Husky Half Brains

Zero hour is less than 60 days away now and the thrill packed DeathWatch 08 is almost here. Countdown clocks are marking the days until the dust up with the Fading Ducks of Oregon at no longer recently remodeled Autzen Arena. I am going to ask my esteemed associate and partner in crime, iDawg, to set up a Countdown Clock of our own for the Half Brain website.

We’ll countdown the number of wins that Ty needs to keep his job here for at least the full measure of his contract. This number started as high as 10 wins in the aftermath of the shocking decision to keep our all time loser on as coach in December of 07. By my precise calculations the number is now down to 6 and falling. Yes sports fans, 6 wins and Ty is proven as the man to rebuild Husky Football, someday when he gets around to it.

Experts, meaning iDawg and myself, think the number may end up as low as 4, with 5 a sure bet. This is the tragedy of the decision by our Football President to give the vampire like Ty another year here to try to find his inner mediocrity. As we have written before, it is no longer about what is best for UW, who is best for UW, or how do we win championships, it is about what can Ty do to keep his job. A job he clearly should already have lost. More later on how damaging this decision is to the program.

Thanks, Football President!

Oregon? What about Oregon?

The lid lifter is being called the most important game of Ty’s career for reasons that escape your humble correspondent. As Allan Iverson points out, we’re talking about Oregon. I mean, it’s Oregon. We’re talking about Oregon. Oregon?

Just because Ty is 1-8 against our Northwest non rivals and has suffered three straight humiliating defeats to Oregon is no reason to get all stupid and think this game means any more that any other in the nightmare that is Ty’s career here. The Huskies often start strong under Ty and have beat some middling Pac 10 schools before under Ty and Ty has shown a remarkable ability to not build on that limited success and to fall flat on his face with his annual 6 game losing streak.

Real tough opponents follow Oregon and beating the fading Ducks before they fade is no assurance that the Huskies will beat the real tough teams that follow. And we all know that if the Huskies lose, it will just be one game and there will be 11 games left and it’s too early to give up on Ty yet and blah and a blah and more blah.

A win will be hailed as a seminal moment in Husky history and do we need to say anything more about how far this program has fallen than to say that? The media lap dogs will rush to remove Ty from the hot seat they placed him on and the praise will flow from the Tybots like blood from a gaping wound.

We’ll give our Half Brain prediction a little later this summer.

The Willingham Rules

It has struck me that the normal rules of college football coaching are often said to not apply to Ty. Not directly, but in the often bizarre defenses of Ty we hear the strangest things that don’t relate to any other coach. Here are a few:

1. Ty doesn’t have to win.

We’re told that Ty wasn’t hired to win, but to clean up the program and to leave it so the next guy can win. In other words, when Ty gets fired and the next guy does a better job, Ty can get the credit that he couldn’t get for himself. See Notre Dame, where Ty got credit for Weis going to two BCS bowls but no blame for his poor recruiting setting up last year’s 3-8 fiasco.

In reality, the program was clean before Ty got here and Ty has never built anything of any lasting value anywhere. Nor has any other coach been given the soft mandate that they weren’t hired to win.

2. Ty doesn’t need an extension

Even though every outlet in America has Ty as #1 on the Hot Seat list (Ty wins!), we are assured that our expert Football President doesn’t need to back up his stupid decision to keep Ty by extending him and taking the heat out of Ty’s seat. This is what any serious school would do going into year 4 of a contract, but that would cause the Football President some grief so he plays it down the middle allowing Ty to twist in the wind after allowing him to stay.

The usual apologists assure us this is normal, but it is only normal in the bizzaro world that surrounds Ty. For proof, look at our commit list - wait, there isn’t one. This is the long term damage of cowardice, Dr. Emmert.

3. Ty can tell fans to pound sand

Other coaches may need to reach out to fans and boosters but Ty doesn’t because he just needs to win and he knows it so it’s fine if he skips the Coach’s Tour, holes up in his cave and avoids any contact with the public. Too bad Ty can’t win either.

We were assured, even by Scott Woodward, that Ty has come to the conclusion that he had to be more fan friendly. Put this in the round file along with having to win 8 games.

At any rate, Ty’s method is working. Look at all the money raised for the stadium renovation, wait, there isn’t any.

4. Ty isn’t responsible for the coaching (unless it is good)

The bad defense wasn’t on Ty, it was on Baer. The bad special teams weren’t on Ty, they were on Simmons. The bad record isn’t on Ty, it’s on his assistants. The 11 wins and any future wins, real or imagined are on Ty, though. Ty is helpless to stem the tide of bad coaching by his assistants and we can only hope that the new guys do better because Ty won’t be able to help if they can’t.

5. Half a game is better than none

Ty is the only coach I know of who is praised, not ripped for blowing halftime leads. It is a sign of his great coaching that the team is so prepared for 30 minutes of football. And here I always thought that if you are prepared you play for 60, not 30 and you are prepared to adjust and adapt and win. This inability to finish has long been associated with Tyball, but never mind because we are pretending that we don’t know yet about Ty because we only have 13 years to look at and we needed this one more year to see what he can do and maybe even more.

TyWorld is a wonderful place if you’re Ty and the big checks don’t bounce.

And the fans gently weep.

Are you ready for some football?

Another Bill Fleenor mention of our hero:

Paying $2 million which would attract a ton of interest. We already know we are willing to pay over $300,000 for co-ordinators and near that for Asst Head Coaches.

UW is now also paying housing allowances and other benefits. From a salary and benefit standpoint UW is in the top 15 or better in the country.

Could we get Gary Pinkel - I doubt it - Urban Meyer - hell no - Pete Carroll - hell no.

Could we get a Brian Kelly, Mike Riley or Pat Hill? without a doubt (Riley would be the toughest). Jim Mora - I think we still can.

Washington is a great job and IF we really get progress on the stadium then I think we can get guys we never believed we could get.

Check it out. You didn’t think we were done did you?

Episode 11

BTW, it’s great, but you already knew that.

A little article in the Seattle Times may shed some light on our Football President’s desire to appease the Regents and keep Ty instead of listening to the boosters and former ticket holders and keeping his promise of a championship football program.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004387276_emmert02m.html

Moonlighting for most people might mean some extra cash to pay the rent or take that summer vacation. But for University of Washington President Mark Emmert, it means an extra $340,000 a year.

Emmert in recent months has quietly accepted two board positions at local Fortune 500 companies. The first, for freight company Expeditors International, pays $200,000 a year in company stock. The second, for Weyerhaeuser, pays $140,000 annually — $70,000 a year in cash and $70,000 in stock that Emmert can cash in after leaving the board.

…..

UW Regents said they unanimously approved both of Emmert’s outside appointments after several long discussions. The regents have limited Emmert to serving on two corporate boards.

The UW has freight contracts with Expeditors worth about $300,000 annually, and much smaller contracts with Weyerhaeuser. Emmert has filed a memo at the UW formally recusing himself from any business dealings with Expeditors — where shareholders are expected to confirm his appointment next week — and said he plans to do the same for Weyerhaeuser before taking his seat on that board next month. Weyerhaeuser has been a significant donor to the UW over the years.

……..

Mark Emmert’s annual income
The UW president will earn more than $1.2 million this year in these three positions:

UW president Pay
Base salary $620,000
Deferred compensation $250,000
Retirement match $23,000
Car allowance $12,000
Total UW compensation: $905,000
Other benefits include free use of the presidential mansion and free memberships, such as to The Rainier Club and the Seattle Tennis Club.
Weyerhaeuser director
Cash $70,000
Stock $70,000
Total: $140,000
Expeditors International director
Stock $200,000

It is not hard to see why Emmert won’t buck the Regents desire for Tyball. Last year or next year. He’s a fully owned subsidiary. Look for the shell game to continue as hungry fans continue to cling to meaningless statements about not accepting mediocrity as Emmert continues to praise abject failure.

We’ll have a new AD soon. Expect the worst, you’ll either be pleasantly shocked or not disapointed.

By the way, the headline of this blog post is why Bob Costas and Biffy Bissinger hate the internet. If you have HBO, watch their roundtable on sports media. The arrogance and elitisim ooze through your screen.

We are the people, they suck.

A cool, calm, and collected Ronnie Fouch wrested the starting QB job from Husky Legend Jake Locker in a shocking spring scrimmage at the Montlake Study Hall today. Fouch led the Gold team to a 10-7 lead through 3 quarters and then took over the reigns of the Purple squad and nearly led a comeback victory over himself.

Our Half Brain reporter got the following from Coach Willingham after the scrimmage.

“The question that you ask postulates a probability that requires the parameters of the parabolic period that we use to evaluate the perception of the players at the position that we feel they can best be their best at in pursuing the goals that we have set as we go about doing the kind of things that we would need to do to perform at the ultimate level that we pursue.

You got that, bitch?”

Yes, coach, loud and clear.

Ed Donatell, aka the Miracle Worker, fixed the defense in 15 practices. If our opponents drop every pass thrown to them we have a real chance to stop some folks. There were more drops out there today than on my T Mobile cell phone. Half Brain favorite Charles Hawkins kept blowing by the coverage only to blow the catch. Please tell me that the first string secondary played for the Gold team.

A disturbing trend continued, as the more time a player is in the legendary, unchanging, and evolving Willingham system the worse he plays and the youngest players continue to look the best. Then Willingham plays the older players because they know his system. His system seems to revolve around losing games.

There was a large crowd in the old stadium on a sun splashed day that brought the Seattle mole people out of their huts where they have been hibernating during our record long Winter of 08. I don’t want to say this winter was bad, but Danger Jim Foreman is now permanently frozen up at Snoqualmie Pass.

The O line looked fat and they still have pudgy arms instead of guns. The D line looked small but pushed around the flabby O line. Ty continues to recruit skill players in his own image - small. Yes there is speed, but it comes in small, skinny packages. When these guys line up against real competition the Return of the Midgets is at hand. Everyone has pencil legs and there remains a general lethargy around and about the players and the practice.

Where have the weight room monsters, big hitters and snarling bad ass players gone? We are Stanford north and what passed for big hitting today would have passed for a decent warm up tackling drill back in the day.

You won’t read this at Dawgman or anywhere else as the season of delusion is at hand, and your faithful scribe will be roundly ripped if anyone reads this but come fall you’ll remember that you read it here first as the lads crater to another bottom of the Pac finish under the molder of men and the builder of programs.

They were playing themselves and managed to look bad doing it on both sides of the ball. If the players have “got it” and the “culture has been changed” then getting it has nothing to do with getting in shape or getting strong and the culture has nothing to do with creating the kind of bad ass killers that win football games.

We have a nice group of guys that will try hard before politely giving away most games in the 4th quarter. Same as it ever was under Coach Ty. What could have been with a firebrand like Jim Effing Mora kicking these guys in the ass and instilling the Gospel of Winning in their mortal souls.

A final note on the now second string Locker - Jake can’t play QB at half speed with no contact. Jake has to be Jake to be Jake the QB. His skill and improvisation will win the few games we do win. His QB skills remain alarmingly unpolished and it looks as if he has never even met a QB coach. Fouch, on the other hand, looks hugely improved. How does this shit happen?

And that is the cardinal sin of our Football President and his idiotic decision to keep Jake floundering under Willingham for yet another year. Oh, and Jake is still the Man.

You got that, bitch?

Typologists love to use the lack of draft choices to prop up Ty, so I went behind the numbers on a Dawgtale post that I paste here:

Someone once again mentioned Ty’s great ability to put players into the NFL from Stanford so I thought I’d look inside those numbers to see what was up. The stats are here - http://www.nfl.com/draft/histo…amp;type=school

In 1995, Ty’s first year at Stanford, 4 players were drafted. He didn’t recruit them and had them for one year. Winning record

In 1996, Stanford had 1 player drafted - not recruited by Ty, under him for two years. Winning record

In 1997, Stanford had 2 drafted, three years under Ty, losing record

In 1998 Stanford had 5 players drafted and went 3-8. These players would have had 4 years under Ty, may have been his 1st recruting class or a 5th year senior recruited by Walsh.

In 1999 Stanford had 0 players drafted and went to the Rose Bowl. Ty’s 5th year, all players would have been his recruits and developed under him for 5 years.

Note that through 5 years Ty had his worst record with the most draft picks on the team and his crowning achievement with no draft picks.

In 2000, a 5-6 year, Stanford had 2 players drafted, so on that Rose Bowl team, the upper class, juniors and seniors had two players of “NFL talent”.

2001 was Ty’s last year, 9-3, and 2 more players were drafted. That means 6 drafted players in the top three classes on the Rose Bowl team.

In 7 years, players that Ty either recruited or inherited, developed for one year or 5 - 16 players were drafted, about 2.5 per year and he had 4 winning seasons and 3 losing seasons.

After Ty left the program cratered recordwise - just better than 11-25 over three years, but in those three years another 12 players were drafted, as many as in Ty’s 7 years. Those players were recruited by Ty, but coached and developed by Teevens. Coached poorly by the record, but had “NFL talent”.

The 2005 team had another 6 drafted - the last of Ty’s recruits, but fully coached by Teevens and Harris.

You could conclude that Ty did have an eye for talent recruiting wise, but crticism of his lack of development of players is also called for. More players by far went to the NFL after he was gone, but he did recruit them.

He was also able to win without NFL players on his roster.

As is so often the case, the record is quite mixed, no where near as good as his fervent supporters maintain, but hopeful for even his critics, that when he is gone his recruits can develop into NFL players.

Just don’t hire Teevens to replace him. Or Mackovic.

It is also interesting that Stanford did just as poorly in the three years post Ty as Ty did here in the 3 years post Gilby, but had “NFL talent” much moreso than we did.

I think the whole NFL talent thing is way overblown in regards to winning college football games. Coaching and development is far more important. My friend from Yale said it much better and with much more intellectual flair, but the numbers seem to buttress his case. (reference to a post on Dawgtales)

We’re monitoring Spring Practice from our underground listening post that is equiped with the latest NSA microphones and satellite imaging machines and everything we see and hear screams - It’s Better Than Ever!

We’ll keep you updated and provide a rare onsite report from behind the Tyron Curtain from our Special Ops team that will actually watch the Srping Game.

The players are “getting it”, the culture is changing and players are working harder than ever as the unchanging yet evolving Willingham System is now is full scale attack mode a mere 4 years into his regime here.

In what can only be called a major surprise, reports on new defensive coordianator, Ed “The Savior” Donatell seem to indicate that Kent Baer really sucked. Who knew that Ty’s right hand man for 13 years actually had no clue how to coach football? Reports also blame Baer for bad breath, runs inthe field turf, and a nagging case of crab grass outside Coach Willingham’s window.

Stay tuned for more exciting Spring optimism as we are at that blesssed time where last season has been forgotten and next season is far enough away to not have to worry about it. Our young defensive line is looking good against our veteren all world offensive line. Either the defensive line is really good or the offensive line sucks. That’s how it goes when you play with yourself. You also get Coach Harry Palms.

Sunday through Friday and February through August we rock.

I haven’t done very much reflection on last season. What is the point in arguing in the margins when the problems are right in front of your face?

Doing indepth analysis and destructing the season would be a fundamental rejection of Occam’s razor. We dig Occam around here and I do not want to insult his theory. Make no mistake, I have the tools to look at the season eight ways from Sunday. But I refuse to do it, except for this one instance:

You see, one of the 2 pillars to keep Ty was the improved offense. Someone alerted me that much of the improvement may have been because of rule changes. To improve by a touchdown per game (which the Huskies did) is historically a monumental achievement, except for last year. As you can see from the table the vast majority of the teams improved on offense last year. Most years it is 50-50 as you would expect.

The rule changes (and no I’m not going to get into those) added 4 points to every team last year. This turns an exceptional achievement into only an above average achievement.

Now if you think 39th in terms of improvement is exceptional, more power to you. I think it is emblematic of Willingham as a whole. The absolute absence of any excellence.

Recently there has been a lack of synergy between the authors of this website and those that scrutinize the text and audio portions of this weblog. I hesitate to make a value judgement on such activities, because I strongly believe that no one is wrong in this debate. In fact no one is ever wrong in any debate. I think we need to own these self truths as we create a paradigm shift moving forward.

11 and 25 is a universal constant, very similar to 9.81 meters per second squared. I can no more impart hard feelings to the creator of 11 and 25 than I can dislike gravity. It simply is the way nature works.

What is important is looking to the future for a win/win situation. No one knows for certain that the current head coach at the University of Washington will lose in the future, much like no one knows for certain the sun will come up tomorrow. Those students of quantum physics understand that probabilities are allowed for nearly all situations. It is a very empowering thought if one can immerse oneself in these ideas. I strongly suggest readers of this site to do so.

So we will sit on a lead we never had with this website (if I may use a sports analogy) as we try to discover sides of our mouths we haven’t yet spoken out of. The language will be curtailed dramatically and the tone of our commentary will be such that no one will know what we truly mean. The unvarnished look into the soul of Husky football will be obfuscated. Far be it for us to reinvent the wheel by refusing to learn from past market mistakes. The Plastic Ono Band is the main driver of this decision as their employment of primal scream therapy never allowed for a top 40 hit much to the chagrin of Casey Kasem.

Anyway, I hope you embrace these changes as we become boring, less insightful, and generally more wussified.

It is April 2nd and this is no April Fools post although it is a post by a known fool. Tyrone Willingham needs to have his contract extended before this season begins. At least three years to enable him to tell prospective student athletes that he will be in charge of their student experience for the full 5 years.

As we all know, the Football President decided to not do what is best for the program and instead did was was worst by keeping Ty around as our head coach instead of hiring Jim L. Mora and reigniting the fan base and the program and the team. Now that he has made that bed, he needs to go ahead and lie down in it.

By retaining Ty, the Football President signed off on every lame excuse and apology for Ty’s historically bad performance that there was. Inheriting the worst program ever. Not having any talent to work with. Being unable to convince the players to win games and change the culture. Turning one losing season in 26 years into three more straight through no fault of his own. Being unable to recruit until his 4th class because the program was too bad for anyone to want to come play for. All of that and more.

Well Mr. Football President, if all that is true, and you must think it is, then why on earth would it be fair to hold Ty to any accountability for his win loss record in only his 4th year? He needs the full 5 years, as you agreed when you signed off on the arguments to keep him. And if he is going to get that, then it is for the good of the program and for recruiting that you eliminate any doubt whatsoever about his future here.

There is no large local class of players that have grown up dreaming of being Huskies this year. We are back to Ty having to go out and convince players to be Huskies, something he did very poorly in his first three tries at it. To have our opponents saying with evidence that Ty is gone after this year will only set us back even further, if that is possible. Your very reputation as the Football President lies in the balance.

It was always an insult to anyone’s intelligence to think that Ty was given a 4th year, or 14th year, to see what he can do. We know what he can do. We knew it when the Football President signed off on the hire. We know he’s a win a few lose a few coach and always will be if he ever gets past losing all the time like he has done here. The Football President knew that when he retained him. So to expect that Ty has to win 8 or a bowl is ludicrous. If UW cared about winning Ty would be long gone or never here. Claiming that 7 wins changes anything about him is also ludicrous as explained here - http://huskyhalfbrains.com/blog/?p=59

No, the Football President has chosen the slow and steady path to mediocrity and even Ty’s staunchest backers are under no illusions that he’ll have a winning record this year. The talent is worse than when he got here and the best players are true freshmen and a QB alone won’t win in the Pac 10. Since you kept Ty, you have to support him. If we aspire to the occasional 8-4 record, which is the message our Football President has sent, then give your signature hire the support he needs before you screw this up any more with a DeathWatch08 season of waiting for Ty to get fired like he should have last December.

It’s too late now to act like you care about winning. Dance with the girl you brought and act like a professional organization for a change and give Willingham his extension. You aren’t fooling anyone anyway and the Tyee money is in and the season tickets are bought. Be honest for once. This is what you have wrought so make the best of it and stop the limbo dance. When Ty fails again this season the calls will come out for the 5th year and the chance to see his players develop and all the other stupid excuses you bought hook line and sinker. Bill Gates Sr. will still be tying your hands and the upper campus will still love Ty and boosters will still be grossly inappropriate for wanting to win and sports will still be only 2% of your empire.

Get it over with now, Mr. Football President. Extend Ty now. It’s our best shot for mediocrity in a few years.