SEATTLE — D’Andre Goodwin may have pouted … for a minute.
He may have felt sorry for himself. May have cursed the University of Washington coaches in his own mind.
But there is one thing the University of Washington receiver never did. Goodwin never gave up.
“D’Andre definitely went through the down and the adverse side of things. He was down in the dumps a lot last year,” receivers coach Jimmie Dougherty said this week. “… I always thought there was a great story for him out there as far as battling back from adversity. And now he’s seeing the rewards of it and playing at a high level.”
After emerging as the Huskies’ go-to receiver as a sophomore in 2008, then dropping on the depth chart under UW’s new coaching staff last season, a re-focused Goodwin has re-emerged with the Huskies this season.
And with that, a career has been reborn.
“It has a lot to do with my teammates and the coaches,” Goodwin said. “They never gave up on me. I do what I’m coached to do. I have a great coach in coach Dougherty. I’ve been helped by other people; it’s not just me. Other people have stuck with me.”
When Goodwin was at his lowest — his reception totals dropped from a team-high 60 in 2008 to just 14 last season — it would have been easy to point fingers and make excuses. A hamstring injury slowed him during his first offseason with coach Steve Sarkisian’s staff, and the new coaches eventually settled on another group of go-to receivers that included Jermaine Kearse, Devin Aguilar and true freshman James Johnson.
But a retrospective Goodwin looks back on last season and knows there’s only one scapegoat for his lack of numbers.
“I just wasn’t performing like I should,” he said this week. “It had nothing to do with anything else. It was all on me. I wasn’t doing a good enough job to be the No. 1 guy.”
Goodwin put in extra time during the offseason to earn back the trust of the coaches and quarterback Jake Locker, and he’s slowly worked his way back into the offense. He caught just two passes in the first three games of 2010, then broke out with four receptions in an upset of USC — including the most important catch of the game on a fourth-down reception to keep UW’s game-winning drive alive.
“After the SC game,” Dougherty said, “I told him: ‘Your career is not done now. You’re going to make a lot more plays here.’ And he knew that; he kind of smiled at me.”
Goodwin responded with a team-high eight receptions and his first touchdown of the season in Saturday’s loss to Arizona State. He now ranks third on the team with 14 receptions and feels as confident as he did during his original breakout season in 2008.
“I feel like I am a better receiver,” Goodwin said. “That’s from hard coaching and the guys I’m surrounded with. So I’d say, yeah, I’m a better receiver. But we’re a better unit, in general.”
Goodwin was far and away the most productive receiver on the 2008 team, with three times more receptions than any other player on the roster.
But Sarkisian and his new staff were giving no free passes when they arrived in January 2009, so Goodwin’s star faded as quickly as it had arrived.
“Sometimes with guys, it takes them a different amount of time in different systems in how they develop,” offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier said. “He just didn’t, for one reason or another, get the amount of touches as any of us would’ve wanted. Obviously, some guys elevated their play.”
Sarkisian said both he and Dougherty had several one-on-one conversations with Goodwin last season in regards to the receiver’s role.
“No one was anointed anything when we arrived,” Sarkisian said Thursday evening. “It was going to take hard work, on and off the field, to do that. It took a little time, but he bought in. And to his credit, it’s paying off for him.”
Goodwin still remembers the sting of being an afterthought on last year’s offense, even though he’s regained his starting role.
“It was tough,” he said this week. “You never want to move down (on the depth chart); you always want to go up.
“But that’s life, and I never stopped fighting. And I continue to fight and strive to be the best every day.”
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