Michigan State Win Was Huge Selling Point for Revamped Huskies
The University of Washington football team hasn't been to a bowl game in three years. Some Husky players have answered to three head coaches in four years. These guys all had to deal with their leader losing control of himself on national TV, shoving a player, and subsequently getting fired. The program is coming off its worst season since 2008.
On the ever politicized recruiting trail, where no shortcoming is left unscorned by competing schools, these are all serious drawbacks that need answering. This is every reason why new Husky leader Kalen DeBoer and his coaching staff should have been given an inordinate amount of time to create something entertaining and lasting along the shores of Lake Washington.
Except that DeBoer and Company, operating at an exhaustive and highly detailed pace, haven't requested any delays, extensions or mercy.
Let the record show that Sept. 17, 2022, was the day that people everywhere, inside and outside of Seattle, started talking about Husky football again.
Greatest setting in college football. Check.
Looked unstoppable on offense. Check.
Exhibited enormous amounts of swagger. Check.
Beat a ranked team. Check.
Beat a Big Ten team. Check.
Beat a ranked, Big Ten team on network TV. Check. Check. Check.
Nine-one-seven is a day that will live on as a program milestone moment where Montlake finally got it right again in the selling of Husky football to the masses. It has been a while.
"It was huge," DeBoer said. "We can talk it, you know, about what the feel is, talk about the family, and making this such a great experience for our guys, and winning is a huge part of that. Yeah, it was a great advertisement for our program."
Since a 39-28 victory over Michigan State went into the books, everyone has recognized and discussed the positive merits of UW football again at a dizzying pace, that the color purple once more equates to success and that the Huskies are back.
The AP pollsters. The ESPN analysts. The FOX football experts. The recruits. Even Ivan Maisel, now of On3 who has covered the game forever previously for ESPN and every major newspaper in the country, felt compelled to fly out here, wander into practice this week and see what's going on.
While Stanford might come to town on Saturday and beat these very same Huskies — remember, this is a David Shaw-coached opponent and it has happened before on multiple occasions — the foundation has been poured for something other than mediocre Husky football, which was the best way to describe the previous three seasons altogether.
DeBoer won't win every game, but he should make them interesting and fun, which is all any serious recruit or diehard fan can really ask for these days.
It wasn't all that long ago that 5-star Seattle-Tacoma recruits J.T. Tuimoloau, Josh Conerly Jr. and Jayden Wayne, plus a host of other highly rated Northwest-produced prospects, wouldn't give the UW a sniff. The aforementioned big three went elsewhere for their football, to Ohio State, Oregon and Miami, respectively.
Who could blame them? The Husky program had no energy surrounding it, no coaching continuity, no buzz.
DeBoer's plan is to make Montlake a must-see destination for recruits to visit, not unlike Eugene, which has become a college football Disneyland with all of the roller-coaster rides offered. The UW can become the conference's Universal Studios, full of interesting plot lines and memorable characters.
The new Husky coach welcomed roughly three dozen recruits to the city last weekend, committed and uncommitted, to see the true unveiling of his program.
In turn, they witnessed 68,161 overly excited fans treat the Michigan State game as if it were something straight out of the Don James or Chris Petersen eras with the continuous stadium roar after each huge play. The siren sounded so often it was like a 5-alarm fire. It worked out well with a pair of recruits committing the day after the game.
"Maybe it was eye-opening to them, that this place is special, that this place is different, and they got a chance to see it first-hand," DeBoer said of his teenaged visitors last weekend.
While Michigan State was a small sample size, and just a solitary outing on a three-game schedule played out so far, the Huskies are headed in a positive direction. This is important to local residents because Seattle just doesn't seem right or whole when UW football is struggling.
With realignment talk fading to the background somewhat, the Huskies won't necessarily need to join the Big Ten to be a respected college football entity once more. An expanded playoff format will benefit everyone, just as expansion to an enlarged NCAA basketball tournament turned the Final Four into something other than the UCLA Invitational or Wooden Weekend.
DeBoer's Huskies who will provide a high-flying offense — and Jimmy Lake never fully grasped this — that is so important on so many fronts and should bring high entertainment value as TV rights talks continue. The UW has something to sell and this should keep it firmly entrenched as one of the pillars of the Pac-12 rather than a perennial middle-of-the-pack member of the Big Ten, exhausted by all that extra team travel.
Offense, not defense, will put fans in the seats, highly regarded recruits in Husky uniforms and the UW on primetime TV a lot.
With DeBoer now holding an open house every weekend, where people can come in, look over the granite countertops and pick up a real-estate flyer, the idea all along was this new coach had a chance to really jumpstart the Huskies if he could somehow come away with positive results on two playing dates.
The aforementioned nine-one-seven has come and gone. Check.
The other date to circle on the calendar is Nov. 12. Two weeks before Thanksgiving.
This will require a short drive down the freeway to Eugene, Oregon, to Autzen Stadium, which for two decades has been a house of horrors.
Imagine what could happen to DeBoer's program — to the selling of Husky football — if he and his players can somehow beat those Ducks.
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