For Huskies, It was Flip or Not Flip the Roster and Retention Paid Off

NEW ORLEANS — Players and coaches for the University of Washington football team have been asked how they went from 4-8 in 2021 to a College Football Playoff semifinalist. The answer: It came down to flip or not to flip the roster — and the Kalen DeBoer's staff went with plan B.

While schools such as USC, Colorado and even Texas went through coaching changes similar to the UW and for the most part gutted the rosters left behind, the Huskies with the new leadership in place went with a trickle-down approach to attrition, which won over the remaining players.

"One of the main things we looked at coming in, when you look at the culture where everyone, all of us have come from, it's being able to make a choice — and we chose them," Husky co-defensive coordinator William Inge said. "And with us choosing them, we wanted to keep them around. And we're all about the development of young people. So if you can develop young people in the right way, you get to reap some of these benefits."

Whereas players from the other schools spoke of the horrors of being cut with barely an explanation, in particular at Colorado by unapologetic coach Deion Sanders, the Huskies watched as fewer than a dozen moved on initially, with only a handful of little-used players or their family members complaining about being urged to go elsewhere.

Chuck Morrell, Inge's fellow co-defensive coordinator, actually cited the work of the previous coaches, presumably members of Chris Petersen and Jimmy Lake's staffs, for leaving plenty of talent to work with.

"I think maybe what's not recognized from people, from the outside is, man, every football coach in America works their tails off," Morrell said. "Every one of them recruits like crazy. And obviously, the coaches that came before us there, they had a lot of skin into it, and they invested their time and their energy."

From there, it was a matter of meeting and evaluating the holdover Huskies and recognizing who would fit in a UW program that had to righted fairly quickly by DeBoer's staff.

"It was really about us getting to know and grow a bond with those guys and show them that we cared, and that we were here to help them be successful, and that this is going to be a player-led operation," Morrell said. "And I think it was more about that in the beginning, about building that relationship with our players and finding out which guys fit into the way Coach [Kalen] DeBoer wants to operate his program as the main priority.

"And certainly, over time, find out with the guys through spring practices and fall camps that the talent level was there for us to be successful and play great team football."

With a high rate of retention, the Huskies will enter the Sugar Bowl against Texas on Monday night in the Superdome with nine sixth-year seniors in the mix, which run counters to the other CFP semifinalists in Michigan, Alabama and the Longhorns.

Players such as linebacker Edefuan Ulofoshio and edge rusher Zion Tupuola-Fetui were coming off serious injuries and permitted to return to form rather than get run off because they could have been perceived as damaged goods.

"They came to Washington for a reason and to see them have an opportunity, [in] a program that expects championships, expects to be successful, and have those guys have an opportunity to go out on top, I mean, what better story-ending could you write than that?" Morrell said.

"Obviously, the thing we talk about with them all the time is the respect that we have for them, for the years and years of training and what Coach Inge said — sweat equity — and the blood and the tears, you want to see it pay off for them."

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