Washington is looking to bounce back from their worst season in nearly 14 years. The Huskies finished 4-8 and missed a bowl game last season. One coach has an opinion on what went wrong with Jimmy Lake and what Kalen DeBoer and staff can improve on.

This quote from an opposing coach in Athlon’s Sports College Football magazine was very eye-opening;

“What happened to Jimmy Lake is a mystery to a lot of us. The guy you saw in the media last year wasn’t the Jimmy Lake a lot of us knew. That [head coaching] chair changes you, and I think the expectations and reality at UW have always been way out of alignment… There’s a disconnect at UW that they’re Notre Dame or Michigan. They aren’t. They never have been. Take a guy like [Chris] Petersen – they didn’t recruit like ‘an academic’ or an SEC team. They won on development, scheme and culture. That got sideways when he left. The new staff is the polar opposite of what Lake was doing publicly. Very salt of the earth. Just pure ball coaching… Everything is in place to be successful if they’re given enough time. I think you’ll see a big jump on offense right away, in part because that last offensive scheme was a huge mess. [Michael] Penix coming in will be good for that entire QB room, and that staff schemes really well. There’s talent at the skill positions; they just need a refresh… Defensively, they’re going to look very different, and they’ve got a lot of position turnover… Give them time and they’re going to score points. The rest of it will be under construction this year… Kalen [DeBoer] isn’t going to care about national noise like Oregon and USC. They’re going to scrap all that hype and just coach ball.”

I couldn’t agree more with this coaches take on the Huskies. When Chris Petersen was here it was all about doing things the right way and letting the rest take care of itself. When Lake took over he seemed to care too much what the media thought. His “Run the Damn Ball” hat and the infamous speech before the Oregon game were perfect examples of that. And that’s not to say Jimmy Lake is a bad football coach. There was just a little more focus on external things rather than internal things.
With Kalen DeBoer and company, the Huskies should return to just playing and coaching football.