Less than a week after Washington played for a national championship, its head coaching job is open.
Kalen DeBoer is taking the Alabama job after Nick Saban’s retirement shook the foundations of college football. Saban’s decision was bound to create a domino effect across the country, and Washington will be left looking for a new leader not long after one of the highest moments in program history.
DeBoer’s two-year run at UW was remarkable, with a 25-3 record, a 21-game winning streak, this year’s national championship run, a Pac-12 championship and a 3-0 record against rival Oregon. All of this came right after a 4-8 season in 2021. Now the Huskies have to reset again.
So how good is the Washington job? What names could get in the mix? Here are the factors and names to keep in mind.
Washington just played for a title, but a step down was already expected
What’s the ceiling for this job? We just saw it. Washington can get to the top of the sport. That obviously makes the job incredibly appealing on its own. There is no need to worry about what can or can’t be done here. Before DeBoer, Chris Petersen took the Huskies to the College Football Playoff in 2016 and won at least 10 games three years in a row. This job has had some major highs and lows over the last 15 years.
But the 2024 season was already expected to be a step back from that unprecedented high. Heisman runner-up quarterback Michael Penix Jr., receiver Rome Odunze and a slew of stars are departing for the NFL. A quarterback appears to be in place at the moment in Mississippi State transfer Will Rogers, who set SEC career passing records.
However, DeBoer’s departure opens a 30-day window for players and signees to enter the transfer portal, and there’s no limit on multi-time transfers, though the time of year may make it hard for players to leave for another school before the spring transfer window. The roster the next coach has coming out of spring could look a lot different.
There is a good team still here. But the next coach is not inheriting the same team that just played for the national title.
How much money is Washington willing to spend — on a coach and in NIL?
Where do you think DeBoer ranked nationally among head coaching salaries this year? He was 44th, at $4.2 million. And that ranking doesn’t include some private school coaches who don’t have to publicize their salaries but may make more. Washington offered DeBoer an extension with a large salary increase that he didn’t sign, so the Huskies can offer more than that.
But going into the Big Ten, that salary would’ve ranked fourth from the bottom in the league in 2023. That grouping doesn’t include the fact that Rutgers’ Greg Schiano is going from $4 million to $6.25 million this coming year. Especially to hire a coach away from another school at this time of year, the Huskies may have to pay a lot more than they did last time. The $12 million buyout Alabama must pay to hire DeBoer also helps.
Washington has stepped up in the NIL space recently. Most notably, the Montlake Futures collective helped UW bring back six star players from the 2022 team, including Penix, which led to the national championship game run.
But the high school recruiting has a lot of room to grow. Washington’s 2024 recruiting class currently ranks 36th nationally and 10th in the new Big Ten, according to 247Sports. That’s in part due to a smaller class size of just 16 players, but seven of those 16 are four-star recruits. The 2023 class ranked 26th.
Washington is heading to the Big Ten next year
The entire college football landscape changes this summer when Power 4 realignment goes into effect. A third of UW’s 2024 regular season games will take place in the Eastern time zone. That’s a lot of travel, but the 2024 schedule is somewhat favorable, all things considered. The home slate includes a national championship rematch with Michigan and a visit from USC. The road schedule includes games at Oregon, Penn State and Iowa.
But overall, the competition is going to be much tougher, even compared to this year’s Pac-12 gauntlet. Pac-12 national contenders like Oregon and USC will be there, along with Michigan and Ohio State.
Washington and Oregon will also come into the Big Ten at a financial disadvantage, receiving around 50 percent of a full Big Ten share, while the rest of the league (including USC and UCLA) will be full share members.
How will the timing impact the search?
It’s easier to hire a coach in late November and December than in mid-January. Many schools are back in session, and teams are back in workouts. Some coaches may not want to leave their schools at this point in the calendar, which could impact the pool of candidates.
So what names could get in the mix?
Based on conversations with industry sources, here are potential names to keep in mind.
Washington offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb is already on staff. He turned down the Alabama offensive coordinator job last year to stick with DeBoer and what he knew was going to be a special season. He ended up coaching the Heisman runner-up and was a nominee for the Broyles Award for the nation’s top assistant coach. Grubb was in the mix for some head coaching jobs in this cycle. He would be a sign of stability to keep the culture in place moving forward. But the last time Washington promoted from within, Jimmy Lake replaced Chris Petersen and was fired within two years. He was replaced by DeBoer, who was an outsider. Athletic director Troy Dannen is also new on the job and doesn’t have a deep relationship with the staff compared to someone who brought in those coaches.
Texas defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski was the Huskies’ defensive coordinator from 2014 to ’20, helping the program reach the CFP in 2016. He’s a former Boise State player and coach with deep ties to Petersen. The 57-year-old played an integral role in the rebuild of the Texas defense and this year’s Big 12 championship and CFP run. The Longhorns finished 15th nationally in points allowed per game. Kwiatkowski knows the place, and he has coached at the highest level.
Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell was in the mix the last time this job opened. He just finished Year 8 in Ames, getting the Cyclones to a bowl game after a disconcerting 2-3 September and a summer in which several players were charged in the state of Iowa’s investigation into sports wagering by college athletes. He’s approaching the top 10 longest-tenured head coaches in the Power 4 and has only finished under .500 twice at Iowa State. Dannen has deep ties to the state of Iowa as a former AD and alum of Northern Iowa.
Kansas head coach Lance Leipold just led the Jayhawks to their first nine-win season since the Mark Mangino era, took Buffalo to three consecutive bowl games and won six Division III national championships at Wisconsin-Whitewater. Dannen’s last head coach hire, Willie Fritz, won at multiple levels of college football before leading Tulane to the top of the AAC.
Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch has turned around the Wildcats in a major way, going from 1-11 to 10-3 in three seasons, capped by a bowl win against Oklahoma this year. He has also significantly improved Arizona’s recruiting. But Arizona heads to the Big 12 next year, while Washington will be a Big Ten job that just played for the national championship and can offer more money. Fisch has moved around a ton in his career. He hasn’t spent more than three years at a job since 2004-07 with the Baltimore Ravens. He also spent 2010 as the Seahawks’ quarterbacks coach.
Cal head coach Justin Wilcox produced a bounceback season this year, taking the Golden Bears to a bowl game. He’s familiar with Washington, serving as defensive coordinator in 2012 and ’13 before taking the same job at USC. His 36-43 overall record is not a great look, but Cal is an extremely limiting job these days, and Wilcox has shown an ability to adapt. Cal rose from 96th in scoring defense last year to 48th this year.
BYU head coach Kalani Sitake is 61-41 in Provo, including two 10-win seasons and top-20 finishes in 2020 and 2021. Throw in 2022, and the Cougars went 29-9 over a three-year stretch. Sitake is plenty familiar with the West Coast, with a decade of experience at Utah and a year at Oregon State before getting the BYU head coaching job. He built the program back into a winner, but his Big 12 debut was a letdown, with a 5-7 overall record and a 2-7 record in conference play.
Florida State offensive coordinator Alex Atkins is familiar with Dannen, having served as Tulane’s offensive line and assistant head coach from 2006 to ’08. He continues to rise and played an integral role in Florida State’s turnaround and 13-0 start this season. At FSU, he inherited one of the worst offensive lines in the Power 5 and turned it into a very good group, and he added coordinator duties in 2022. But he was just hit with a show-cause penalty on Thursday for NCAA violations for taking a prospective transfer to visit a collective. It’s yet to be seen how this could affect his candidacy for jobs. He has also never coached on the West Coast.
Air Force head coach Troy Calhoun just continues to win. The 57-year-old Oregon native is 29-10 over the last three seasons and has won at least nine games in each of the past four full seasons. Calhoun, who has experience as an NFL offensive coordinator and wouldn’t be tied to the triple-option, is 130-82 in the job since 2007 with 13 bowl appearances. Despite college football’s new rules governing NIL and transfers, which only hurt service academies, Calhoun’s program hasn’t missed a beat. The last time Dannen made a head coaching hire, it was Willie Fritz, an older coach who had an option background and had coached at a lower level. Sounds familiar.
Washington State head coach Jake Dickert knows the area and has pushed UW while in Pullman. He’s 15-16 in three seasons with a 1-2 record in the Apple Cup. Washington State beat the Huskies 40-13 in 2021 and took this year’s Washington team down to the wire. With the Cougars getting left behind in conference realignment, it would make sense to look for a way out. But the 40-year-old’s overall record does not quite impress, and the Cougs lost seven of their last eight games this year after a 4-0 start and top-15 ranking.
San Jose State head coach Brent Brennan has taken the Spartans to bowl games in three of the last four years and had the best record in the Mountain West twice in that span. At a very difficult job low on resources, he continues to win. The 50-year-old California native has spent his entire career on the West Coast, including a stint as a Washington graduate assistant in 1999. The last time Washington hired a head coach from the California State University system, it worked out (DeBoer).
Former Auburn and Boise State head coach By Bryan Hars spent the past year out of coaching, but he’s plenty familiar with the area. He went 69-19 as Boise State head coach after replacing Petersen. His Auburn tenure ended in less than two seasons with a 9-12 record. It was a disaster that never really got off the ground. But the Boise native never fit in that culture.
Could Bronco Mendenhall be an option? The former BYU and Virginia head coach has just started as the head coach at New Mexico, and it might be difficult to immediately take another job, but Washington would obviously be a major step up. Mendenhall went 99-43 as BYU head coach, followed by a 36-38 run at Virginia that included an Orange Bowl appearance in 2019. He’s from Utah and played and coached at Oregon State.
What about former Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll? He was just pushed out of the job not long after saying he planned to coach in 2024, and Carroll said this week he’s open to anything and has plenty of energy. Enough for the 72-year-old to come back to college coaching without having to move? Carroll went 97-19 at USC from 2001 to ’09 with two national championships, before heading to the Seahawks (and leaving some NCAA penalties behind). This is a new and unfamiliar college football world, and it wouldn’t be a long-term play, but it might be worth a call.
(Photo: Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)
2024-01-12 23:16:42
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