The Dawgs bite has turned into a wimper...

[G-Man]

How the once proud and mighty Dawgs of Montlake have fallen!

First they lay down like puppies in the second half against UCLA in Pasadena and then today of all the embarassments....to lose at home to the Nevada Wolfpack...aaargh!! I would pick this year to buy tickets to 4 home games!

I am beginning to think that the Neuheisal fiasco has hurt this team more than they let on. I am also thinking that Gilby is not headcoach material. He has been a wonderful offensive coordinator since the 80's and with James and Neuheisal. However if you look at his track record as a headcoach...see California and a 1-10 record (if memory serves).

It is very possible that the Huskies will end up at 3-9, 4-8 or at best 5-7.

Perhaps Gilby should go back to calling the offensive plays, I mean what has happened to Pickett and that prolific passing offense? I know that they wanted to have a balanced attack...but I htink it has backfired, now they have shut down Pickett's offensive flair!

Gilby will not last two seasons if this continues!

I long for the James era between 1977-1991, those were some good times...sigh....anyone know of any good coaches for hire?

[TroyF]

It's going to take him time to toughen up the group after Slick Rick coached them. I'm sure it hurt more than they are letting on. I wouldn't judge Gilby quite yet. Give him another year to right the ship. This year was DOA.

TroyF

[HeavyReign]

Listening to the game on the radio today just made me sick. Glad I couldn't afford the trip to Seattle this weekend or I might have gone to the game. The line simply can't block anyone. Giving up 8 sacks against Nevada when they rarely used more than a 4 man rush is inexcusable. Of course the line has been decimated by injuries so that is a factor. Playcalling has been a disaster at times.

The question will be whether they can turn it around. Looking ahead, you'd like to think they could still beat Arizona and Oregon right now. Oregon is having an even worse collapse. The other games will take much improved play but I don't know that they have it in them right now. I'll turn on the game against Oregon State when it starts next week and hope for the best. Hopefully I'll feel like I did during the first half against UCLA and not like I did today. Derek Anderson will give up the ball so the DB's will need to make the plays like last year.

[dawgfan]

Man, I could write a novel, but I'll try and keep my comments short:

- For all of Cody Pickett's great stats last year, he's being revealed this season as a mediocre QB. He lacks touch and perhaps confidence in his deep throws, he's inconsistent with his accuracy, he doesn't appear to see the whole field very, and he seems reluctant to scramble. For a Senior QB, he makes some real dumb decisions.

- This is the worst offensive line I've ever seen at the UW (I've been going to games since 1978). While they've definitely improved their run-blocking, it seems to have occurred at the expense of their pass-blocking. Khalif Barnes and Nick Newton are simply overmatched by any DE with speed. Newton should be a guard, and Barnes should be better. The pass-blocking failures limit the effectiveness of the passing game overall, and while the run-blocking is improved, I don't think they can beat teams on the ground.

- The team really seems to lack confidence - they appear to have a fragile collective ego. Of all the players on the team, only Reggie Williams and Tank Johnson display any kind of fire. There would appear to be real leadership problems.

- Perhaps it's just coincidence, but the only players on the team that show any NFL potential right now are Reggie Williams and Tank Johnson. Cody is going to be lucky to be a mid-round pick at this point; Barnes has the size and athletic ability, but he's just not putting it together; Charles Frederick has great moves, but he too often dances when he should run, and his hands are too inconsistent; Marquis Cooper has great speed and pretty good instincts, but he's just too small to be an NFL linebacker and probably not fast or agile enough to play safety; Todd Bachert is the best of the O-linemen, but that's damning with faint praise - he might be a late-round or free agent pickup. There are a number of young guys that might develop into NFL prospects, but it's too early to judge.

- Related to the above point, there appears to be a deficiency of talent on the team. Is it that the player's don't have enough talent, or they're just not being developed properly? Hard one to judge; I do think Phil Snow has improved the play of the CBs, and Dan Cozzetto has improved the run-blocking of the line, but I'm not sold on Chuck Heater and the RB's, and I'm beginning to question Randy Hart and the D-linemen.

- There's almost no pass-rush to speak of for the Huskies. Tank Johnson is a terrific talent, and even with constant double-teaming he still manages to get some pressure up the middle from his DT position, but he's the only one. This team is really lacking in DE's - Manase Hopoi hasn't shown much this season, and Ty Eriks is already starting over guys like Brandon Ala, Donny Mateaki, Graham Lassee even though he just switched positions from FB 3 weeks ago. The off-season loss of Josh Miller to a back injury has had a definite impact - had he been available to start, Tank could've played an end position.

- I've been supporting Gilby since he was hired - he deserves a lot of credit for the '91 NC team with the flair he brough to the offense. He was the logical candidate for the job when the Neuheisel situation went down - it was too late in the offseason to realistically bring in an outsider - and he made some changes I felt were very positive: emphasizing the running game, paying a lot more attention to special teams, bringing an attitude of toughness and intesity to practices that hadn't been there prior. I defended his record at Cal, pointing out that he wasn't in a very good situation there and opining that he learned from the experience, and pointed to his success at Idaho. That said, I wonder if he's the right man to lead this program. If you were to conduct a thorough coaching search in the offseason, would he be the best guy that you could hire?

- This whole program has been suffering from poor leadership and lack of support since the early '90's. Barbara Hedges has been cruising along on her reputation for upgrading the athletic facilities for the other sports at the UW and the success those programs have had. What is often ignored is that the money used to fund those projects came from a combination of the vast war-chest of money her predecessor Mike Lude left behind (built off the revenue of football) combined with the surcharge added to football tickets since the mid-90's. Yet she's consistently made poor choices on behalf of the prime moneymaker, football. To wit: When sanctions came down on the football team, she acquiesed to the upper campus request to change the penalties from a 1-year bowl ban and 2-year TV ban to the reverse, a 2-year bowl ban and 1-year TV ban. This was the last straw for Don James who felt betrayed by the school and by his new boss. She made the only call she could in hiring Jim Lambright, and when it was obvious that he wasn't a long-term solution she fired him and then made her most critical hire: Rick Neuheisel. She could've had either Gary Pinkel or Chris Tormey. Both were 'safe' hires, former Don James assistants that were well-regarded and seen as up-and-coming head coaches. Instead, she wanted to make a big splash and gambled (pun intended) hard on Neuheisel. That one blew-up in her face and she was forced to hire Gilby to step in and clean up the mess. In addition, she's presided over a department that appears to have had a problem adhering to the NCAA guidelines on gambling, and a compliance director that made a now very public misinterpretation of those rules. Bottom line - change needs to start at the top and she needs to go. Problem is, the University still hasn't hired a new President - with the budget problems in this state and the decline in funding for the UW along with the associated brain-drain that has occurred, the position isn't nearly as attractive as the trustees would like to think. Without a new president in-place, a change can't happen at the AD level. Even when a new president is hired, there's no guarantee he will place an importance on the football program.

I guess my "brief" comments aren't so brief after all, but I could go on and on. Bottom line, the program is in real trouble. A 3-9 or 4-8 season is quite possible, and the future doesn't look much better. It may not be fair to Gilbertson, but I think the Huskies should start over this offseason and conduct a real coaching search. See if Pinkel or Tormey could be persuaded to leave their current jobs, or make a push for someone like Urban Meyer or Joe Tiller or someone else. Things aren't working right now, and while I like Gilby I think it may be time to clean house and start over.

[G-Man]

Very astute, intelligent and insightful comments Dawgfan. I also started attending Dawg games in 1978. It is a sad state of affairs at Montlake indeed. Would you agree that when the Huskies were penalized for Billy Joe's mistakes (circa 1992) that the Pac Ten took a special interest to make sure that the Huskies were punished more than necessary? More than what the NCAA itself had aimed at? From what I hear the powers that be in the PAC10 were indeed jealous of the Huskies dominance in the conference and how the California Teams (read-USC/UCLA) had slipped into also rans. Is this totally unfounded or could it also be seen as having lead to this inevitable downfall?

[dawgfan]

Hard to say with any confidence. When Husky fans talk about a conspiracy by the Pac-10 to take down the Huskies it all sounds a bit too much Oliver Stone-ish to outsiders.

I will say this though:

- Firstly, it's important to remember that the school wasn't actually punished for Billy Joe Hobert's loan. He's frequently blamed for the sanctions, but that's not fair - if you check the NCAA infractions website, you'll see that his loan wasn't deemed an infraction by the school;

- The bulk of the problem the Pac-10 and NCAA had with the program with accusations against the summer jobs program. A couple of LA-area Husky boosters allegedly were paying Husky players for work that wasn't actually performed. I say allegedly because the accusations were made by disgruntled former players that had an axe to grind with the school, and the allegations were never proven. Also cited were minor issues like fruit baskets in recruits hotel rooms (this exceeded permissable benefits on recruiting) and some minor issues with improprieties surrounding player recruiting expenditures (players sharing meal money intended for recruiting trip meals with the recruits). The NCAA deemed that this all added up to "lack of institutional control" and not just upheld the Pac-10's recommended penalties, but added to them;

- It is important also to note that no Husky coaches or administrators were accused of having knowledge of these improprieties; those who like to accuse Don James of being a cheater are way off-base, as there is no evidence any of the coaches were involved in any way with these issues or had knowledge of them;

- Also, many like to dismiss the '91 title team because of the sanctions, claiming that the Huskies cheated their way to that undefeated season. The reality is, the summer jobs program issues surround players from the '87-'88 teams, and none of the involved players were around for that 1991 season;

- I challenge any outside, objective observer to compare the UW's misdeeds and penalties with those of other schools and claim that the punishment for the Huskies wasn't excessive in comparison. The Huskies had a 2-year bowl ban, a 1-year TV ban, and a 2-year reduction in scholarships from 25 to 15, which was the biggest blow.

The sanctions certainly contributed to the decline of the program - you simply can't downplay losing 20 scholarships over 2 seasons and the long-term impact that had. The Huskies were depleted of depth and forced to play a lot of true freshmen, which became a vicious circle; one of the reasons Don James was able to build the long-term success he had was his practice of redshirting virtually his entire freshman class every year. That depletion of scholarships also meant the Huskies had little room for error in player evaluation and felt more deeply any attrition due to injury, academics or players quitting or transferring.

The sanctions are not the only reason of course for the Huskies' decline, and other programs survived scholarship sanctions and have rebounded (Miami being the best example). They had a big effect though, first in driving Don James into resigning in protest and the above listed scholarship repurcussions. That combination probably kept Washington from achieving a sustained dominance of the conference similar to the hold USC had under John McKay and John Robinson in the '70's.

Former coach and recruiting coordinator Dick Baird has mentioned that he's writing a book about the whole issue and his belief that the program was screwed by the Pac-10 and the lack of support from the AD and upper campus leaders. It'll be an interesting read if he ever finishes it.