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Inside The Huskies

Why Replacing Donovan During the Season Makes No Sense

The Huskies really don't have anyone else with enough experience to design offensive plays.
Dan Raley|
Why Replacing Donovan During the Season Makes No Sense
Why Replacing Donovan During the Season Makes No Sense

Two games into the new football season, USC moved swiftly and unapologetically in dismissing coach Clay Helton following the Trojans' dismal Saturday night showing against Stanford.

So why, you ask, can't the University of Washington do the same, which is react in an expeditious manner and unload floundering Husky offensive coordinator John Donovan for a similar offense?.

Removing Donovan likely isn't going to happen at Montlake during an ongoing season, no matter how bad it gets. 

While the failure of the Husky offensive unit has been egregious — in particular, 20 consecutive drives without scoring over two outings — the UW really doesn't have anyone with a deep enough coaching background to ably fill in as an offensive coordinator on an interim basis.

Beginning at the top, Jimmy Lake's staff leans to a defensive-oriented crew when it comes to meaningful coaching experience. Granted, some of the Husky offensive coaches have had a taste as an OC elsewhere, but at decidedly lower levels of college football. 

As in the case of Helton, it's actually easier replacing the head coach, the manager, while a season is in play rather than someone with specialized duties, such as running an offense.

Folksy if not a little quirky, Donovan is likable enough. He's in his seventh season as an offensive coordinator, counting three at Vanderbilt that worked, two at Penn State that didn't and now two with the Huskies.

Doubling up as the quarterbacks coach, he seems to make it fun for his players with his demeanor, such as his following explanation of a play breaking down.

"I tell the guys it's an imperfect game drawn to perfection," Donovan said. "We're supposed to be doing this and this and this and this, and all of a sudden, the guy breaks the pocket and the coverage can't hold up and this is how I drew it up. Not really."

Curiously, he was an accomplished defensive back rather than an offensive player for Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, finishing with 12 career interceptions at the Division III level. 

If Donovan can't survive the weeks ahead, Husky wide-receivers coach Junior Adams would be the most likely one to take over the offense in a hurry. Bright and personable, he's good at what he does with the Husky pass-catchers, but he's limited in devising an effective attack.

Adams came to the UW after a pair of seasons as the Western Kentucky offensive coordinator. His Hilltoppers teams averaged 23 points per game in Conference USA but won just 9 of 25 games. Otherwise, he's been exclusively a receivers and a special-teams coach for more than a decade and a half.

Scott Huff, the Husky offensive-line coach, served as a co-offensive coordinator in his final season at Boise State in 2016 before joining the UW. The Broncos averaged 33 points per game during a 10-3 season in which they beat Washington State, Oregon State and BYU. Again, Huff shared the OC responsibility with someone else.

Tight-ends coach Derham Cato served as the offensive coordinator for FCS Davidson in 2015, but the Wildcats averaged just 12 points per game, scoring either a lone touchdown or getting shut out in seven games during a 2-9 season. 

Cato wouldn't be a popular replacement with those now calling for Donovan's job. These two guys worked together at Vanderbilt in 2011-13, Cato as a graduate assistant and Donovan as the OC.

The only other option for the Huskies would be to bring in someone new from the outside as the offensive coordinator, but that makes little sense with a season in progress and no time to implement significant offensive changes. And where do you find him?

The best solution for everyone right now is for Donovan to jumpstart the offense, get it moving up and down the field, and devise a bunch of plays that end up in the end zone. Finish the season. Then everyone can sit and talk. 

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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