Why Tyrone Willingham is Going to Have a Hard Time Suceeding

I don’t have anything against Tyrone Willingham; I’m not a Notre Dame fan certainly. I think he’s a solid human being and has done a great job overall on our program.

That being said, I don’t think that he knows what to do on the sideline anymore. I’m not saying that he is necessarily a bad coach; he did well at Stanford and had winning seasons at Notre Dame, but college football is changing, and I don’t think Willingham wants to.

The spread offense is the new big thing in college football, just look at a traditional football power like Michigan hiring spread guru Rich Rodriguez. Willingham is a West Coast offense coach.

You may or may not agree with this, but one of the problems that Willingham had at Notre Dame was that the personnel he had at his disposal wasn’t ready for a West Coast set (and Notre Dame fans, before you jump all over me I said ONE of the problems he had).

Washington has one of the most talented players in college football for a spread offense in Jake Locker. At times it feels to me like Willingham doesn’t really know how to utilize Locker to his best ability, but he is trying really hard to understand using the spread and Locker is excellent at making it seem like it works.

However, look at the Cal game last season.  All we did was pound the ball up the middle and pass it around a bit and we won the game (one of the very few I’ve been able to see at Husky stadium, sad…). The next week we get Locker and go back to the quasi-spread west coast combo that the Huskies run and we lost to Washington State.

Why didn’t we stick with what worked for our team; I know Cal was having a meltdown, but they still were a much more talented team than we were. The problem with Tyrone is that he is a blindly inflexible x’s and o’s coach. He has his schemes, and those are the schemes you use and you either like it or you are out.

Just look at his association with Kent Baer.  He stuck with that guy for 13 years, no matter what and its another factor that contributed to his termination at Notre Dame.

I don’t seem him working too many miracles at Washington this year, and I certainly feel that any success we have comes at the feet and through the arm of Locker.

I’d love to see him gain success, however.  I thought it was good to give him a fourth year to succeed with his players, and watching Locker is always going to be exciting.

The hiring of Ed Donatell, Brian White, and Steve Gervais seem like they are going to be great additions to the coaching staff and indicate maybe Willingham is recognizing his flaws. Hopefully it isn’t too late…

In any case;

GO DAWGS!!!