Jimmy Lake Offers the Bottom Line for UW Football Success

The coach has his mind made up on what these expectations should be. There's no wavering at all.

On a day when three conference commissioners laid out their grand plan to be more of a college football power broker, Jimmy Lake was asked for his expectations regarding University of Washington football. 

The Husky coach came at that question like the blitzing defensive back that he once was on the other side of the state.

There was no pause to consider the inquiry, and certainly no hesitation on his behalf in answering it.

"Every single year, we should be contending for the Pac-12 championship and going to a big bowl game," he said, getting a little revved up. "That's fair. That is fair. Anything less than that is unacceptable."

While some people pick at his recruiting choices and hiring moves, they can't question his competitive mindset, his hellbent approach. Lake expects nothing but the best for his Huskies each season and the ultimate rewards that come with it. 

The follow-up question took it up a notch and Lake didn't back down at all when asked how often his UW players should consider themselves league and national championship material.

"I think we're there right now; we're already there," Lake insisted. "We've won two of the last five Pac-12 championships. One of them we went to the College Football Playoff and the other we won the Pac-12 championship and we weren't invited."

His current Huskies have been ranked anywhere from 6th to 22nd in the various preseason football polls for the coming campaign. All his guys can do for him is win as many games as they can, and then sometimes that's still not enough. 

"Unfortunately in the way it's set up right now, we have no control of who gets into that Final Four," Lake said. "We have to try and win our games and the Pac-12 championship, and see if the subjectivity of the voters sways in our favor."

Of course, he's that guy who has an extremely difficult time taking no for an answer.

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