So, let me sum up my thots on Pete:
I don’t know how to say this other than… Pete is a saint.
This is a guy who is a true BETA (in a way that I mean that positively). He’s the kind of guy that has a tremendous passion for what is right and doing right by others.
I said for a long time – Pete doesn’t care about winning. People said I’m nuts or whatever, but he just didn’t. Pete wanted to do it HIS WAY. He has one speed and that speed is ‘PROTECT THE PROCESS AND BE FAIR’.
That fairness doesn’t allow him to cast Andre Baccelia to the wayside. It doesn’t allow him to bench Kyler Manu.
But the issue with Pete has always been the negative side of his beta-ness. He wants to out-smart people. He wants to do more with less. He was overly generous to the weak and overly critical of the strong.
When Pete said he knew him stepping aside and Jimmy taking over was what’s best for the program, I felt both vindicated and so appreciative that we had what could be the only coach in history that would REALLY believe that and act on it. Chip Kelly takes $5mil a year from UCLA to walk around and be named Chip Kelly. Pete is so different.
SO – ON TO LAKE – what is the reason that Pete felt like Jimmy could take it to the next level?
I’ll give you 5 reasons.
1. Alpha mentality.
Jimmy’s players play with the most passion. He wants to attack. He has that alpha energy all the time. He wants to shove it in the face of every rival. He has special enmity for Oregon and special contempt for WSU. He wants to beat the shit out of those teams and you can feel it. And those rivalries are personal to him. Which I love. He fucks with Oregon in recruiting, he talks shit to Mike Leach.
If Husky Nation can unite around ANYTHING it is a LIT UP DEFENSE. Jimmy is the first coach we’ve had since DJ that I trust that will happen with.
2. Program Perception: HUSKY NATION
Husky fans want that lit defense. They want a D that goes out and shows emotion. Pete is great, but even though SEA fans love bland whiteness in every day life, what they live for is for other people to show their inner rage for them. All of the bland whiteness is wonderful for letting others go at four way stops, but all the hidden, repressed need to scream, brag, humiliate others gleefully and celebrate our dominance needs to come out at these mass gatherings. Husky Stadium is never going to be lit, Husky fans are never going to feel connected to a team, when the players walk back to the sideline after making a huge play. At the end of Pete’s tenure (WSU notwithstanding, because we always looked like we SHOULD v the Cuog) making plays on D looked more like a relief than a cause for celebration. I think Jimmy will bring that.
3. Program Perception: CROOTS
Jimmy’s black. That is good—all things being equal—but Jimmy is not David Shaw. Having an AfAm HC is (thank Christ) more common than ever these days, but Jimmy has more Lincoln Riley energy than he does David Shaw energy. I love that his attack mode arrogance upsets foes. That shit will pull. He’s a guy who isn’t a fuckstick like Willie Taggart and old guy like Herm Edwards or a bureaucrat like David Shaw. So, he’s got his own energy, he is an Army brat, can relate to anyone (Pete obviously struggled with this; he liked kids like Kevin King, but for some reason he just couldn’t relate) and for a guy in that position, you have to relate. Jimmy can connect, but what recruit wouldn’t want to play like UW’s DBs? If our team has the energy of Budda, Sid, Kev, Byron, Taylor Rapp, etc we are going to be THE place kids want to play at. It’s not about him being ‘black’ – it’s about him having that Dabo type ‘LIT’ energy and also having a proven record of coaching, being smart, relatable, arrogant and competitive. Washington isn’t Stanford. I don’t want it to be. We want kids who want to beat you down. I think Jimmy will attract that and that energy will permeate our recruiting.
3. Recruiting Changes: FOKG
Listen, I like OKG and all that crap about as much as I like accidentally being impaled by a piece of falling broken glass. It has to go. It was always stupid and even Pete basically said ‘well, yeah, I mean, yeah, it’s not that great.’ The Venn diagram components of OKG are ‘at least one white parent’, ‘slow strategy’, ‘person that is overly deferent to adults’. You could get away with just having one, but if you have all three, you were in. That shit is wack. I don’t want fucking Aaron Hernandez on my team, but for fuck’s sake we stopped taking kids like Kevin GOD DAMN King. We took Cooper McDonalds over Jordan Banks THIS YEAR. That element to our recruiting needs to die. Can you imagine UGA taking Cooper McDonalds over anyone?? No disrespect to Cooper and I don’t hate his film… but should a top 10 program be taking Cooper McDonalds? No. I expect Jimmy to be much more amenable to recruiting guys and understanding that what our program can DO FOR THEM is a lot more important than WHERE THEY ARE NOW. My PRIMARY complaint with OKG and B4L has always been we take the kids that need it the LEAST. I think Jimmy (just judging by his recruiting patterns) will be amenable to taking kids who need it. Byron Murphy.
4. Recruiting Changes: EVERYTHING MATTERS
I expect Jimmy to be competitive in recruiting. He’s already shown that. He WANTED to steal Oregon’s lunch money on Esteen and Cam Williams. He enjoyed that they took guys he dropped. THAT is the mentality we need. Art of war. We need to weaken our opponents and strengthen ourselves. It’s college god damn football, it’s not national security. I expect Jimmy to want great classes and strive to get them. And not to downplay getting them. In that sense I expect us to align much more with elite programs than with fucking PLU. And with Pete, sadly, it was the reverse. Of course Pete WANTED great players, but he got no joy from taking kids like Latu. He got joy from taking kids like Nick Harris. That’s fine if you want to write a Lifetime Movie, but it’s not fine if you want to – I DUNNO – beat tOSU, Penn State, Auburn, Bama or even OREGON AT HOME. I don’t want to be PLU. I respect that PLU vibe, that UC-Davis vibe, but that’s for UC-Davis. It’s not for WASHINGTON DAMMIT. Jimmy wants to be WASHINGTON, not UC-Davis. I bet we recruit like it.
5. HUNGER.
For Pete, football was a side hustle. He wanted to develop people and he used football to do that. Again, that’s great… for UC-Davis. But we are WASHINGTON. Jimmy montLAKE has ambition and hunger. You think Jimmy wants to be the first AfAm coach to hoist the Natty trophy? I do. You think he wants us to be on ESPN all the time? I do. You think he wants us to be seen as one of the pillars of college football? I do. I think Jimmy montLAKE wants to win. I don’t think he’s satisfied with 7-5 as long as we are doing the right process. And I think that ‘striving’ aspect to Jimmy is something our program desperately needs. Not to look around and say ‘this place is cool’ – but to look around and say ‘this place is incomplete’. I think Jimmy is going to have that hunger to be the best that Pete just didn’t have. Pete’s hunger was different and I love and respect him, but it wasn’t about beating Bama.
Now that I have enumerated my positive feelings about Jimmy I have some concerns…
1. I’m concerned about his ability to be a CEO, lead others and allow other people to shine. Can his arrogance be channeled into demanding the best, or when adversity hits will he blame others for his failings?
2. He knows and understands Pete’s culture… can he do it himself? I think we are probably in for some “Goldilocks” years here where Jimmy’s alpha enthusiasm meshes with these physically talented slow strategy kids (just in the same way we had a Goldilocks year in 2000 and 2016 where the cultural mesh hit an optimal point). Can he sustain past the Goldilocks years? I really hope he has internalized enough of Pete’s culture that he HIMSELF is a Goldilocks. A mix. One of the things I’ve said repeatedly is I don’t want ALL FIVE STARS. I want a MIX. I want a diversified portfolio of physically talented, hungry players. I want a coach who has a diversified portfolio as well. But the hardest thing is organization and culture guidance… can he do it?
3. Can he pick coaches? His DB GAs have gone on to be good. Can he get us other good coaches? Does he recognize them? Do they want to work for him? Will a big time OC want to come here and take orders from a newbie? Dabo got Chad Morris out of a TX HS and it completely changed Clemson. Can Jimmy go Dabo? Or will it be Sarktacular?
IN SUM
I think Jimmy is the right guy. I think we needed to build on this foundation. I think we all know it takes only a couple years to get UW right at any time. We have a fucking TONNE of talent in the bottom two classes on our roster. Now we need a coach who will make sure we get a good/great offense, recruit like it matters and put his nuts in the face of the country.
I honestly think right now – for this job – Jimmy is the best approximation of Lincoln Riley we can have. He’s the Pete/UW version of that. God speed. I’m fucking pumped.
