Ty Willingham has announced earlier this week that he will be stepping down from his position as head coach of the University of Washington football team. I know that Ty has not had the best run in the last few years, but can you name a coach that has been fired as fast as Ty Willingham has in his last two coaching jobs, at Notre Dame and Washington?
Ty Willingham was fired at Notre Dame after only three seasons. This is not enough time to secure your own players and run your own system at a college. I think that for all the bad blood between Ty and Notre Dame it must feel good for Willingham to know that the only real successful year that Charlie Weiss, who oddly enough has not won as many games in his first 3 years at Ty did, had at Notre dame was with the players that Willingham recruited. Maurice Stovall, Trevor Laws, Rhema McKnight, Brady Quinn, Tom Zbikowski, John Carlson and Darious Walker all were Willingham signees. Don’t forget he signed Greg Olson the great Miami Hurricane tight end who left Notre Dame because of the great depth at TE.
Ty is a great recruiter and he did the University of Washington a favor by taking over a program in shambles. A program that has done absolutely nothing since finishing third in the country in 2000. I’m sure there was pressure from the Washington faithful who remember the “good ole days” with Napoleon Kaufman and Steve Ettman in the early 1990’s but the climate of football in the Great Northwest has changed. Mike Belotti has had Oregon amongst the nation's elite for a long time now. Oregon State also has had its share of success since Don James left his post at Washington. These two programs are smack dab in the middle of the only recruiting pipeline that gives Washington a chance to win and that is California. So why skip over all the good programs in California and the rest of the country and even the Oregon schools to play ball in at Washington? Doesn’t make sense to me either or Kurt Cobain for that matter. Washington produces little talent every year and those players like the Jonathan Stewarts (Former Oregon TB) and Taylor Mays (All-World USC Safety) of the world now head for the greener pastures of more elite programs with better facilities. Which leads to another reason that Ty had such a problem is that Husky Stadium and other athletic facilities at U-Dub are way over due for a makeover.
One last reason that Ty really deserved another year is that he was hired late in the recruiting season his first year on the job and only managed to nab 13 recruits that year which is hardly a foundation to lean your hat on this, his fourth year. This in effect really means that Coach Willingham has 3 years of recruits on the sidelines at UW. Detractors may say that he really did not impress in his subsequent recruiting efforts after his first year, but do I have to mention all the problems at Washington again for you to realize that Ty Willingham is really just a scapegoat for a much larger problem that persists at UW.
Change is good and even thought I feel like Ty deserved another year in Seattle in order to prove his worth. Maybe a new coach will be the rallying point that UW need fortify its boosters and alumni in order to make the major changes it takes to survive in the lowly Pac-10. How sad indeed is this last statement. UW is behind the bar on the proverbial short bus, of big time college football, that is the Pac-10, lol. Six Mag wishes Ty all that best in his future endeavors, possibly Clemson or Tennessee is a future option for Ty who knows. I would hope that wherever he ends up that he is finally given a fair shake and the time needed to produce a winner because to this point this has simply not been the case for Coach Willingham.
Sincerely,
Cy Clayborneham