Damon Huard interviews John Donovan

CallMeBigErn said:

chuck said:

Mad_Son said:

chuck said:

CallMeBigErn said:

chuck said:

CallMeBigErn said:

DerekJohnson said:

CallMeBigErn said:

DerekJohnson said:

all the signs are showing that Lake is going to be a colossal bust

Saying this before he's had one practice is nutty.

Once upon a time I was loudly derided on Dawgman for suggesting Sark was a terrible hire before he had a practice.

Was Sark a terrible hire? I submit that he was not.

I submit that he was an awful hire without need if hindsight. He wasnt even an accomplished OC at the time he was hired. He had nothing, absolutely nothing, on his resume indicating qualification for any head coach job, let alone one at a traditional power program.

He turned out a little bit better than I expected when he was announced, but that's not saying much.

We had just come off an 0-12 season and were one of the worst programs in the universe, not just on Earth. No, Seven-Win Sark did not win championships, but he certainly recruited pretty well, bringing talent into the program that helped us to a playoff berth. He was a decent stepping stone. A world-beater, he was not, but a terrible hire he was not either. He had more top 10 wins than Pete.

He wasnt qualified. There are dozens of established head coaches out there at lower tier schools who would have dropped their meager salaries in a heartbeat to come to UW and try their hand at restoring a program that still had resources and prestige in spite of the mismanagement.

Some would have crawled on hands and knees across broken glass all the way from Fresno.

Pat Hill would have slid his bare ass and taint down 500 miles of sidewalk covered in shattered glass just to inform UW that he received their request for an interview and was considering it.

I agree. Lots of woulda coulda shouldas in hindsight. I didnt love Sark by any means. I'm just saying that on the scale from terrible hire to Saban, he was squarely in the 47th percentile, in hindsight. Would we have recruited like we did with a lesser named coach? With the bare cupboard we had, I could see a lot of 4-win Bobs and 5-win Jeffs out there. We got 7-win Steve. Not terrible, not great, but at least he was able to bring in some talent, go to some bowl games (I realize that's not saying much, but Ty), and win some big games.

Lots out here wanted us to make Nick Saban say no and he did.

HuskyJW said:

We really need 2020 to be cancelled

You're in luck!

DerekJohnson said:

RoadDawg55 said:

CallMeBigErn said:

DerekJohnson said:

CallMeBigErn said:

DerekJohnson said:

all the signs are showing that Lake is going to be a colossal bust

Saying this before he's had one practice is nutty.

Once upon a time I was loudly derided on Dawgman for suggesting Sark was a terrible hire before he had a practice.

Was Sark a terrible hire? I submit that he was not.

I’m kind of in the camp that 0-12 and Tyrone made it pretty nearly impossible to hire a proven coach. Sark was a bust, but the idea of hiring him wasn’t bad.

DJ said after the hire he made some calls and within 48 hours heard about the substance abuse issues, immaturity and problems controlling his emotions. It wasn't understood why Emmert and Woodward didn't do their due diligence.

The one thing that could be said on behalf of your argument is that Woodward attempted to contact Petersen but Pete wouldn't return his calls.

But I would counter that by saying that Woody was an upper campus bureaucrat who had been recently installed as AD and had no credibility.

In Woody's defense, Mora said no. Saban wished us luck. Leach pined for the job, lingered several days in Seattle and allegedly showed up for the interview wearing Flip Flops. Pat Hill, well, yeah he said he would drag his naked bag through glass for the job.

Pinkel had no interest. Then Sark showed up in a crisp, freshly pressed suit with notebooks, under his arm, full of LA recruits and coaches he had "relationships" with. I suppose we could have hired Dan Hawkins. Ed O. in retrospect, if he had interest might have been worth a call.

I'm not falling for the old "nobody would take the job" line, but sort of.

CallMeBigErn said:

DerekJohnson said:

CallMeBigErn said:

DerekJohnson said:

all the signs are showing that Lake is going to be a colossal bust

Saying this before he's had one practice is nutty.

Once upon a time I was loudly derided on Dawgman for suggesting Sark was a terrible hire before he had a practice.

Was Sark a terrible hire? I submit that he was not.

He's your last coach in some time to get hired away.

So I submit that he's been your best hire this century.


CHANGE MY MIND

RoadDawg55 said:

DerekJohnson said:

RoadDawg55 said:

CallMeBigErn said:

DerekJohnson said:

CallMeBigErn said:

DerekJohnson said:

all the signs are showing that Lake is going to be a colossal bust

Saying this before he's had one practice is nutty.

Once upon a time I was loudly derided on Dawgman for suggesting Sark was a terrible hire before he had a practice.

Was Sark a terrible hire? I submit that he was not.

I’m kind of in the camp that 0-12 and Tyrone made it pretty nearly impossible to hire a proven coach. Sark was a bust, but the idea of hiring him wasn’t bad.

DJ said after the hire he made some calls and within 48 hours heard about the substance abuse issues, immaturity and problems controlling his emotions. It wasn't understood why Emmert and Woodward didn't do their due diligence.

The one thing that could be said on behalf of your argument is that Woodward attempted to contact Petersen but Pete wouldn't return his calls.

But I would counter that by saying that Woody was an upper campus bureaucrat who had been recently installed as AD and had no credibility.

Yeah, the drinking should have been vetted. He’s not the first coach that was a heavy drinker tho. He was brought in to recruit, bring energy, and had the bullshit rep as a QB guru.

It didn’t work out, but pulling a coordinator from a natty contender is a common move for schools that are shitty. We had gone like five years without a bowl game and were coming off 0-12.

I also see the other side and don’t think it was very hard for a coach to get us back to .500 or better in the first year and competing for conference titles by year 3-4.

LOL

Might as well have brought in Erickson. He beat Sark every time.