NCAA football, 2013-14

[alfred russel]

In the 5 seasons before Steve Sarkisian arrived in Seattle, Washington went 12-47; under Sarkisian, the Huskies are 34-29.

That being said, I'm very curious to see who they get to come in, the first two names being talked about are Petersen from Boise and Jim Mora from UCLA

A bad coach can tank at Washington (hello Ty Willingham!), but a really good coach should be able to compete for and not too infrequently win the Pac 12. I wouldn't be too upset to see him leave if I was a Husky fan--not thrilled either--just sort of meh. Mora or Petersen would be an upgrade, imo.

[katmai]

Oh he was on soft hot seat this year if he didn't improve on the seven win mark. I'm more concerened with the reports of Wilcox the DC and Lopoi the excellent recruiter both leaving as well.

[Ed Anger]

I like Mike Leach.

[katmai]

Wait till he locks your kid in the closet!

[Ed Anger]

Wait till he locks your kid in the closet!

My kid will take it like a man.

[katmai]

Another name being talked about is Nussmeier(sp) the OC at Alabama as he use to coach same position at UW

[Savonarola]

Christmas comes early to Columbus, OH:

U-M's Hoke: No changes to staff, Gardner to return in '14

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20131202/SPORTS0201/312020091/U-M-s-Hoke-No-changes-staff-Gardner-return-14?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

[Ed Anger]

Depends if Miller and Shazier stay for their senior season.

[sbr]

The move was a no-brainer for Sark.  He was one 8 or 9 win season away from being fired, now he should get 3-4 almost guaranteed years at a better job with a nice pay raise.

I bet UW breathes a sigh of relief.  Sark was good enough that it would have been hard to fire him, but I'm not sure he was good enough to get the Huskies over the top.  He did all the heavy lifting and turned a terrible program around rather quickly, but then they plateaued.  I don' think it will be too hard to replace Sark with a similar to better coach, and they could really turn things with a home run hire.  Losing the entire staff would be tough but not a death sentence or anything.

It's a bit of a head scratcher for USC.  I would think they could have done better for themselves, but they got their #2 guy so I guess that is worth something.

[PDH]

The real UW fired their coach after the season tanked.  Now there is no ideas of who will coach, someone mentioned Mangino but I think he would die of a heart attack trying to attack one of his players here at 7200 feet.

[katmai]

The move was a no-brainer for Sark.  He was one 8 or 9 win season away from being fired, now he should get 3-4 almost guaranteed years at a better job with a nice pay raise.

I bet UW breathes a sigh of relief.  Sark was good enough that it would have been hard to fire him, but I'm not sure he was good enough to get the Huskies over the top.  He did all the heavy lifting and turned a terrible program around rather quickly, but then they plateaued.  I don' think it will be too hard to replace Sark with a similar to better coach, and they could really turn things with a home run hire.  Losing the entire staff would be tough but not a death sentence or anything.

It's a bit of a head scratcher for USC.  I would think they could have done better for themselves, but they got their #2 guy so I guess that is worth something.

Steve Sarkisian's UW legacy: middle rung in the Pac-12

Steve Sarkisian left for USC on Monday, but his 24-21 record at Washington raises questions about how successful he really was.

By Bud Withers

Seattle Times college football reporter

On a Thursday night in the first week of December in 2008, the news broke that Washington had made a surprise choice for its new football coach: Steve Sarkisian.

Monday morning, news crackled again, that Sarkisian is on his way to USC.

Another surprise.

A storied football colossus that uses national-championship and Heisman Trophies for doorstops and paperweights just hired a guy whose conference head-coaching record at a highly respected school was exactly 24-21.

What's always been said about jobs is true, whether it's dishwasher at KFC or head football coach at USC: It's about whom you know. And Sarkisian knew a lot of people at USC from his days there under Pete Carroll.

Five years ago, if Washington had hired the best assistant from the staff of, say, Texas, and he'd gone 24-21 in league games at the UW, does he get a sniff from the Trojans?

Or think about it like this: In the Apple Cup the other day, Washington State was at its own 28 with 5½ minutes left, down 20-17. If it had driven the length of the field, scored and won the game, and the Huskies go 4-5 in the league, can USC hire Sarkisian? If it can, then John McKay, John Wayne and Howard Jones just flinched, in unison, in their graves.

So strike up the chorus: "Hey, moron, he led them back from 0-12."

Yes, Sarkisian inherited all the trappings of the last year of Tyrone Willingham, when the Huskies went winless. But Willingham is so despised among a segment of the UW faithful that they're willing to overlook the fact that Sarkisian walked into a program that included Chris Polk, Mason Foster, Donald Butler, Alameda Ta'amu, Daniel Te'o Nesheim, Senio Kelemete, Devin Aguilar, Everette Thompson, Cort Dennison and Victor Aiyewa.

Oh, yeah, and a quarterback who went No. 8 in the 2011 draft, Jake Locker.

It was hardly the dictionary definition of an 0-12 program, even if Sarkisian had to coach those players better (he did) and do a morale transplant (he did). Yet some people are so smitten by the upgrade in the energy of the program, so grateful to be rid of Willingham, that they forget: It's part of the job description. You don't double your kid's allowance just because he did his homework.

Is the program better than when Sarkisian came to it? Absolutely. Did he author some sort of stunning turnaround? I don't think so.

What he was, was Coach Close. A year ago, in season No. 4, the Huskies were 7-4 with the Apple Cup and a bowl game between them and a nine-win season. They coughed up an 18-point, fourth-quarter lead to lose to WSU (committing nine penalties in the last 16 minutes) and then got nipped by Boise State in Las Vegas.

This year, nine wins is still a possibility. But the league record is 5-4, as it was last year, as it was the year before that, as it was the year before that. Washington was right there against Stanford and UCLA, but this is the reality: The Huskies blew away the two league doormats, California and Colorado, and went 3-4 against the average, good and very good teams in the league.

A lot of what he did was admirable. Yet five years later, the Huskies are merely a middle-rung team in the Pac-12.

Sark's allies will argue that he coached at a place where too many people don't understand that times have changed, that the Pac-12 is different now from when Don James was around, that expectations of too many Washington fans are of a different time.

I'm still of the belief that the Huskies have enough going — tradition, great city, good school, significant recruiting base — that you really have to screw it up not to win at Washington, at least moderately.

Ultimately, that's exactly what Sarkisian did. He won, moderately.

[grumbler]

Christmas comes early to Columbus, OH:

U-M's Hoke: No changes to staff, Gardner to return in '14

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20131202/SPORTS0201/312020091/U-M-s-Hoke-No-changes-staff-Gardner-return-14?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

The story is a non-story. Hoke didn't say that the entire staff would return, he said he didn't anticipate any changes.  That is, of course, what he would say if he did anticipate changes, because you don't fire anyone until you are ready to fire them, and that isn't now.  Ditto for departures; you don't announce them until the departing coach announces it, and the departing coach wouldn't announce until after the bowl game.

So, there may be changes for next year, but only a moron would announce them now, and Hoke is no moron (though he was talking to at least one moron; the one who asked the question).

[alfred russel]

I don't know whether Hoke will bring back all his assistants next year, but I know he will be bringing back the pizza delivery guy.

[CountDeMoney]

UW should try to get Leach! He is a fine coach.

[katmai]

He's a perfect fit for Wazzu.
We expect better for the Huskies.