UW’s Willingham did better than expected

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, February 2, 2005

SEATTLE – Depending on which football-recruiting guru you read, the UW Class of 2005 will be rated in the neighborhood of No. 55 or 60 nationally, and probably ninth or 10th in the Pac-10.

It’s not the types of numbers the Huskies are used to, yet, in his first thrust in trying to turn around the circus that has become the Washington football program, head coach Tyrone Willingham did better than anyone could expect.

A late flurry salvaged it.

When Bellevue High School stars J.R. Hasty and E.J. Savannah verbally committed to Washington over the weekend, it created a domino effect. Hasty and Savannah legitimized the class and gave others at the top of Washington’s wish list the feeling that it was safe to commit to a program that finished 1-10 last season.

Hasty and Savannah’s verbals played no small part in the Huskies’ landing two highly regarded stars, including Marlon Wood, a J.C. receiver/kick returner with 4.3 speed and offensive lineman Ben Ossai, 6-foot-6 and 290 pounds.

Those weren’t all.

Defensive end Daniel Te’o Nesheim, formerly considered a soft commit and widely expected to land elsewhere, was moved enough to re-affirm his verbal. The Huskies also picked up a promising J.C. cornerback in Qwenton Freeman in the last couple of days.

Talk about a great save.

UW recruiting slowed to a trickle when questions arose about former coach Keith Gilbertson’s future and shut down completely when he announced he would resign at the end of the season.

Gilbertson’s announcement came after a dreadful game at USC in late October, which means no prospects with any impact looked at the Huskies for seven crucial weeks.

So Willingham had a lot of time to make up when he came on board Dec. 12. Although he had to fill just 13 spots because of the relatively low number of graduating seniors, Willingham also had the obstacles of a) the aforementioned 1-10 season; b) the lack of a complete coaching staff, including offensive coordinator; c) trying to persuade parents that Washington is the perfect fit for their sons, the same Washington that carried the baggage of year-long headlines of fired coaches, near-complete changes in upper management of the athletic department and a drug scandal that led to the firing of a nationally prominent softball coach; and d) a multi-million-dollar lawsuit in Kent brought by former head football coach Rick Neuheisel against the university.

So opposing recruiters carried a ton of ammo against Washington, ammo that Willingham, somehow, had to fight.

“That is part of the business for some and that is part of the segment that we call negative recruiting,” he said. “Yes, it is out there. I think that we have some very positive answers for what’s out there. I am quite confident that we did well this year.”

While that will take 4 and 5 years to answer, Willingham did what he could to fill spots that badly need it.

Wood will put spark in a simply horrible kick-return team. Hasty and Savannah knew nothing but winning in high school and figure to help in that regard, perhaps immediately.

Quarterback Johnny DuRocher, the former 2002 Washington Prep Player of the Year who transferred from Oregon because of a series of hissy fits with coach Mike Bellotti, will almost certainly upgrade a position that ranked among the worst in the country last season. He will play spring ball and be eligible to play in the fall (rather than sit out) because he didn’t play last season and graduated from Pierce College, which satisfied the NCAA’s “4-2-4” transfer rule.

“I think he will offer us a lot of competitiveness right off the bat,” Willingham said.

Horse pucky. It says here that DuRocher will be the starting quarterback when Washington opens against Air Force in September. After last year’s QB disaster with Casey Paus, Isaiah Stanback and Carl Bonnell, DuRocher gets it by default.

The number of obstacles that Willingham faced was unfair. Because of that, you have to give him a free pass in his first recruiting class at Washington.

Still, the feeling here is that the Class of 2005, as small as it is, may have more of an impact than anyone could realistically expect.

Willingham can thank two kids from Bellevue for much of it.