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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/The_Throwback_King on 2024-01-04 02:53:52.
After the 2019 season, Chris Petersen, coming off a 8-5 campaign, and a victory at the Las Vegas Bowl, decided to step away from coaching. Likely going down as UW’s best coach since Don James.
The state of the team was left to Jimmy Lake, UW’s defensive coordinator. His first year was 2020, a messy year for everyone, but a year that ultimately resulted in a promising 3-1 record that would’ve been worthy of a Pac12 Title Game berth, if not for…y’know…the COVID thing.
In 2021, despite loads of potential, everything kinda fell apart. Completely dropped the ball in recruiting. Baffling personnel choices. All culminating in an abysmal 4-8 season. Regression all across the board. Team culture imploded. Lake took a competent team full of promising players from Petersen and completely eroded it in just one full season.
Which was already pretty bad, but it was made worse by Lake’s braggadocious personality juxtaposed with the lack of success
In the 9 games he coached in '21, Lake’s only wins came against 2-10 Arkansas St., 5-8 Cal, 1-11 Arizona, and 3-9 Stanford.
All culminating in an incident where Lake got himself physically involved with a team brawl, leading to his ousting.
Lake went from a respected assistant for the team under Pedersen to a man loathed by the fanbase and removed almost immediately. He failed as a recruiter, he failed as a decision-maker, he failed as a leader, he failed as a successor, he failed as coach
To call the workload for UW’s next coach intimidating would be an understatement. Lake left behind the stench that often takes a few years to fully be rid of.
In comes Kalen DeBoer, a young coach with incredible promise. With stellar records at both NAIA Sioux Falls and FBS G5 Fresno State. It was only natural that he’d get his shot with a Power 5 school and Washington would be that team.
Despite the bad hand dealt, despite everything stacked against him, everything just…worked out. Not just by magic, but through hard work, cleaning up the team, fixing the recruiting problem, and building a well oiled unit through the talent left from Petersen’s recruiting class and, crucially, through transfers.
Michael Penix, Dillon Johnson, Ja’Lynn Polk, Jabbar Muhammad. All have been big pieces of their run this year and all came through the transfer portal.
DeBoer completely turned the program around and the impacts have been both immediate and massive. 12-2 in his first year, 14-0 in his 2nd. Undefeated at Husky Stadium, Undefeated after the month of October. A fucking berth in the National Championship game in just his 2nd season.
It’s been a simply magical run so far. The coaching, the players, the vibes, the fortunes, they’ve all been immaculate. It’s truly been great to see and such an impressive recovery for the team.