Chris Petersen to Washington
Chris Petersen expected to be named Washington head coach today. Will be one of highest paid in PAC-12.
— Joe Schad (@schadjoe) December 6, 2013
December 6th, 2013 at 8:30 AM ^
Should have gone when he was a hotter property and could have had a better job.
So long, Fraud State. Nice knowing you and your bogus claims of elite status.
December 6th, 2013 at 8:48 AM ^
Fraud State? A 92-12 record in 8 seasons under Peterson? 6 top 25 finishes and 11 win+ seasons? 5 bowl wins? Are we looking at different teams?
December 6th, 2013 at 8:52 AM ^
all vs. a strength of schedule that rivals the Big Ten!
December 6th, 2013 at 9:32 AM ^
...or the Big12 ...or the ACC. I'm making my "Section 1" stand here against people who are badmouthing the Big10. Statistically, both the ACC and Big12 are worse conferences this year, and the SEC is only marginally better. The PAC12 is a lot better, though.
December 6th, 2013 at 10:43 AM ^
To be fair, TCU looked like beasts in that conference too. Since moving to the Big 12 they've gone 11-14.
December 6th, 2013 at 2:41 PM ^
and their move from the Mountain West to Pac-12.
December 6th, 2013 at 12:47 PM ^
BSU played one or two legitimate teams a year and 10-11 tomato cans. Petersen is a very good coach, but he has to prove that he can get these kind of results against legitimate, elite competition on a regular basis. I think this move makes sense for both sides and both sides could benefit.
December 6th, 2013 at 8:53 AM ^
December 6th, 2013 at 9:55 AM ^
Yeah, it's not even a clever play on words
December 6th, 2013 at 10:17 AM ^
December 6th, 2013 at 11:23 AM ^
Lousy State woulda been pretty good, too.
December 6th, 2013 at 3:58 PM ^
How about "Boy-Sea State." They played their games with a veritable sea of boys rather than men, thus making them an inferior program. MARVIN NAILED IT!
December 6th, 2013 at 4:03 PM ^
Blouse-y State would have been even better.
December 6th, 2013 at 9:10 AM ^
have to say that Washington is a pretty good job. Awesome part of the country, tremendous potential and a history of semi-recent success without the expectations of other top level jobs. Now that that program has returned to being a high level Pac 12 team I think a lot of coaches would eat that job up if offered.
December 6th, 2013 at 10:07 AM ^
The whole leaving sooner thing is a load of bunk. Petersen has been at the top of every job opening for the last 5+ years. And did people forget he just turned down USC?
December 6th, 2013 at 10:20 AM ^
I've always been a big fan of Peterson and have secretly wished he'd come to Michigan for several years now. I'm also sad to see him leave Boise St. though. I loved what he did with that program and he seems like he is a man of character. It was refreshing to see someone with that kind of success, buck the trend of greed and cut-throat ambition in college football.
December 6th, 2013 at 9:16 AM ^
Great hire for Washington.
This blows my mind. He turns down SEC jobs, Penn State, Ohio State, UCLA, USC, but says yes to Washington? Unreal.
Regardless, he is a great coach and Huskie fans should be thrilled. I'm always happy to see Washington get a leg up on Leach and Washington State, so good for them.
December 6th, 2013 at 9:25 AM ^
maybe he likes that part of the country b/c of family or other reasons. That can be a pretty big factor to a lot of people.
December 6th, 2013 at 9:40 AM ^
Yeah, he just doesn't seem like your typical coach where ambitions to be at the best schools with the most money is the driving force in his decision.
Washington makes sense for a guy like Chris Petersen. He's not stepping into a huge pressure cooker in a part of the country he doesn't know. Rather, he's upgrading to a football school in the same region of the country where he'll be utilizing the recruiting connections he's built up for his entire coaching career. I very much see the draw.
December 6th, 2013 at 10:18 AM ^
Might be because he sees that his stock and Boise State's stock is falling. They've fallen off the national radar ever since Kellen Moore graduated and I think before Petersen might've thought he had a good thing going, but now if he sees the Boise State ship sinking, he might be thinking it's time to get out of Dodge while he still can. This might be the end of Boise's run of national significance
December 6th, 2013 at 10:21 AM ^
I am not familar with BSU recruiting, but it seems to me that it may be important to him to stay in the Norhtwest if that is where his best recuiting ties are. It might be easier for him to pull in recruits at UW that at an SEC school. USC might just be a little bit toxic give the damage done by Kiffin and not keeping Orgeron (and Orgeron's decision to quit rather than coach the bowl).
Admittedly, this is kind of pulled out of the air since I just can't tolerate watching BSU on that damn blue field.
December 6th, 2013 at 10:53 AM ^
It's a great job for him. He'll come in as a rock star. He'll be paid extremely well. The cost of living there is much much better than at USC. The expectations are reasonable. The fan base won't be calling for his head after 2 1/2 years. He will have an opportunity to create a long-term legacy there if he chooses to do it, much like Don James did.
December 6th, 2013 at 11:58 AM ^
... was a great coach for UW. And he was an assistant at Michigan before that, under Bump Elliot. This is s great hire for UW.
December 6th, 2013 at 1:32 PM ^
Agree with all you say.
I just thought that it might also be a smart move for him as my hypothesis was that he will closer to his recruting base than going to SEC or even USC. Howeva, looking at his BSU's roster, I counted 37 kids from Cali, against 29 from Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Montana combined. So, yeah, I'm wrong.
December 6th, 2013 at 4:39 PM ^
It is important to look at where in Cali they are from. It's a huge state and recruiting in the southern part is very different than the northern part.
December 6th, 2013 at 4:47 PM ^
Not really, in terms of football recruiting. Both northern CA and SoCal have tons of talent, and it varies year to year who has more (not to mention parts of central CA like Fresno and Bakersfield representing well).
December 6th, 2013 at 5:52 PM ^
He's still close to his recruting base, relative to an SEC job.
Regardless of recruiting, he also knows the northwest region really well. He must hear stories of friends that travel all over the northwest for fishing, hiking, family, and he has probably vacationed, traveled, and visited a bunch of areas as well.
So when a recruit in every-day-speak says he's going to visit his Grandma for Christmas in Gleed, just up the road from Yakima on the "12", Peterson would probably already know where this is, approximately, and share immediately commonality with the kid, talking about how he's heard the fishing is good around there, etc. Hit the ground running without having to learn everything anew culturally and geographically.
I agree with other posters that this is also a lower stress opportunity for a solid team in a high-end conference. He will have the opportunity to grow the program to his liking without as many angry fans making noise (a la USC).
I'm really surprised he left, but perhaps the best opportunity for his personality type and past experience.
December 6th, 2013 at 2:07 PM ^
Living in Southern California, I know that Boise's taken some smaller school kids from here, perhaps for depth, perhaps hoping to develop with a redshirt year. They just took a kid from the local high school as a preferred walk-on at kicker.
December 6th, 2013 at 11:53 AM ^
December 6th, 2013 at 11:55 AM ^
Good move for Petersen and a great hire for UW. He knows the area for recruiting and he has a child in need of medical care available at UW's and Seattle's medical centers. I think this may have been a motivating factor. Seattle will welcome Petersen.
December 6th, 2013 at 2:30 PM ^
Maybe he didn't want to come into a program that was falling apart. Washington didnt just fire it's coach for incompetence or lose him after sanctions and scandal. Their coach left to take a better job but left the program in a great place. I'd much rather inherit Washington's current program than what Rich Rod left or the PSU situation or the Lane Kiffin mess, etc..
December 6th, 2013 at 9:55 AM ^
December 6th, 2013 at 10:18 AM ^
He's the ASU coach.
Until this year he seemed kind of toolish (bailing on programs [Rice & Pitt] in consecutive years will get you that rep), but going 10-2 does pretty well to squash those kinds of sentiments. Also it does seem like he genuinely wants to be and stay in Tempe.
December 6th, 2013 at 10:56 AM ^
He has Wazzu in a bowl this year.
December 6th, 2013 at 1:04 PM ^
UW has been historically one of the better programs of the Pac 12 -- they fell on some hard times but they're a historically rich franchise. Probably #2 behind USC in reality.
December 6th, 2013 at 10:21 AM ^
Fraud State isnt an appropriate name. They actually have been wilded successful for a mid-major for over a decade with several different head coaches. I don't think you can call them Elite elite (like top 5 quality) but no doubt they had an incredible run of top 15ish teams for a small school in Idaho. Good football in Idaho!
You have to give their program some respect
December 6th, 2013 at 11:54 AM ^
Maybe I am biased because I live in Boise, but I don't understand all of the hatred for BSU. They are a team comprised largely of two-star and three-star players (according to rivals they have had two four-star recruits sign with them in the last DECADE), and yet they have largely been able to hold their own when given the chance to play against quality BCS opponents. Nobody is arguing that the Mountain West schedule is like playing in the SEC (or even the B1G), but it is hard to argue that they have not put together some quality teams over the last decade.
It seems that many Michigan fans grudgingly respect Dantonio for "coaching up" his players and overachieving, but hate on BSU for having been very successful with one-tenth of the talent that Dantonio has to work with. I don't get it.
December 6th, 2013 at 1:05 PM ^
"It seems that many Michigan fans grudgingly respect Dantonio for "coaching up" his players and overachieving, but hate on BSU for having been very successful with one-tenth of the talent that Dantonio has to work with. I don't get it."
Who are these "many" that you are refer to? I think few would be a better adjective.
December 6th, 2013 at 1:28 PM ^
i wouldn't say many. I wouldn't even knock their strength of schedule that much. Even when they played major schools they always won. Great pick up for Washington, lost their old good coach and upgraded to a better one
December 6th, 2013 at 2:34 PM ^
I have nothing but respect for Peterson and his program. I watched them beat OK St., Oregon, push Georgia aroung in their own house, and man handle VT. Those are things that for some mysterious reason, Michigan woudn't have done in the last decade.
I don't see how anyone could not respect what they've done.
December 6th, 2013 at 12:16 PM ^
December 6th, 2013 at 12:38 PM ^
Petersen didn't build that program up. It was good before he got there. Actually, what's interesting is that none of his Boise predecessors has had much success after leaving for a bigger school.
December 6th, 2013 at 2:14 PM ^
It was in decent shape when he took over, but Petersen took it to the next level. Dan Hawkins' record at Boise was good, but he never had an undefeated season, he never had a signature win against a school from a BCS conference, and he never played in a BCS bowl (granted, it was harder for non-AQ schools to qualify for BCS bowls back then). Petersen did all three multiple times. He's the one who proved that Boise is capable of playing with the big boys.
December 6th, 2013 at 3:25 PM ^
At Boise, Hawkins went 12-1, 13-1 and 11-1 in 2002, 2003 and '04 respectively. He didn't go undefeated, but had them on the brink.
December 6th, 2013 at 6:11 PM ^
The key differentiator is that Chris Petersen regularly beat good teams from AQ conferences. His 9-3 record includes wins over an 11-win Oklahoma team, a 10-win Georgia team, a 10-win Oregon State team, an 11-win Virginia Tech team, and two 10-win Oregon teams. Petersen is the reason no one wanted to play Boise State. Dan Hawkins went 2-8 against AQ teams. And the fact that Petersen was Hawkins' offensive coordinator and Hawkins failed miserably after he and Petersen parted ways probably indicates that Petersen had a lot to do with Boise's success under Hawkins.
December 6th, 2013 at 8:30 AM ^
Says no to SoCal, claims he doesn't want to leave, ends up in Seattle. Chris Peterson is a hipster.
December 6th, 2013 at 8:34 AM ^
December 6th, 2013 at 8:42 AM ^
It's possible USC passed on Petersen because he may not be a good fit there. Or vice versa. Petersen supposedly is not great with media and boosters, and a public job like USC may not fit him. There's also this:
It'll be interesting to see what happens with Petersen & #UDub. In interview w #USC his vision didn't mesh with how Pat Haden wants things run
December 6th, 2013 at 9:59 AM ^
December 6th, 2013 at 10:14 AM ^
haden just couldn't get past peterson's view that looking the other way when players are paid is an ncaa infraction.