COACHES HOT SEAT BLOG

It certainly wasn’t a surprise to us that Washington asked Ty Willingham to resign or that Ty Willingham did not resign voluntarily.  Such is the nature of college football today at a big time college football program, where just graduating your players and acting with class is not enough, and those two things should never be enough in a sport like football that has a scoreboard and determines a winner and a loser at the conclusion of each game.  Winning is very important, and anyone that would downplay the importance of winning in college football, or generally in our Republic as whole has a basic misunderstanding of how the United States of America became such a great country.  Ty Willingham just did not win enough football games at Washington, and there was just no way he was going to get around that fact, even if every player on his team graduated with honors and was a Rhodes Scholar.  The job of a college head football coach is to both run his program with class AND to win games and championships, and people that tell you any different are just not living in the same reality as the rest of us.  The University of Washington has a very proud college football tradition and a 11-32 record in his fifth season at UW was just not good enough for Ty Willingham to keep his job, nor would it be good enough for any coach to keep his job at a school like Washington. 

 

Now that the decision has formally been made on Ty Willingham at Washington, the focus now turns to the next head coach at UW, and there are plenty of great candidates out there for the people at Washington to consider.  Below are the coaches that would be on our list if we were hiring the next head football coach at Washington (alphabetical last name):

 

Head Coaches

Troy Calhoun, Air Force

Bobby Hauck, Montana

Pat Hill, Fresno State

Brady Hoke, Ball State

Brian Kelly, Cincinnati

Lane Kiffin, formerly Oakland Raiders

Mike Leach, Texas Tech

Bronco Mendenhall, Brigham Young

Jim Mora, Seattle Seahawks

Gary Patterson, TCU

Chris Peterson, Boise State 

Gary Pinkel, Missouri

Kyle Whittingham, Utah

 

Assistant Coaches

Robert Anae, BYU OC

Norm Chow, UCLA OC

Dave Christensen, Missouri OC

Chip Kelly, Oregon OC

Will Muschamp, Texas DC

Steve Sarkisian, USC OC

Brent Venables, Oklahoma DC

DeWayne Walker, UCLA DC

Kevin Wilson, Oklahoma OC

 

Well, there are 22 current head and assistant coaches that would be on our list if we were hiring the next head coach at Washington.  We have never interviewed or even talked to any of these coaches, but we have watched most of them very closely over the years and if we had to rank them as who we think would be the best coach for Washington and would be the best overall fit for the Washington job, our Top 7 list would look like (Although we have Jim Mora on the above list, we have some real doubts if Mora wants to be a head coach in college, or if he realizes the amount of work, recruiting, alumni relations, etc., that goes with being a head coach in the college game.  Also, does Gary Pinkel really want to rebuild another college football program?  We have our doubts on Pinkel as well.):

 

1.  Chris Peterson, Boise State

2.  Bronco Mendenhall, Brigham Young

3.  Kyle Whittingham, Utah

4.  Dave Christensen, Missouri OC

5.  Troy Calhoun, Air Force

6.  Pat Hill, Fresno State

7.  Bobby Hauck, Montana

8.  Steve Sarkisan, USC OC

9.  Lane Kiffin, formerly Oakland Raiders

10.  Brian Kelly, Cincinnati

 

It is going to be fascinating to watch who Washington ends up hiring as their next head football coach, and we certainly believe that the Washington president and AD both realize the importance of having a winning football program and how a winning football program can positively impact the athletic department and the university as a whole.  Everyone on the Washington upper-campus, many of whom have never worked a day in their lives at a private for-profit business, need to completely and totally understand the importance to the University of Washington as a whole of having a winning football program and what it would mean to everyone that would like to see UW move forward in all areas, and we certainly believe that current UW president Mark Emmert understands that in spades.

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