DeBoer Promised He Wasn't Rebuilding

Two years ago to the day on Wednesday, Kalen DeBoer was hired as the 30th University of Washington football coach, brought in to clean up the mess left behind by Jimmy Lake.

On a Monday afternoon in the coaches' stadium offices, the school held a lively and crowded introductory news conference to introduce DeBoer, who had spent the previous two seasons with Fresno State.

Dressed in a suit and tie, the dapper new coach answered a lot of questions about himself, his coaching philosophy and his hopes for the Huskies.

Above all, the biggest message DeBoer imparted to his audience that day was he wasn't coming in to rebuild. The coach felt he had plenty of talent on hand, if he could hang onto it, to see where it would take him.

Fast forward 24 months and this football coach has the Huskies preparing for the 13th and final Pac-12 championship game in the current league configuration, unbeaten at 12-0, third-ranked in the latest Associated Press Poll and, until tomorrow at least, fourth in the College Football Playoff ranking.

"Here at Washington, I thought that was possible," DeBoer said of a title game berth early in his Montlake career. "You didn't know in early December what the retention was going to look like maybe, necessarily. The first time I had a press conference or introduction, I didn't know Michael Penix was going to be part of our program at the time."

Four months later, with Penix on board and holdover players such as wide receiver Rome Odunze and edge rusher Bralen Trice in uniform and displaying their elite skills, this new coaching staff really liked what it saw.

"I think as we got into the spring, you could see the potential," the coach said.

The Huskies went on and put together an 11-2 season, marred only by seven- and eight-point losses when a spate of injuries left the secondary exposed and the team more vulnerable than it preferred.

Penix next showed his gratitude for joining a highly enjoyable and successful college football experience by announcing his surprising return after leading the nation in passing. This created a domino effect, in which edge rusher Zion Tupuola-Fetui, wide receiver Jalen McMillan, offensive tackle Troy Fautanu, Odunze and others pledged to come back, as well.

These reloaded rather than rebuilt Huskies now have a 19-game winning streak, which is the second longest in FBS football; a 14-game home win streak, after going 2-5 at Husky Stadium in 2021; and a glistening 23-2 record on DeBoer's watch.

"I think, most importantly, this program, U-Dub, and the tradition, it's much easier to build a program when you have the support that we do, from the community, from the rest of the athletic department, the alumni, it's been done before," the coach said.

"There's so much I call the bones of the program, the core of who we are, to where we would get to this point."

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