Pete brought UW back. Stuff I dreamed of as an embittered, millennial youth who suffered through the horrors of the 90s and 00s. I've never had more fun watching sports than I did in 2016. I will always unabashedly love Pete. There should NOT be a statue of him somewhere near Husky Stadium someday.
That being said, he did seem pretty burned out and generally tired.
His offenses were mediocre at best since 2012 (if you shine a magnifying glass on the 2016 offense you can poke lots and lots of holes in it too -- historically bad Oregon defense, both Stanford CBs out, complete airballs on O against USC, Bama, and zero passing game against Colorado etc). He's also aged pretty badly if you compare pictures from his iring in Dec '13 to now.
Jimmy Lake is a huge wildcard. Statistically, CFB coaching graveyards are littered with elite coordinators who were upjumped to HC and flamed out. On a positive note, he'll be able to dial up a lot of the sizzle/flair many bemoaned Pete about. We know his defenses will be solid-to-elite (assuming -- please god in heaven -- make K our DC), but what kind of O will he let us run? There are so many fucking variables at play here that make me mostly pessimistic about this.
I always just chalked this up to a down year and a realization that we're much more Wisconsin or maybe Auburn than Clemson.
Pete is the winningest or 2nd winningest coach in CFB. Lake is a completely unknown commodity.
