Why Doesn't Jimmy Lake Have a UW Honeymoon Period?

Toothbrush in hand, Don James slept in his coaching office to show everyone how serious he was about building a winner as the University of Washington football coach.

This unique living arrangement came following his fifth outing in 1975, when he took the Huskies into Alabama and suffered a disastrous 52-0 loss to a Bear Bryant-led team.

There was mounting displeasure from UW followers, who now questioned whether the coach was in over his head after leaving lower-level Kent State for Seattle, and not all of his players, many inherited from predecessor Jim Owens, were totally on board with what he was doing.

James had to send a message to everyone, Huskies and ticket-buyers alike, that he could get things done.

People remember seeing James in the hallways in his pajamas and slippers, and those one-man sleepovers in Montlake worked as intended. He went on to capture four of six Rose Bowls, claim an Orange Bowl victory and run the table for a 12-0 season and a national championship, creating his legacy of Husky success.

Jimmy Lake hasn't been on the job for even five Husky games yet, but he has a surprisingly large number of dissatisfied fans — people more accurately described as conscientious objectors — who have ridiculed his coaching hires and regularly berate his recruiting commitments.

The honeymoon for Lake as the new guy in charge at the UW didn't last long.

Actually, what honeymoon?

A week of practices into his first regularly scheduled fall camp, Lake is still dealing with pandemic fallout that limited his team to just four football games in 2020 — playing the fewest amount of any Power Five school last season along with Arizona State, California and Washington State.

While his personal ledger stands at 3-1, the vociferous critics say he's 0-for-2.

They appear and post negatively following each and every recruiting announcement. They remind everyone of his supposedly bad coaching hires. If he was sleeping in his office, they'd make fun of his PJs.

These know-it-alls, who've been no closer to the current Husky football team than their living-room couches or recliners, have it all figured out. They indignantly wave their on-line recruiting subscriptions around and intimate rather strongly that he's whiffed on two classes.

It's what have you done for us in two or three years from now, if you last that long.

They've loudly questioned his hiring of John Donovan as offensive coordinator and Bob Gregory as defensive coordinator, the latter replacing the folksy and well-entrenched Pete Kwiatkowski, who left for Texas after just one season of answering to Lake as his boss.

Further muddying Lake's Husky image, this emboldened fan repeatedly reminds everyone that Donovan previously was let go as offensive coordinator at Penn State and Gregory seemingly was pushed out long ago as the defensive coordinator at California, so what good are they?

Those critics want the ball in the air more often, not in Richard Newton's hands all the time. And they've mentioned that quarterback Dylan Morris doesn't inspire them, that 5-star freshman Sam Huard is available.

All of this maddening discontent with Lake comes at a remarkable time, where this particular coach's Huskies are loaded with talent and returning starters, ranked in nearly everyone's top 20 and even some top 10s, and poised to make another Pac-12 championship run.

Yet outsiders are picking up on this continuous negativity and passing it along as truth. They say recruits are turned off by Lake's approach to UW football as they measure the future temperature of the program and the quality of the coordinators.

“I think not just Donovan, but the whole Husky coaching staff,” said Don Smalley, who covers Oregon for the Ducks Wire, telling all of this to the Trojans Wire. “I think there’s a lot of questions with them and they have to win this year. Let’s face it. They have to win the Pac-12 North and go to the championship game. Jimmy Lake hasn’t impressed a lot of people around the country."

Well, certainly not in Eugene, Oregon. Or Los Angeles, for that matter.

Of course, these naysayers will disappear into the wind should Lake have a big season or they'll suddenly reverse themselves and gush about his decision-making propensity and his team's innate toughness and resilience. That's entirely possible with a roster headed up by the likes of Jaxson Kirkland, Cade Otton, Trent McDuffie and Eddie Ulofoshio, all well-decorated players showing up on All-America teams and NFL mock drafts during the preseason.

Former Husky players, often a much tougher crowd, have expressed their approval of Lake because he's a players' coach. They also like that he did away with any reference to Chris Petersen's OKG model — Our Kind of Guys — one that was perceived to be way too Boy Scout in nature and limited in securing top talent.

What it comes down to is a fast-food culture of fandom. These people don't care if a deadly pandemic happened or not and made it tough to build program momentum. They want to know why local 5-star recruits J.T. Tuimoloau and Emeka Egbuka had no interest in the Huskies.

We're not sure that any of this really matters to Lake. He no doubt knows that most of the Husky fan base would have been sorely disappointed had he gone elsewhere for a head-coaching job and not been in line to take over for Petersen.

While he's overly engaging in public appearances, Lake can be as competitive, combative, surly and sarcastic as the next college football coach. He was a take-your-head-off kind of player at Eastern Washington. He likely hears his loudest critics and considers them fools.

Fans criticizing a Husky coach is nothing new. James heard it. Jim Owens heard it. Petersen heard it. Every UW leader has had to deal with it. What's different here is people are doing it before Lake really gets started.

If he's not sleeping at night, it should be pointed out that Lake can move into his Husky football office, which is five times more plush than what Don James used for a makeshift hotel room. The coach then can turn on the music, the fireplace and whatever other toys are at his disposal, and turn off the complainers.

The message here is not that you can't or shouldn't criticize the UW leader. We media types regularly do it all the time with the various Seattle sporting authorities. At least let this coaching racehorse get out of the chute first.

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