Chris Petersen to Washington

all vs. a strength of schedule that rivals the Big Ten!

To be fair, TCU looked like beasts in that conference too.  Since moving to the Big 12 they've gone 11-14.

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.  

Yeah, it's not even a clever play on words

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?

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.

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.  

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

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.

Petersen seems like the kind of guy who would prioritize a better fit over a bigger name. From a family perspective, going from Boise to Los Angeles would have been a much more dramatic shift than going from Boise to Seattle. This actually seems like the ideal situation for him.

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.

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..

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.

He has Wazzu in a bowl this year.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

...he proposed an orange field, didn't he?

haden just couldn't get past peterson's view that looking the other way when players are paid is an ncaa infraction.

I don't buy it. Before USC hired Sarkisian, there were reports that Petersen removed his name from consideration for that job. I suspect that the "source" reporting that it was USC who passed on Peterson and not vice-versa is from the USC side. There is no universe in which Sarkisian is a better hire than Petersen.