some pride for the kids. The next 3 games could be won with a little emotion and effort . Put Tormey in charge and tell Donatell and Lappano to put out all the stops and let the kids have fun again by running flea flickers, disguised blitzes etc. I would also bench Ballman and let Cory Rutkowski get his shot. In the practices I saw, Rutkowski was inconsistent but Ballman of late has been just plain bad.
John, in person the last 5 games have been brutal. I wasn’t sure if the team had quit after Stanford against UA, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt. There is none now with the product on the field against the last 4 opponents. UA, OSU, ND, and USC. ITS TIME WELL OVERDUE
Stop torturing yourselves
Willingham will be here all year. The only way he won’t be is if Woodward believes the players will be worse off in ways other than their on-field performance. He’s been very consistent on that issue. So unless players have revolted in some way we don’t know about — like how some Arizona players went to the administration to get Mackovic fired — he’s our guy for four more of these.
There may have been a point in the year where just getting rid of Willingham would have won us another game or two. But that point is past. The dye is cast, this team is what it is. What would be the point of canning Willingham now and asking some demoralized assistant coach to fill in for a month? Honestly, do you think the team would win any more games?
We should just stop thinking about it and focus on next year. For my part, I’ve decided that the Huskies did not field a team this year. They’ll be 0-0, not 0-12 or 1-11 or whatever embarrassment the sad group of guys in purple who actually took the field this season manage to put together. They’re not Huskies. It’s not their fault, they came here to be Huskies, but the Husky-making machine is in the shop. So we’re taking this year off and we’ll see what happens next year. This season never happened.
Unless you don't count what Woodward did as a midseason firing,
he has already shown a penchant for changing his mind.
You can make an argument that Woodward has stuck to his word about “no mid-season coaching change,” I guess, but it rings pretty hollow to me.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find out that Willingham is done on the sidelines, because the players and coaches have all quit. It’s going to get worse. I think Woodward might just recognize that.
It doesn’t matter for wins and losses, I agree. But it can help build a little bit of enthusiasm back in the players and the program.
Prrbrr- I agree completely with you, they don’t have a chance to win while TW is around and he is just hurting himself by staying on.
T90- It will be interesting. He is so stubborn it is hard to get a correct read on him.
DJ- You just never know where the breaking point of a proud man is. I know he is very close.
Ty
won’t leave the sidelines willingly, IMHO.
His ego won’t let him admit failure although his demeanor on the sidelines says “WTF am I doing here?”
Jack
Molly Yanity
says two players (on conditions of anonimity) think Ty should be off the sidelines.
A link to her PI story. Ins’t it generally accepted that for everyone saying something there are 10 more that agree? Something to that effect.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/huskies/386139_husk03.html
Jack
Players
Not a good sign when players want him gone. I saw an interview with Middleton on FSN, he didn’t seem to upset that WIllingham was on his way out. I like players who want to win more than they want to support a coach that can’t win.
"Bow Down to Washington"
"Kick the tires and light the fires!"
"two players speaking on the condition of anonymity??"
What is that? Why in the world would players speak only on the condition of anonymity under the circumstances? They cannot get kicked off the team at this point. The only explanation is that they fear what other players on their team would say.
It could well be that there is a fraction forming, but I still don’t see how it would be any better under an existing assistant. Those of you that are more inclined towards emotional outbursts than common sense have this unyielding faith that something different must be “better”. But, you fail to define what the conditions of “different” are and, even more glaring, you fail to define what constitutes “better”.
The situation only improves itself when a new coach is announced and installed. There is no band-aid to get us between here and there. Everyone knew that there was no chance that a new coach would be announced mid-season, yet you still wanted Ty canned. He’s now canned and you want him canned faster. To what end? The season is lost and there is no remedy that will satisfy the bloodthirst that has formed after 10 straight losses.
My advice to you, again, is to relax, use your head, and recognize that controlling what happens off-field is now the best thing that can be done for the stewardship of the program until a new coach is found. Ty staying in place, to placate players, parents and administrators is the only realistic way for that to happen (as unappetizing as that sounds).
"Greed is Good."
So is Rudy.
Gekko, I generally agree with you.
But honestly, would an interim coach cancel a southern California recruiting trip, when already in southern California, the way that Willingham did?
The answer is obviously no.
It probably doesn’t matter, but the fact is that Husky coaches out in the recruiting hotbed that the UW needs to reestablish at LEAST saying, “Keep your mind open about the UW” is better than no presence at all.
The goal now, really, is to not hamstring the current players more than they are. Willingham is a bad hamstring at this point. One that will linger for the next 6 weeks unless he is removed.
The factions
were formed quite a while back. Ty’s guys and the kids that want to play real football have been feuding for some time now.
Ty is still here so the rest of the country can see how inept he really is. Stability, going to class is the cover story
I agree with the factions issue
I’m not defending anything other than pointing out that the goal now is to get the program to a new coach in as good of shape as possible given the realities of today. We can’t go back and wave the magic want to result in Ty being gone 9 mos ago. As such, getting the program to the next coach means that the kids stay out of trouble, go to class, don’t get suspended, don’t quit school, don’t quit football and continue to do those things that over a period of four years yield maturity, discipline and commitment. I wish there was a way to save what is on the field over the next four weeks, but there apparently is not.
"Greed is Good."
So is Rudy.
Ok, now we are getting somewhere
You stated our goal as “to get the program to a new coach in as good of shape as possible”
There is no way that Willingham is the guy to accomplish that goal. I’m fine with him staying through the end of the year. But ANY assistant coach would do a better job of meeting that goal than Willingham.
"Bow Down to Washington"
"Kick the tires and light the fires!"
Define "better job" and you might convince me
otherwise, I see more risk, not less, that players will fall out of their routines, not hit their workouts as hard, not go to class with as much discipline and put themselves in bad situations that could lead to the dreaded “off-field incident”. I laid out my criteria and I see no evidence to suggest that a lame-duck assistant would do that job better than a lame duck head coach.
"Greed is Good."
So is Rudy.
Change
An assistant would be out to prove he is head coach material.
You assume that if Willingham is gone that we immediately return to “probation nation”. Any assistant worth a grain of salt can motivate players in class and the weight room, work or ride the bench. The rest of this season should be seen as an audition for the next coaching staff.
Do you honestly think Willingham is getting a full effort out of the players? You are kidding yourself if you think they are giving anything a full effort right now. I’ve never seen less passion on a football field.
"Bow Down to Washington"
"Kick the tires and light the fires!"
If I'm the last guy in line, how can I be drinking Kool Aid?
Your metaphors are mixing. I’m not sure what I’m the last guy in line on.
"Greed is Good."
So is Rudy.
Gecko
You are the last guy in line at the Kool Aid stand that is buying in that Ty should finish the year.
Promises, Promises
Woodward said that he is unlikely to make a decision on Willingham during the season.
“We’re going to discuss the season after the season, and it’s going to be done collaboratively with president Emmert the folks that we have a great deal or respect for, and we’ll go from there,” said Woodward, a 1985 graduate of LSU and native of Baton Rouge. “It’s still to be evaluated at the right time, and now’s the right time in my opinion. But I do have a philosophy that you judge a body of work at the end of the season, and that’s how we’ll do it.”
_
The end game at Washington is no different than it was at ND. A team going off the rails, and a secretive, self-righteous leadership whose increasing isolation and sense of victimization become as much of a story as the failure on field. As it becomes obvious that commitments made during the early transition negotiations aren’t in the long term interests of the program, i.e. Ty may have to be jettisoned to avoid complete disaster, the stoic hero known for his class in the face of difficulty feels justified telling his side of the story while he still holds the stage – the racist emails from wacko fans, the pressure from an administration more concerned with winning than his fine work molding the young men in his charge – and things start getting ugly as the national press weighs in on the soap opera.
Will you still be blaming Ty in three years for your struggles? Probably, and rightfully so, since you still won’t have any linemen. It will get old, believe me, but that won’t make it any less true. Will the ‘broken promises’ made to Ty by your AD earn you the opprobrium of casual fans and ESPN? Probably not. Not too many people have an axe to grind for Husky nation the way they do for my beloved Irish. But if it helps at all, dude, we feel your pain.
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