The next few weeks are going to be very interesting to watch over at the University of Washington athletic department. First of all the Huskies are going to kick off a search to being in a new high powered individual to run the athletic department, secondly Ty Willingham has to be looking over his shoulder at this point with Turner gone, and finally we get to see if Willingham is going to make any changes in his coaching staff over the dead period which begins after the weekend.
I think the most important thing going on right now is the finish of the recruiting season, and the intrigue about how Ty will shape his staff for next season. I think it is a given that he needs to replace his longtime assistant Kent Baer and revamp his defense. Does he promote from within and give DJ Williams a shot? DJ is the only coach on the defensive side of the ball who hasn't served time as a coordinator. Do you bring in someone from the outside? Whatever you do, you have to shuffle things up.
As for the AD search it will work itself out over the holidays as the candidates begin to emerge. Mitch Barnhart, Don Moos, Dan Bebee are three guys that are going to be gauged for interest.
Willingham made a remark on his radio show earlier in the season when Dan Pederson was fired at Nebraska. He said that when the guy that hired you get's fired you better be looking over your shoulder. Kim Grinolds brought that up in his Dawgman Radio broadcast with Chris Fetters this week. You have to wonder what is going through Ty's mind right now.
Nathan Ware
John: What do you think of the announcement today that Todd Turner has resigned as UW Athletic Director? What do you think happened?
Nathan: I think I know what happened and I subtly mentioned it in my Monday Morning Longsnapper column. Several of the sports programs at UW are subpar. Only a select few programs are succeeding at a high level. And, forget about the Director's Cup standings. Those are garbage. Look at the individual programs and take them for what they are. The most important thing is that the "Big 3" programs (football, men's and women's basketball) are not doing well. You can't succeed at UW and have that be the case. Pure and simple. It's time to win and Mark Emmert put his foot down.
Nathan: The fact that WSU wrapped up their coaching search put former Oregon AD and WSU coaching search leader Bill Moos back on the open market. Any coincidence with the timing?
John: No doubt about it, Moos is going to be one of the top candidates, if he is available. If I am not mistaken, he has a non-compete clause in his settlement with Oregon concerning becoming the AD at Washington. I am not exactly sure when that stipulation is or what the financial damages would be to him if he reneged on the part of the contract. If Washington truly wants Bill Moos, all it takes is the right amount of money. I just think that Emmert and Turner reached a point where they didn't agree on enough issues to keep him around. Like you say the "Big 3" aren't doing very well right now and - as much as Turner hates to admit it - NCAA sports is about money and you make money by winning.I don't think there was any urgency concerning Moos, I just think it was time to let Turner go to appease the masses, send a clear message to Tyrone, and get the boosters who were falling by the wayside excited again. I think it was a wise move by Emmert because it is going to allow a highly divided fan base to begin to heal.
Pac Ten Alley
We took a little break, due to travel, but now it's time to take a walk down the coast and see what the neighbors are up to.
The coaching search commences at UCLA as Karl Dorrell is likely headed to Duke and a second chance. De Wayne Walker's name keep popping up as one of the top candidates.
Rye already posted the news of UCLA interviewing DeWayne Walker. I guess that this interview became public because, given what we have been accustomed to from the Walker contingent in that last few weeks, the news of this interview came from Walker himself. Dohn predictably plays the lap dog role by offering up the following statistics to boost his favorite candidate.
Basketball coverage is in full swing over at the Oregon blog.
Forwards Maarty Leunen and Joevan Catron combined for 43 points and 19 rebounds to lead the Ducks to a 93-66 victory over Sacramento State on Tuesday night in Eugene.Leunen had a season-high 23 points and added 11 rebounds for his sixth double-double of the season for Oregon (8-1). Catron scored a career-high 20 points to go with eight rebounds. Both were 8-for-10 from the field.
Where exactly would USC play of they didn't stay in the Coliseum?
USC's website dedicated to updating fans on the status of Coliseum negotiations was magically wiped clean over the weekend, kind of the way former basketball coach Henry Bibby used to force the athletic dept. to erase the losses during his stint as interim coach from his official record. Those death threats followed by last week's brush off from the Rose Bowl apparently caused USC to take a timeout. As a gesture of good faith towards the members of the Coliseum Commission and the many other elected officials working diligently to resolve the lease dispute between the university and the Coliseum Commission, we are temporarily removing our request for assistance from this site, as well as the contact information for those officials who are directly influencing the resolution of this matter.''
ASU held on to beat Arizona in the season finale. I think Arizona could actually be ready to turn the corner next year.
Three in a row. Seven of the last nine. UA's bowlless streak is nine and counting while ASU will go to their fourth straight. 364 more days of knowing we're better than them. So what if we're not going to the BCS. Unless you're in the title game, big freaking whoop (there's also several million dollars at stake, but I digress). A tilt with Texas in the Holiday Bowl is nothing to sneeze at, especially since one important fact seems to be overlooked: ASU is co- Pac-10 Champions
What Mike Riley could really use for Christmas is a top caliber quarterback.
In a smart move by Riley, it was announced Monday that Moevao will start on Dec. 28. Some are saying it's a shocker... but I think it's the right move. Moevao's 3-0, he's got the team rolling in the right direction, and inserting Canfield into the mix now would be an unnecessary change.
When you recruit in the same state as Dennis Erickson these things seem to happen.
University of Arizona football recruit Ryan Bass, whom the Wildcats were counting on to help their running attack, may be starting to have second thoughts about attending UA. Bass, Rivals’ top-rated all-purpose player, from Centennial High School in Corona, Calif., has told Scout.com he is seriously considering Arizona State after giving the Wildcats an oral commitment earlier this year.
John Wilner of the Mercury rates the college coaches in the area on this years performance.
I meant to get this posted much earlier in the week, right after the end of the regular season. But I got delayed by other events — stuff for the Merc and the Hotline. For instance: Nate Longshore’s bone chip and all that resulted. So it has now been almost a week since Stanford and Cal finished up, almost two since SJSU shut it down. In general, it was a pretty disappointing year for the Bay Area teams. SJSU swung and missed at a bowl bid, Cal soared and then crashed. Stanford was the biggest upside surprise, but only because expectations started in the gutter.
Not much going on at Cal after a disapointing season.
Shortly after finishing practice last Saturday afternoon, Chris Conte takes a seat in the bleachers as the rest of the California football team trickles out of Memorial Stadium. Eyes focused on the field, Conte begins discussing his season as a true freshman. But running backs coach Ron Gould, who recruited Conte, interrupts. "How're you doin', baby?" Gould asks
WSU gets a new coach, Brink graduates, and Brinkhater may have to find a new nickname.
While Wulff hits the recruiting trail, and he was out there last night and will burn it up until Sunday along with some of the assistants before the "dead period" starts Sunday, the logical question now is who's going to be on the staff? There is a lot of speculation being thrown around right now, so we'll get right to it.
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6 comments:
CHRIS POLK...where did that come from! What a huge pick up. They really need to start to go after some Def players now. I hope they get DeCastro but if they dont and use that schollie to get Carrol (D-Line), Everette, Magnum, or Rousell, I think they will be flying high. I might be wrong but even though Ty has not had success on the field, the man can recruit...thats what I love about him. I just hope he doesnt let a friendship with Baer ruin him. Husky Pride.
I agree about the need for defense, but we have a lot of guys that play both ways. Getting Polk was quite a coup but it's still a way to LOI day.
Then again, I just read the article on his commitment and it sounds like he's definitely committed!
Are we finally seeing a sense of urgency from Ty on the recruiting trail? Maybe he's decided the only way he has a possiblity of keeping his job more than one more season is to recruit his a$$ off. Polk is the first time in four years he's really gone head to head hard against SC.
Polk is a huge commit, I expect Pete will be talking hard at Polk
Why does everyone think that firing Turner was a message to Willingham? Don't you think that Emmert made his feelings and expectations known when he met with Ty in the week leading up to his being retained as coach?
Emmert had no problem going over his AD at LSU when they fired their coach to bring in Sabin. If he really felt a change was necessary he would have had no problem doing the same thing here.
I think that the two statements speak for themselves (Emmert's and Turner's); they just don't see eye-to-eye on how the sports department at a major D-1 school should be run. Turner's priorities are clearly a good school experience, excellent education, and teaching kids to be good citizens, with winning, while not an afterthought, clearly running at least 4th. That's just not the reality.
In addition, he has made no real progress on a stadium renovation. Hell, he didn't even know there was a track around the field when he took the job.
Lastly, can anyone forget Turner's inane comments. Although there were many, I'd fire him for two (which I paraphrase):
"Washington needs to be more like Oregon." Can you think anything more offensive to a Husky?
"I guess fans just want Rose Bowls and yada, yada, yada..." If The Rose Bowl isn't his #1 goal for the football program, then he needs to back to Vanderbilt.
I always thought this staff could evaluate well. In fact I always thought they did a better job than Neu, and Gilby in that regard.
The Polk verbal really surprised me, it was very nice work.
We need two more offensive linemen and DE Thompson.
The last kid will likely be the highest rated player left on the board rather than a kid filling a specific need.
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