It was somber, yet celebratory this morning as Chris Petersen passed the coaching baton to Jimmy Lake. The two coaches exchanged handshakes, and a hug — and the Huskies have a new head football coach.

Chris Petersen said that he just needed to “rest” and “recharge”, but he will still stay on in an “advisory” capacity — however he didn’t specify exactly what that means.

“I’ve given these guys enough advice”, he laughed.

If you listened closely to the coach’s words, it would appear that some of this burnout, for lack of a better word, began after the Rose Bowl last January.

“One of the things that hit me was after the Rose Bowl”, he said, “Having a chance to reflect a couple months after that, how much I did not appreciate that game like I should have.”

But the decision was not until last week, “I didn’t decide to step away until probably two or three days before we played Washington State. I knew in my heart that was going to be the right thing to do.” 

While it might seem similar to the sting of that day back in August of 1993 when news broke that Don James was stepping down, the circumstances surrounding that were dire for the program at that time. 

This time, “The future is bright for Husky football”, Athletic Director Jen Cohen assured.

Jimmy Lake takes over in his first-ever head coaching job, but he’s had his eye on that prize ever since he started coaching.

“He knows how special this place is. He knows how good we can be here”, Cohen said of Lake, “Jimmy’s always been on my radar as a possible replacement for Coach Pete, should this day ever come.”

Lake describes himself as “fiercely competitive”, and all about strategies and x’s and o’s. 

Right now he said that, if any changes are to be made to the current staff, nothing would be decided until after the bowl game. Lake also said, as of right now, it’s business as usual.

The coaches are out on the road visiting players this week (contact period), and it’s expected that “most” of the staff will stay intact.

We spoke to a source yesterday who confirmed that Pete Kwiatkowski was staying put and would return to being the sole defensive coordinator going forward, however, Lake would still be very much involved in how the defense is doing things schematically.

As for now, though, Lake said that he hopes to continue on with what Chris Petersen has already been doing at Washington in terms of Built for Life and the OKG philosophy, “I know the recipe, I’ve seen the recipe, and I’m going to copy the recipe.”

But again, what Lake brings to the job is a more mad-scientist approach where x’s and o’s are concerned.