SEATTLE — Tyrone Willingham’s fate was announced Monday afternoon, but there are still a lot of questions to be answered between now and when the next Husky football coach is announced.
What happens to the assistant coaches? Do they keep recruiting? And can the staff keep this team focused and looking ahead to a date Saturday with the Pac-10’s top team with so much going on this week off the playing field?
More often than not, assistant coaches lose their jobs when head coaches are fired, and unlike Willingham, almost all of Washington’s staff is under one-year contracts (defensive coordinator Ed Donatell is the exception, as he signed a two-year deal when he was hired in the offseason), meaning they won’t get a buyout like Willingham should the next head coach bring in new assistants.
Asked if he’d like to stay at Washington, defensive line coach Randy Hart said, “Sure, I’d love to, but it’s not going to be my decision.”
Hart and Chris Tormey are the only coaches on the staff that were at Washington before Willingham came in. Tormey, the linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator, coached at Washington from 1984-1994, then returned in 2004, one year ahead of Willingham. Hart has been on Washington’s staff for 21 years.
And while the rest of this season may seem like an audition for a job either at Washington or elsewhere for the assistants, most say it’s too early to be worrying about anything beyond the next five games.
“Some of this is really fresh right now,” said offensive line coach Mike Denbrock, who was also on Willingham’s staff at Notre Dame. “I haven’t had a chance to process all of it right now. So, I don’t know if I have a specific answer to that question right now. There’s friends you have in the coaching profession that you stay in contact with and people that you talk to. But right now, we’ve got a job that we need to finish here. As far as the way I feel about it, we still have a commitment to the University of Washington for the next five weeks that we need to make sure we do a good job on. The rest will hopefully work out and take care of itself down the road.”
Added first-year running backs coach Steve Gervais: “I think as a general rule that everybody is going to keep their ears open. We know the finality of it here with coach Willingham. As a general thought I think that’s the conclusion everybody has come to.”
Gervais came to Washington after leaving a very successful high-school coaching career. He said he knew this risk existed when he accepted the job, and has no regrets about leaving Skyline High School after winning a state title last season.
“No, absolutely not,” he said. “As I said last spring, it was a time in my life that I was looking for something different in the area of football and coaching, and I still look back on it as a great decision.”
Asked if he wanted to stay at Washington if the option presents itself, he said it’s too early to think about that.
“You know what, I’m not really going to even go there right now with that, because I want to finish this out,” he said. “We’ll see what happens down the road.”
Part of doing their job for the next five weeks will apparently include recruiting, Tormey said.
“We’re going to keep recruiting,” he said. “That’s the directive we have right now. We’re going to go forward with that.”
What changes, however, is how the coaching staff recruits. They can no longer sell a recruit on Willingham or the current coaches, and instead must now sell the school, the program and the city of Seattle.
“Well, the University of Washington remains a great place and there’s a lot of things we can talk about—the tradition, the quality of the academics here, the area,” Tormey said. “It’s still an attractive option for a lot of kids. So, we just talk the University of Washington.”
As for Willingham himself, the head coach says he will no longer be a part of the recruiting process.
“These are unusual circumstances and we now have to carry a little different voice because now it becomes not necessarily Tyrone Willingham’s voice of this current program, but we’ve also got to look out for the program of the future and make sure that we’re doing things right for them also,” he said.
Asked what his recruiting voice is now, Willingham simply said, “Right now I don’t have a voice. It’s unfortunate, but I don’t.”
The team practiced for the first time on Tuesday since the announcement that Willingham is gone after the season, and some coaches and players said things didn’t feel the same.
“I think these guys really feel for Ty is really what it is,” Donatell said. “They feel for him, so there’s a little sadness. He explained to them, we’re getting to work. They see that champion attitude of their leader, so they come to work, and they still hurt a little bit for him.”
Good news for Kelemete: Freshman defensive tackle Senio Kelemete had his knee scoped Tuesday to repair cartilage damage, and is expected to be out for less than a month. Monday’s MRI and subsequent surgery revealed no ligament damage.
Senior Johnie Kirton is expected to start in place of Kelemete, who suffered the injury during pregame warmups. Kirton, a Jackson High School graduate, started in place of Kelemete two weeks ago when the freshman was sick, and again last week after Kelemete was injured.
Aiyewa and Freeman likely out: Willingham said Wednesday that safety Victor Aiyewa (groin) and tailback David Freeman (ankle) are both likely to miss Saturday’s game. Aiyewa did suit up for practice Wednesday, however, while Freeman did not.
Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on UW sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com /huskiesblog
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