Washington Fans Frustrated That New Head Coach Not Achieving Results of Legendary Predecessor
After falling to the Oregon State Beavers 27–24 on Saturday night, Washington Husky fans expressed frustration that their new head coach Jimmy Lake is not achieving the same results as the previous coach, future hall-of-famer Chris Petersen.
“We really suck this year!” said lifetime alumnus Phil Mason after the game, comparing the results of new head coach Jimmy Lake’s to those that Coach Pete, who at one point had the highest winning percentage of any FBS coach and was at the head of some of the Huskies’ most successful seasons of the decade.
“The dropoff is pretty stark over the last few seasons. I’m not sure if Lake is the guy,” says Bellevue Community College grad and lifetime Husky fan Dan Granger, forgetting that UW continuously finished at or just above .500 for most seasons prior to two-time coach-of-the-year winner Petersen coming in.
While the game results are fairly glaring, Husky fans cite other issues such as losing recruiting battles to teams such as Ohio State, who seem to win championships all the time, or Oregon, who, according to an anonymous ESPN talking head, “has really cool Nike uniforms, which I mean you can’t really compete with that, unless you had a really good and proven head coach, which UW used to have but does not now.”
One issue that fans cite is that Lake, who spent 20 years coaching defenses, is his inability to run an offense. Lake delegated the task to OC John Donovan, a journeyman coach with no impressive feats on his resume. As a result, the offense isn’t as good as it was when Petersen was at the helm, like in the legendary 2018 Pac-12 Championship Game, when the Huskies offense scored a miraculous three points against a vaunted Utah defense.
“Could you imagine scoring three points? Maybe we could’ve beat Montana. What’s Bush Hamdan up to nowadays? He was so good!” says another fan who wished to remain anonymous after realizing they mentioned something positive about former-OC Bush Hamdan.
“You would think that with the way Lake coached the DBs, which has been our strong suit for the last few years, he could lead a team,” says Lois McLane, who’s husband went to UW but is not as much of a fan as she is, conveniently forgetting that the Huskies finished the season 0–12 not too long ago and that experiencing that and a playoff appearance in a decade’s time is unprecedented, made possible by UW making a really good hire at head coach.
“I’m just saying,” said five-time season ticket holder Mark Hopper, “Don James is rolling in his grave thinking about the state of the current program,” alluding to the late former UW coach who went 6–5 in his first year coaching the Huskies.
At press time, Husky fans realized that while Jimmy Lake wasn’t living up to expectations, at least they didn’t hire Nick Rolovich.
