Miller is a goof ball, but he actually sums it up pretty well:
Ted Miller: It's not unfair to say Chris Petersen's first season was underwhelming, even disappointing.
He inherited talent that hinted at 10 wins in the regular season and he won eight. He didn't beat a ranked team and the Huskies struggled against overmatched foes. While he's not one to navel-gaze in front of the media, my guess is
Petersen will be as self-critical about himself and his staff as any message board.
So why be optimistic? Well, Petersen went 92-12 at Boise State and won two Fiesta Bowls, a record that far surpasses Dan Hawkins or, really, any coach outside of a Power 5 conference. There's a reason folks so celebrated his hiring. The guy is smart. He's detail-oriented. He has a system. Some of the things that cost the Huskies this year -- such as giving mouthy, me-first cornerback Marcus Peters the boot --
probably will pay off in the long term as Petersen establishes his culture. http://espn.go.com/blog/pac10He goes a bit off course about the OKG theory, but other than that I think he is spot on.
Comments
And he's right here. This season was a disappointment, but it's the long-term stuff that will make Petersen great.
We expected the defensive front 7 to be good - it was.
We were scared shitless about the secondary - it turned out to be better than we expected.
We were worried about our receiving options and Kasen's health - it was warranted.
We expected that we'd find a relatively seemless transition from Sankey to the next RB in line - it took longer than we anticipated.
We expected that the OL would be the strength of the offense - it was wildy inconsistent for much of the year.
We expected Cyler to be able to step in and perform at an average or better level in this conference (comparable to the 5-4 records that Keith Price would put up) - turned out that him missing Spring Practice hurt him far more than anticipated as the play for most of the year was uneven at best and terrible at worst.
Is that disappointing. On one hand, yes. On the other hand, the improvement in many key aspects of this team from the start of the season until the end was refreshing and if it continues into the future, then it's very probable that Petersen is the right guy for the job.
We returned the same OL gave up 36 sacks last year, and they were changing their scheme from zone-block to man-block.
Who actually thought the OL would be a strength this year after sucking the past 13 years?
Sark likely would have gone 5-4 cuz that's what sarks do.
Petersen was disappointing this year. But I am still glad he's our coach. The hire was about getting to the top of the conference and if we take a step back for a couple of years so be it. Still frustrating though.
While I'm not happy with 8 wins, I'm going to give Peterman the benefit of the doubt in his first year. He has already proven the fucktards wrong about "not being able to recruit with the big boys" and, though he would never say it himself (even though he kind of did), there's a very good chance that the team he took over was a dumpster fire from a culture and coaching standpoint. Quite simply, you're not going to win the conference with a secondary full of true freshmen, one of the worst qbs in the league, and a pedestrian 3-man platoon at running back.
The offense was a dumpster fire for a lot of reasons. You could throw all of the typical offensive concerns into a hat, pick one, and it would have applied to UW this season.