The headline of this article is an example of the kind of misleading and sensationalized journalism that we practice here in Seattle. I used to do a parody of sports writing for Dawgman but I found I could no longer compete with the unintentional parody of so called serious media that cover the team.
 

Ty Willingham, has of course, scorched no earth. But as I was reading the latest smear job from the Seattle Times this fine Sunday morning I got to thinking about all the players, coaches, programs, and accomplishments that have had to be burned to the ground to justify keeping our all time losingest coach here at the Montlake Follies.
 

When Ty arrived it wasn’t long before mysterious experts were being quoted as saying that it was incredible how bad the talent was at UW. As Ty stumbled to a 2-9 record, every player on that team became the first victims of the need to blame others for Ty’s failures. They were over rated, poorly evaluated, soft Neuheisel recruits who refused to change their culture for our new leader.
 

And of course Neuheisel himself was a popular excuse for Ty’s inability to win in the third year -post Rick apocalypse. Rick’s many sins, very real and imagined as well, were a comforting reason for blowing winnable games and the first of Ty’s annual 6 game losing streaks.
 

Ty was also different from all other coaches as well. He did it the right way, which by obvious implication meant that those other coaches that beat him every week must be doing it the wrong way.
 

With each loss the fabled Husky Football program grew retroactively worse and worse before Ty got here, until having 26 non losing seasons in a row and one losing season became the equivalent of SMU on the death penalty.
 

Gilby was  next to get rolled under the bus for the sake of Ty as he was blamed for Ty’s lackluster and late start to his initial recruiting class. He too contributed to the bad culture that Ty was so unable to overcome despite his man molding legendary reputation.
 

By year three and the third annual 6 game losing streak, the current players, including players that Ty had recruited had to be rolled under the bus. No bullets for our 9 game loser as he headed to yet another last place finish all the while receiving high praise from our parody old line media in Seattle.
 

As it became clear that Ty would receive the fate that any 11-25 coach so richly deserves, the blow torches came out in force and players, fans, past coaches, and current assistants and athletic directors all had to be blamed for their role in Ty’s failure to win games.
 

Baer and Simmons were fired. Turner was fired. But Ty remained. The Times filed a Freedom of Information act to selectively run some long time boosters through the mud and acted shocked that boosters would have an opinion as audacious as wanting the historically bad coach fired.
 

Still the rabble was angry and more needed to be done. So the Seattle Times decided to do something about all this whining about winning by dragging our last Rose Bowl champions through the   mud and the muck that only a muckraking rag like the Slimes could provide. Five years after Rick left and 8 years after the events and this is why Ty can’t win games. Incredible isn’t it?
 

We are going to be treated to a whole week of attacks based on 8 year old stories that were already well known. To teach us that winning is bad and Ty’s losing is good because he does it the right way, not that the Times is going to look at anything current, mind you. That doesn’t fit the agenda.
 

Bob Condotta admitted in his blog that the Times is running this now because Turner was fired and Ty is on his hot seat. He did not admit that the Times is doing their usual slanted smear job on Husky Football to justify keeping our all time loser here.
 

Can another hatchet job on Don James be far behind?  Is there no player, coach or past accomplishment that can’t be burned to the ground to save Ty?
 

The funny thing, if by funny you mean pathetically sad, is that we were earnestly told that we couldn’t fire Ty because of the negative backlash that would ensue.
 

Think about that.
 

It would cause a negative back lash to do what UW would always have done and what 75% of all schools who had a coach fail as bad as Ty did their first three years (Hugh Millen’s stats stored on this site) to fire the 11-25 coach so we should instead enjoy the positive destruction of our legacy and the trashing of our players so we can keep this 11-25 coach.
 

As Mike Gundy, the Oklahoma State coach so eloquently put it – that makes me want to puke!
 

And so as we enjoy the final three parts of the smear job this week we can look forward to hearing how the man who could have saved this program, Jim L. Mora, will be announced as the heir apparent for the Seahawks. Presumably Mike Holmgren will not have to be dragged through the mud to bolster support for the hire.
 

You might want to drop another email to our legendary “Football President” to thank him for saving the program from any embarrassment by not doing what clearly and easily should have been done – Fire Ty on the plane back from Hawaii.
 

And people still wonder why I have no faith in the UW administration when it comes to football.
 

Is Ty Willingham the football equivalent of this man?

Discuss among yourselves.

Hey we read tea leaves and I could be wrong, but let me try to defend the guy.

1) First of all is there any question Emmert was on the front line of the Ty debate? A president that didn’t care about football or wanted Ty to stay would have stayed on the sidelines. It’s much easier to revert to the status quo. If Emmert indeed thought Ty was the man, the smartest course of action would be to stay out of the debate. He was squarely in the middle of it.

2) He didn’t show up for the presser. I know many of our readers would say “big deal”, but this is huge IMO. He wasn’t out of town, he’d already had numerous meeting, and Emmert is big on public perception. The inability for Turner to even spell PR was a central reason for his dismissal. So why wasn’t Emmert there for a 15 minute re-commitment to the loser that is Willingham? I think he was quietly simmering.

3) He fired Turner. If everything was going as plan, Emmert would have kept Turner and Ty’s biggest supporter. I don’t believe it was because Turner was telling us how it really is with respect to football. The timing suggests that it was part of the Ty deal. The keeping of Ty was still in everyone’s mind and people were still pissed. If Emmert’s intent was to make the 2 unrelated, the timing was very suspect. Woodward would have never approved if that was the case being the political animal that he is. No, Emmert was sending another of his signals.

4) No extension. Even the nega dawg thought that if the admin did the unthinkable and kept Ty they had to commit to him for recruiting reasons. Why wouldn’t Emmert do the reasonable thing an re-up with Willingham? He seems to be going out of his way to NOT extend Ty.

5) Asking 150 million for the legislature. Race and I agree that’s not going to happen, but couldn’t this be another signal? If some of the rumors are true that the legislature got involved with the Willingham firing, why wouldn’t Emmet and Woodward in effect say “You want to be involved with football? Well put up or shut up.” This is more of a way for Emmert to embarrass them and say “stay the hell out of our business”. Once nothing comes of it, he can fire Willingham for funding reasons (among other things) and the legislature will take part of the blame.

6) The timing of the December 4th emails. The NCAA email, the Jeff Kemp email, the Shawn Alexander email all came in within hours of each other. We are are lead to believe this is random chance? These guys were prodded to email Emmert . Why would there be this late hour urgency if Ty wasn’t truly in trouble? Ty was in SERIOUS trouble. There was a concerted effort outside of football to try to keep him, because there was no reason to keep Ty for football related reasons. He had failed here at historic levels. Bottom line: If Emmert wasn’t in the fire Ty camp, why all the emails to him all at the same time? Think about it.

This is an opinion column. I thought I would point that out to my many critics who accuse me of trying to force facts on others. I am forcing an opinion on others.

As alert readers already know, I have had no choice but to say that Dr. Emmert kept Ty on as coach because he wanted to. I have covered this in previous posts here. The cliff notes version is that Turner was sacrificed for telling the truth about the Winning Lite philosophy at UW, but the main goal of saving Ty was met.

I have scoffed at the notion that the NAACP influenced the decision. I have no problem with any advocacy group expressing their opinion to Dr. Emmert, including Husky Half Brains or the NAACP. While Dr. Emmert never met with them, I maintain that they would have understood football reasons to fire Ty even if they did not like it.

I felt that the notion of interference by the legislature in regards to funding was plausible, but as of today, unproven. The Seattle Times launched an exhaustive investigation that consisted of getting all the emails, finding a couple that made a couple of boosters look bad, and throwing the rest away.

Our lawyer would like to point out to the readers that the previous comment was a joke.  My rant against the Times is also contained in this site.

So I have steadfastly maintained since then that Dr. Emmert is a big fan of Ty, just like Dr. Emmert keeps saying. This has put me at odds with some of my fellow Half Brains who believe that Dr. Emmert really wants to get rid of Ty but his hands were tied by some mysterious force that he could not overcome. I continue to think that firing Ty would have been a fairly routine thing to do and that no Legislature would really threaten funding over an 11-25 coach. I think UW hired and kept the kind of coach they want, a guy who won’t do anything to embarrass the University, like winning a bunch of games.

But now we have the first thread of circumstantial evidence upon which to weave a conspiracy theory. And make no mistake about it, this is a slim thread, and theory, and an opinion column. My official positon is unchanged – Tyrone Willingham is Dr. Emmert’s proud football legacy at the UW.

What if this was the quid pro quo? Emmert keeps Ty and the legislature puts his proposal for 150 million dollars for stadium funding on the agenda for the session. That is plausible. And still totally unproven.

Would this be a good move if true? I think not. I am proud of the Program’s long tradition of self sufficiency and I fear the intrusion of the state into our football affairs. Even if there was no quid pro quo, there could be once you become a partner with politicos. They could tell Emmert to keep Ty and that price is too high to pay.

UW is reaching out because the wallets of the boosters are closed. That is also an opinion, but one that can be supported by the volume of emails to Dr. Emmert showing the dissatisfaction with all the losing under Ty. They wanted Ty to go as bad as I did. And do.

It is not hard to imagine a large credibility gap between Dr. Emmert and the wallets. I mean, the UW has still raised zero dollars for the stadium and keeping Ty around for DeathWatch08 isn’t likely to change that anytime soon.

It is a good question to ask how UW is going to raise the 150 million for their end under these conditions.

This move can either be seen as creative or desperate, and it does not much matter to me which one it is. I don’t care where the tax dollars are coming from, we have far better needs for 150 million dollars than to spend it on a stadium where 40,000 people are going to show up to watch Tyball wander along trying to get a minor bowl some year. Government spends too much and that makes them tax too much. If they insist, at least help someone keep their home.

See how easy it is to argue against this proposal? Politicians have not killed it on arrival but they will kill it if their voters react against it, a likely scenario in my opinion.

If this was Dr. Emmert’s big move it looks like another blunder to me. Do it the old fashioned way. Get a great coach in here and fleece the boosters and the fans for the cash. Borrow it from your own huge capital fund and pay it back over time.

It looks like such a blunder to me that I am going to stick to my original position. Dr. Emmert kept Ty because he likes the job he is doing here. Ty is his legacy here in regards to football. And this scheme will ultimately fail.

As always, I could be wrong, but never forget the First Law:

Nobody ever went broke betting against UW doing what is right for football.

Circumstantial evidence of a thread of a conspiracy or not.

I can’t speak for my fellow half brain, iDawg, because I haven’t spoken to him since the big non story in the Seattle Times and I know we have a different view of Dr. Emmert. So consider this one from me.

I believe that Tyrone Willingham is in a stronger position than ever at the University of Washington thanks to the usual hatchet job done by the Seattle Times and long time enemy of the program, Bob Condotta. In typical Seattle fashion, Condotta is “nice” and soft spoken and therefore he gets away with one hatchet job after another on Husky Football.

The Times claims that they were pursuing a rumor about outside influence on the decision to retain Willingham when they filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain emails from Emmert and Turner and Willingham.

To the surprise of no one, all they found was an opportunity to mock boosters, put them in a poor light, print glowing testimonials to Willingham and make Emmert yet again publicly support Willingham’s continued employment as the head coach of Washington.

With that kind of investigative reporting the Washington Post would have gotten a Constitutional Amendment passed to give Richard Nixon a third term.

For a “football” President, Dr. Emmert sure ends up with Ty Willingham coaching his team a lot. He signed off on the hire and he didn’t do the fire. Other than that, he is working hard to bring back winning football at the UW.

We have gone through a series of personalities my dear readers, and each one has been presented to us as the One who would free us from the Upper Campus domination of the program. At least the machines in the Matrix allowed the humans to dream of a good life even if they didn’t have one in reality.

My concern is that I have always been right by betting against the UW doing what is best for football. We hear much talk about how Dr. Emmert had forces aligned against him that he just couldn’t beat. That he has to pick his battles and this was one that he just couldn’t win at this time.

Some or all of that may be true, but this was the battle that could not be lost if we want to save Husky Football.

Not only did he lose it, getting smacked around like a rag doll by that noted tough guy, Todd Turner, he is doing a fine job of ensuring that Willingham is here long beyond next year.

Every time Dr. Emmert makes a move he ends up praising Willingham. This isn’t what we had in mind. I am long past my rage and name calling with Dr. Emmert. He is the President and he is doing a good job and he did fire Todd Turner but I am not going to waste another minute thinking that he is ever going to take in the Upper Campus and do anything about Willingham. He just doesn’t have that fight in him. I’m going to take him at his word and believe that he supports Ty Willingham.

I now believe that Turner got fired because he could be fired and because he was too honest about the University’s distaste for winning football. You don’t say that at money time and Todd said it.

Dumping Turner, an annoyance to boosters anyway, and forcing Ty into a couple of coaching changes to put some lipstick on the pig, was the easy way to try to keep the money flowing while not losing the Prime Directive, which was and is to keep Willingham employed here.

As usual, this will be met with great skepticism and loud cries of laughter and personal attacks on yours truly. Just like my thoughts about Hedges and Gerberding were. And my thoughts about firing a coach in June were. And my thoughts about hiring Gilby were. And my thoughts about hiring Turner were. And my thoughts about hiring Willingham were.

I kid you not, you can become rich betting against the UW doing what is best for football.

Willingham is now set up for his 5^th year before his 4^th losing year begins. The excuses are warmed up and battle tested as are the machinations to deter his firing in December of 08, just like in 07.

Dr. Emmert continues to marginalize boosters and fans who want better with his public comments. He has done a remarkable job of hiding his alleged anger at Ty by continually backing him and praising him. While plenty of fans hopefully claim that it is win or else for Ty, Emmert has never said that himself.

What we are left with after today’s article in the Times is the following:

1. The undue influence was put forth by evil boosters threatening to withhold money, not the legislature threatening to withhold funding to keep Ty. No matter how much you or I believe those rumors, to the public at large, it is the boosters who were the villains. It is the fire Ty side that is the bad guys.

2. Emmert is a hero at UW for not giving in to these jack booted thug boosters. The Faculty sent love emails to Turner and Emmert thanking them for saving Ty.

3. Mike Lude is on the public record supporting Turner and his decision. Mike Football Fucking Lude, the hero of the revolution, co opted and used against us!

4. Wonderful people like Shaun Alexander and Jeff Kemp pleaded with Emmert to keep Ty so we wouldn’t go back to our outlaw days of bad character and would continue to lose with dignity.

5. There is no story here. Nothing to see here, Move along now and support the team.

6. Our alternatives now are DeathWatch08 if we are lucky. More likely now is an extension and more years for Ty due to the points above.

If you think this is some master plan by Dr. Emmert to get rid of Ty, I have ocean front property in Arizona for sale.

I won’t even get into what if Ty does scrape out a 6-6 record and if that deserves more time. If he is breathing, he is staying. Football reasons don’t matter.

Why would UW all of a sudden care about results next year if they don’t this year? Do you seriously think that the line up that saved Ty cares about his record? Has there ever been such a campaign for an 11-25 football coach?

The Seattle Times whupps us again, my friends. And Todd Turner reaches once more from his grave to exact revenge on half brains everywhere.

Dark days, dark days indeed. Husky Football remains DOA.

Episode 9 finds our heroes still angry and it doesn’t look like anything will change that.

Is it possible Ty can still be fired? Probably not, but we cover potential scenarios. We talk about the losers who blame everything on Neuheisel. Strange that many of the Neu haters are the biggest supporters of Tyrone. I guess the Tybots will stop to nothing to protect their hero.

3 losing season in a row for Ty and now the program is safely on the road to oblivion. Thanks
Tybots.

Episode 9 is here

Have a problem using iTunes?

Check this out

Meet the new boss, it’s the same boss!

Groundhog Day comes again and again and again and again……………

We will get fooled again!

Wales isn’t a hard man to follow, leaves dead bodies wherever he goes. Willingham isn’t a hard coach to follow, leaves fired assistants and Athletic Directors wherever he goes.

Play along and give us your movie and pop references. We’re going to need new material as we face the daunting task of Year 4 of the Ty. Because on the field it will be the same old stew served up warmed over and teeming with e coli.

I considered going along with the Administration plea to ignore reality and pretend that everything is peachy once again at the Montlake Follies. I gave it serious thought. Firing Todd Turner was not an inconsequential act. It was a good thing. A necessary step to rebuild the disaster that is Husky Football. But only one step and only worth anything if done in conjunction with the step that had to be taken and wasn’t.

Willingham had to go. I just can’t get over that. Because he had to get fired for there to be any credibility for Emmert, the UW, and the upcoming season, now mercifully 9 long months away.

You can follow my bi-polar thinking on Emmert right here at Husky Half Brains as I rail against him and apologize to him mere days apart. I railed at him after he supported Turner’s decision to keep Teflon Ty for another try at this college coaching thing that Ty has yet to master during his 14 years of sincere effort and integrity filled glares from beneath the head sets. Emmert went on KJR and openly mocked sincere Husky fans such as myself who sent him sincere and polite letters expressing our disgust at the Turner/Willingham reign of error. That letter is also posted here and did not get any response other than Emmert’s public lumping together of sincere fans and the lunatic fringe. I belong to both groups, so I know what I am saying.

Then Emmert turns around days later and fires Todd Turner in a manly move that brought love from the masses and new hope for long suffering Husky fans. After careful and logical consideration we surmised that it had to be phase 1, and phase 2 would be the just and well earned firing of Tyrone Willingham. Why would you back Turner for keeping Ty and then fire Turner for not understanding what Husky Football is all about? Willingham being hired is Exhibit 1 for that case to be made. And Turner hired him.

Concern grew as the rumors floated that Ty could save himself by firing Baer. We clearly and concisely destroyed that illogical thought in print and in pod cast. The head man takes the fall and to blame an assistant for Ty’s three year failure fest here is the height of non integrity and shows a lack of seriousness about football that has long plagued the Montlake operation. Ty kept Baer for 13 years! Ty is the problem. Fire Ty and Baer goes with him. See how neat that works?

Alas, the non integrity filled Willingham decided to roll Baer under the bus as surely as he had rolled his players under the bus to save his own hide. When Baer got fired, the handwriting was on the wall and it spelled doom for Husky fans hoping for the salvation of the football program.

Rumors flew about various theories as to why Emmert didn’t fire Ty when everything including his own actions said he would and understood that he should. Who cares now? Ty is here and we are doomed to DeathWatch 08, another wasted year and a real chance to blow it with Mora.

For what? Another chance for a 14 year loser to lose again. Yep, I’m pretty bitter about that and it isn’t getting better with the passage of time either. My Tyee application is on the floor where I can wipe my feet on it and the odds of me paying that coin for another wasted season are about as good as the odds that Ty is suddenly going to be a great coach with a new defensive coordinator.

I now think Willingham will get 5 years and the Turner and Baer firings were just more of the same old shell game to open the wallets while not doing the hard and necessary work of getting rid of Ty. There will be another excuse next fall I am sure.

As the losses faded into memory the usual suspects popped up and all of a sudden we had the greatest recruiting class in the history of the world and only Ty could keep it together. Stupid and untrue? Of course, but what do you expect from any defense of Ty, logic and honesty? Please.

He closed the class well at the right time for him with a group of locals guys that would come here anyway, but that doesn’t erase the first half of the class or the overall start rating being 6^th in the Pac 10, that tough league with the impossible schedule that our guy Ty can’t win with.

You just know that Ty is going to need more than one more year to let these guys see the field and to “see what Ty can do”. Never mind that we sink or swim this year with Ty’s first three classes that were below average for us and have provided only sporadic help as Ty amassed his 11-25 record here.

Once again we see the need to take any average thing that Ty does and inflate it beyond all recognition because he has failed so miserably at what he was hired to do.

Top it off with the Rose Bowl romp by USC and the Pete Carroll love fest on ABC along with the Return of Rick to UCLA and I am damn glad we’re moving to San Diego where I can drown my sorrows in my pool instead of wasting any more money or time on the joke that is Husky Football. Ask yourself this, America, will we ever compete with USC with Willingham as our coach?

Of course not and that is all you need to know as to why it is criminal in a football sense to retain him here for one more day, let alone one more year.

I know a lot of fans feel the same and they have given up and the Dawgman boards are filled with the Tybots who always disappear during all the losses but pop up in the off season to tell us Next Year is the year or the year after and to curse anyone who dares to use facts and logics to dispute their inanity. The only thing that keeps me going is knowing how annoying I am to those people. And knowing that we have been right, we were right and we still are right.

So we’ll crank up the pod cast machine and continue to hurl logic and facts at the fantasy that is Ty the Coach and hope against hope that someday, some way, Husky Football will find its way back to Montlake. There is some hope for Emmert, but not if we allow those who fought him to think that we’ll just sit back and take it one more time.

Don’t accept the losing and don’t be silenced by the lambs who would lead us to slaughter year after year. Willingham must be fired. We won the case, we won the facts, we won everything but the day.

Endeavor to persevere. Happy Old year and Go Dawgs!