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Career Path: Played and coached at UC Davis for a combined seven years. Went to Pitt to coach QB's for one season, then to Portland State for two. Six years of coaching WR's at Oregon before becoming Boise's offensive coordinator, and then taking over as head coach when Dan Hawkins left for Colorado.
What's To Like: 92-12 career record. Five conference championships in 8 years. 4 top 10 finishes, 6 top 15 finishes. Fantastic X's and O's mind on the offensive side. Gets a lot out of recruits who are mostly not thought of as good enough to play in the Pac-12. Has routinely out coached and beaten programs that should have more talent and resources than Boise in wins over Oregon State (x2), Oregon (x2), Utah (x2), Oklahoma, TCU, Virginia Tech, Georgia, Arizona State, and Washington. His teams always show up ready to play and prior to this season had never been blown out.
Reasons To Be Cautious: Can he recruit at a Pac-12 level against schools like USC and Oregon? His desire to coach in a big market has long been a question. How would he do against the meat grinder schedule that is the Pac-12? If the media scrutiny in Boise was bothersome, the Seattle media will rip him apart. You could argue that Boise State has been in a slow decline since their undefeated 2009 campaign. Coming off of an unprecedented 4 loss season raises an eyebrow.
Why He'd Be Interested: There's nothing left for him to prove at BSU. He's unlikely to ever again get as close to a national championship as he did in the late 2000's there. He saw up close and personal this season that the talent at UW is better than what he's got at Boise, and by a wide margin.
Is It A Good Fit: On the field yes, off the field no. Petersen has done an excellent job over the course of his career of both developing talent on the field and creating systems around that talent to allow it to succeed. It would be interesting to see what he could do with UW's talent, but could he sustain the talent level long term? If he could keep Justin Wilcox in the fold -- who coached under Petersen as defensive coordinator at Boise State -- it would go a long way toward helping out in recruiting and give the fans confidence in the continued improvement on the defensive side of the ball.
