NEW ORLEANS — For plenty across college football, Washington is the dream. Coach Kalen DeBoer inherited a 4-8 team and won 11 games in Year 1. In Year 2, he and his staff won the Pac-12 for just the third time since 2000 and became the first team since the Pac-10 became the Pac-12 to go undefeated in conference play. Washington is a proud program, but it was still a program that, since Don James’ departure in 1992, had won 10 or more games only four times, employed seven coaches and suffered through seven losing seasons until DeBoer’s arrival.
“They worked extremely hard to get to this point, and this is what it was all about: Having the chance to be in a national championship,” DeBoer said.
In this modern transfer portal era, rebuilds are faster than ever — and sometimes more complicated. So what’s the model for a modern rebuild? Washington is Patient Zero. The Athletic spent the week talking to players and coaches around the program to reverse engineer the blueprint.
1. Recruit what you inherit
Though Washington was 4-8 and fired Jimmy Lake midseason, DeBoer and his staff inherited a roster that ranked No. 17 in 247Sports Team Talent Composite. The cupboard wasn’t bare. But in the portal era, fears it will become bare days after hiring a new coach are well-founded. So DeBoer and offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb got to work right away. They started with receivers Ja’Lynn Polk and Rome Odunze, who were headed for the portal when Grubb and DeBoer arrived.
“They were confused. They were going on their third head coach. And they just wanted to get it right,” Grubb said.
So the coaches set out to convince them that staying was right. For the first couple weeks, Grubb and DeBoer were the only coaches both on staff and in Seattle, so they met with players as often as possible to learn about them and lay out the future and expectations. They watched film of previous seasons to better learn what they had and how they would fit.
“He recruited the heck out of us. He was having so many authentic conversations,” said linebacker Edefuan Ulofoshio. “That’s the hardest thing about growing up, you gotta trust people. In a world where you have so many options to make so many options on your own, to trust someone that’s from freaking Dakota, Fresno State, wasn’t the easiest thing to do. But I’m glad I listened, glad I trusted my heart.”
Added tight end Jack Westover: “He gave everybody a fair shot.”
As for Odunze and Polk, they sat down and got to know them, too. But they showed them film of their offense over the last 15 years at Division II Sioux Falls, Southern Illinois, Eastern Michigan, Fresno State and Indiana. They showed them how they used receivers. They showed them statistics of receivers in the offense. Polk and Odunze never officially entered the portal.
This year, both topped 1,000 yards. Odunze has caught 156 balls in the last two seasons under DeBoer for 2,573 yards and 20 touchdowns and projects as a first-round pick in next spring’s NFL Draft.
The offense went from 113th in yards per play in 2021 to 10th in 2022 and fifth this year.
“We chose them,” co-defensive coordinator William Inge said. “And with us choosing them, we wanted to keep them around. And we’re all about the development of young people. So if you can develop young people in the right way, you get to reap some of these benefits.”
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2. Recruit what you need
Before players were given universal transfer waivers that granted them immediate eligibility, transfers were barely part of a coach’s rebuild. Now, transfers are integral for coaches trying to win in an environment where patience is nonexistent.
“I think the potential for turnarounds does exist with the portal,” DeBoer said. “I think those quick turnarounds are possible.”
In Bloomington, Ind., 2,250 miles away, quarterback Michael Penix Jr. entered his name in the transfer portal after another season ended prematurely by injury. He’d spent four seasons at Indiana, but his best year came in 2019 when DeBoer was the Hoosiers’ offensive coordinator.
“I was trying to find myself as a person and a player. As soon as I hit the portal I was like, where is he (DeBoer) going, where is he at?” Penix said. “Because of our relationship we built at Indiana in 2019 and how comfortable he allowed me to be back there when I was taking the snap. I knew I wanted to be a part of something like that again.”
Penix agreed to transfer across the country, but not before doing a little homework and talking to a few Huskies to ask if they were planning on entering the portal and informing them of his plans to come to Seattle. Together, they far surpassed the success they had enjoyed under Tom Allen at Indiana in 2019. Penix developed into a Heisman finalist this year while staying healthy for the first time in his career.
In his first offseason, DeBoer added running back Wayne Taulapapa from Virginia, who led the team in rushing in his lone season at Washington. Linebacker Cam Bright arrived from Nebraska and made 60 tackles, third-most on the team. All-Big Sky cornerback Jordan Perryman moved up from UC Davis and won a starting job. Linebacker Kristopher Moll arrived from UAB and provided depth at linebacker, finishing eight on the team in tackles.
“It was just about plugging guys into spots where we felt we had gaps. We weren’t just going to bring a wave of guys in, anyone who seemed to be able to run, throw, tackle, whatever, block. We were going to be very careful because we knew you might bring two guys in, and it might push the wrong two out,” DeBoer said. “We wanted to be really careful with that, because we felt that there was a base within the program of good football players, great people.”
DeBoer aimed to add around 10 players in both of the last two seasons. This season, they added leading rusher Dillon Johnson from Mississippi State. Cornerback Jabbar Muhammad arrived from Oklahoma State and blossomed into an All-Pac-12 talent. Linebacker Ralen Goforth was a graduate transfer from USC and is ninth on the team with 35 tackles.
3. Repair relationships
Talent retention is integral in the portal era, and though well-funded collectives often play a role in those decisions, so do the relationships around the building. The simplest way to build a sustainable program: Create a team facility where players know they’re there to work but a place where they want to be every day.
Throughout the roster, players hang out across position groups. Cornerbacks with offensive linemen. Quarterbacks with edge rushers. Running backs and specialists. There’s a connection they say was missing under former coach Jimmy Lake and has aided their rise the last two seasons. For players who stayed, they saw a coaching staff that emphasized personal relationships like former coach Chris Petersen did.
“A lot of us had options to leave, but he brought back the family culture and family vibe that I came to UW for. It’s something I thought was special and you see where we’re at now,” offensive lineman Troy Fautanu said. “Some of the things that went on in 2020 and 2021, there was a little bit of a disconnect. I wouldn’t say it was all the coaches fault, but the way Coach DeBoer made sure we all felt good coming in every day, that we wanted to be there and wanted to be around the guys and bringing back our offensive line coach (Scott Huff, with the program since 2017) was big for me.”
Edefuan Ulofoshio (5) has emerged as a senior leader for the Huskies. Photo: Joe Nicholson / USA Today
4. Find leaders. If necessary, create them
DeBoer says it constantly. His players do, too. During offseason workouts and practices, the team stops when the work is about 75 percent done. Early on, the coaching staff would call out a player to address their team and find a way to get them to push through to the end of practice or the end of conditioning or a workout.
“We’re put in those situations before a game even happens so when a game happens, it’s more natural,” Ulofoshio said.
It becomes clear whose messages resonate most and players who might be too timid to speak up can be forced into duty and be comfortable later on speaking up.
“In the past, there’s a lot of pride in, ‘I’ll do my job. If you don’t do your job, it’s fine, we’ll live with the results.’ That’s not the case these days,” Ulofoshio said. “If the system isn’t working, there has to be an intervention and you can’t be scared to make an intervention.”
And that works across position groups, belied by the relationships built off the field and the trust that teammates have the teams’ and their teammate’s best interest at heart. It’s a self-policing program that’s allowed the Huskies to thrive. Players can push back on coaches if the roster wants to do something else through a leadership council that meets with DeBoer frequently.
“Players have to feel like their opinion matters, that what they want has some influence,” co-defensive coordinator Chuck Morrell said.
5. Embrace continuity
When DeBoer arrived from Fresno State, he brought six coaches with him. Several of them, like Morrell, go back much, much further. Morrell and DeBoer were teammates that won a national title at Sioux Falls and in 2005, Morrell worked closely with DeBoer at their alma mater as DC.
Almost two decades later, the mostly-intact staff moved over. The growing pains of a patchwork staff were never a factor, and “That was critical to our success,” Morrell said.
It also bled down to the players.
“A lot of coaches have their culture, their slogans. But the most important thing is it’s extremely important for the staff to respect you and for all of them to be on the same page,” said Ulofoshio. “I can say with complete confidence this staff believes in DeBoer and it’s not an ignorant thing. If coaches are kind of in or out, it doesn’t work. Players can feel that. It causes friction downstairs. When you have guys upstairs that trust each other and they give you a plan, it’s easier to trust that plan and listen to what they’re saying.”
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6. Lean on experience
The most common complaint for first-time head coaches after Year 1: Learning to manage their time and make in-game decisions under pressure they’ve never made before. DeBoer is the opposite of a first-year coach, even though earning a major conference job meant taking a detour through assistant jobs at Fresno State and Indiana. He learned plenty of those lessons on smaller stages. His first year at Washington was his eighth as a head coach.
And this year’s Huskies team has nine players in their sixth year playing college football, most of them playing it all at Washington.
“I think that’s pretty much unheard of. I think it’s a credit to, again, the guys that are in this program and what this place means to them,” DeBoer said. “Those guys were the ones that could see that our staff coming in had the organization. We’re going to hold them accountable. These guys were going to be loved, and they were going to be developed.”
7. Develop on the lines. Use the portal for skill positions
Almost all of Washington’s portal success came at cornerback, running back, receiver or linebacker. The players that begin the plays with their and in the dirt? Washington almost exclusively sought to develop them rather than fish for big bodies in the portal. The coaches invested in what they inherited and filled in gaps from the portal.
8. Trust the process
Like most coaches, DeBoer and his staff emphasize the process more than results. The team does have a goal of winning the Pac-12 before each season, but that’s not what they say when they break it down after practice. There’s no explicit talk of national titles but a reasonable expectation that if that big goal is achieved, every other one will be on the board.
At the end of practices, the team raises fists and yells “1-0.”
“Win the moment, win the day, win the practice. I think that’s what it really comes down to, is challenging the guys to be their best each and every day,” DeBoer said. “When you stack a day upon another day upon another day, that was the message this morning.”
(Top photo: Ian Maule / Getty)
2023-12-31 15:40:36
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