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Wilbur Hooks on Coaching Changes and The Husky Way
Hardcore_Husky
Administrator, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 309 
Wilbur Hooks on Coaching Changes and The Husky Way
The former UW wide receiver recalls the coaching change from his era, and how it helped alter the team's culture.
Comments
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Cal is higher than the Rick Neuheisel coaching tree
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Great stuff, Derek. Really good insights from Wilbur!
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I have a #7 jersey signed by Mr. Hooks.
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Meh. This is just classic confirmation bias. It's telling because we want it to be telling. But these exact comments are made by players every single time there's a regime change. Sometimes they're telling, sometimes they're not. Time will tell.
Either way it will be interesting. -
Wait, I thought you were a Doog if you criticized Rick?!?!?!?! He won a Rose Bowl!!!!!!!!!
I think he hit it right on the head. The second half of that 2001 season was the turning point. If there was a pinpoint, it was the Oregon State game.
In the 2002 and 2003 seasons, I remember thinking the team seemed really ordinary. They struggled with weak teams for a half or even a game, or they lost to them, & elite/some good teams just annihilated us. It felt wrong. I never dreamed they would only win 20 percent of the games over the next five years or whatever the hell it was, but that two to three year period definitely was the precursor. -
The OSU game in 2001 was the death knell. We were soft, inconsistent, mentally weak and a bunch of pussies. Everyone knew it if they were paying attention. Rick should've been fired after '02.
Doogs blame Rick for Gilby & Ty's struggles... I don't. I blame Rick for being a pussy, pansy POS and making us soft.
The thing was, we needed some fun after Lambo had sucked the life out of the players.
It was pretty easy to understand. Lambo had made kids TUFFFFFFFFF, but sucked the interest and enjoyment out of football. Rick was all of that. While he had the TUFFFFFNESS we did great. Once that was gone, we sucked because he was a pussy, ultimately.
The end.
You need a coach who lets people enjoy things (see '91; in contrast, see punishing DeSaussure for saying shitty things about the Cougs), but also makes them tough.
Rick showed what he had.
However, Gilby and Ty's years... those are on Gilby and Ty. Rick didn't do irreparable harm. Both Gilby and Ty were fucksticks. -
If Lambo won more, the players would have respected him more (yeah, WIW). Nobody, or it seemed like not that many people called him out during his first four years. There weren't really message boards back then though. On KJR and KOMO, it was always, "sanctions, depth, new coaches, schedule, no bowl." I remember Gas bag constantly making schedule excuses before the 1994 season started. "Their first four games are USC, UCLA, Miami, and Ohio State!!! It's so brutal" I was more innocent and hadn't developed great critical thinking skills being a high school twerp so it seemed reasonable enough.
Rick let the o line go to shit and was too worried about fast WRs. That '02 team had no rushing and Pickett threw 3,000 quick slants because he had no protection. The biggest problem was making Gilbertson a full h.c. when it was obvious he didn't really want it. If they had let Rick go (but he won a Rose Bowl dammit!!!!!!!!) and acted like a real football program, let Gilbertson be the interim and fight for the job if he wanted it, then hired a real coach, this shitstorm, 0-2 win seasons, nothing happens. Absolutely none. No Duckade, no five years of despair, nothing. At worse they have a losing season or two, probably in the 4-5 win range. -
When you UW lost 55-7 to Nebraska the Cornhuskers still gave us a classy ovation because those guys were bleeding purple and gold and had feces in their throat.
And when they went to Notre Dame with one of the more talented UW teams and lost 54-20, you could tell that the golden domers respected UW because they were Lambo Tuff.
And when Rick Neuheisel lead the buffs to an ass kicking performance over UW in the holiday bowl, you could still tell who the tougher team was. -
huh?
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I read it.
