Huskies

We’ll start today with this column by Steve Kelley from a conversation he had with UW AD Scott Woodward on the process of hiring Steve Sarkisian.
What I see is already getting a lot of attention is the quote near the bottom where Woodward says the effort against WSU in the Apple Cup was “abysmal preparation. Abysmal everything.” That has led some commenters to ask why he let Tyrone Willingham finish out the season. As Woodward stated at the time — but which a lot of people seemed to miss — is that he wanted Willingham to stay in place more for off-field reasons than on-field.
The worry was that if an interim was installed, it might be like having a substitute teacher, and players would stop going to class and doing a lot of the other things they need to do off the field, creating an even bigger mess for the new coach. There was also the question of who you would put in charge that would do any better. It didn’t turn out the way they hoped, but I asked Woodward again on Monday about it and he said that he’d still do the same thing, knowing what he knew at the time.
— In other UW news today, here’s my wrapup of the assistant coaching moves and a few other notes.