Huskies, Tyrone Willingham get ready to face Stanford

In a week when there are more questions than ever about the future of Tyrone Willingham at Washington, he again comes face-to-face with the school where he once seemed to have all the answers.

There aren't any recruits left on the Stanford roster from Willingham's seven years there. No coaches remaining on the staff.

But he still has legions of devoted former players and friends in Palo Alto, many of whom will watch with mixed emotions as the Cardinal plays the Huskies on Saturday in Seattle. They know what a loss could mean for Willingham.

"It's tough for me," said Mike McLaughlin, a Stanford center from 1995 to 1999 who is part of the school's radio broadcast team and will be on the sideline Saturday. "I want to see Stanford win. But at the same time, I want to see UW do well. I hope it's a well-fought game."

Those who remember Willingham's Stanford success — including a trip to the Rose Bowl in 2000, the school's only appearance in that game since 1972 — also wonder how it got to this point at UW.

"To be honest, I talk with guys I played with and Tyrone was such a great coach for us, we can't really understand why he hasn't been able to turn that around at Washington," said Todd Husak, the starting quarterback for the Rose Bowl team.

"He has a program that worked at Stanford," said Husak, a color analyst for the Stanford broadcast team. "It worked for us. We all know it."

Some are such believers in Willingham, they figure that if he's struggling at UW, the problem must be UW itself. They point further to the fact that Stanford has not had a winning season since Willingham left in 2001. Willingham was 44-36-1 at Stanford and led the school to four bowl games, as many as any other coach in the school's history.

"If there is something wrong with football there, my suggestion would be to look beyond the football coach," said Bob Murphy, who recently retired after decades as the school's play-by-play man.

Were there differences at Stanford and Washington that allowed him to flourish at one school and not the other?

Husak said he owes his career to Willingham, who gave him a scholarship in 1996 when no other school would. "I had complete faith and trust in him," said Husak, who went on to play five years in the NFL.

But Husak acknowledges that Willingham's style — with its focus on discipline and accountability off the field as much as on — might take some getting used to for some.

"He does a great job of structuring the program so you don't have to worry about anything other than football," Husak said. "He tells you where you need to be, when you need to be there. Unfortunately, that takes time to install and get guys to buy into."

What helped at Stanford was that Willingham had been an assistant there from 1989 to 1991 and still knew some of the upperclassmen when he took over for Bill Walsh in 1995, players who already understood what their new coach was all about.

It also helped that Walsh, who coached from 1992 to 1994, left behind a fairly full cupboard but very few immediate expectations. Stanford struggled in Walsh's last two seasons (going 7-14-1) and the Cardinal was picked last in the Pac-10 heading into the 1995 season.

"Coach Willingham took over a program that had a lot of talent," Husak said. "Bill Walsh had put together two top-five [nationally ranked] classes, so there were a lot of pieces to the puzzle in place already. But they were not very cohesive. There was some infighting amongst the team. Coach Willingham came in and really brought a sense of order."

His first team went a surprising 7-4-1, winning Willingham Pac-10 coach of the year honors. And when Stanford had another winning season and played in a bowl game in 1996, any worries about getting players to buy in were over. The departure of a lot of the Walsh players contributed to losing seasons in 1997 and 1998, and the one time Willingham felt any real heat came in early 1999 when the Cardinal lost its season opener at Texas, 69-17.

But Willingham didn't deviate from his stay-the-course persona, and the Cardinal rallied to win the Pac-10.

"He's a guy who has faith in his program and what he does, and seeing success in the past he trusts that system," Husak said. "So he doesn't get too up or down — that would show a lack of faith and belief in how he does things. So I can see how guys might want him to get more fired up. That might give people more fodder to write about. But I think the guys here appreciated it — I know I did. I knew what I was getting every time I talked with him."

Some observers think that steady approach was a perfect fit for a place like Stanford, with its high academic standards and players who might hold football in a little different perspective, and wonder if it simply doesn't translate as well elsewhere.

"Those kids at Stanford are very bright, very smart, very resilient," says Glenn Dickey, a longtime Bay Area columnist. "They are able to bounce back, and that probably worked well for Willingham at Stanford. Maybe you don't have that at a school like Washington, where you don't have the same kind of kid and where you have to have the coaches do more in the sense that they can't rely on the kids being strong."

One of Willingham's more noted Stanford players echoed similar thoughts in a 2001 newspaper article.

"We have a different work ethic," tight end Teyo Johnson — who attended Mariner High for a time — told The San Jose Mercury News in 2001. "There's no need to raise our emotions. We understand his businesslike approach. If coach Willingham was at a school with a bunch of guys with gold teeth and braids, he could do well there, but I'm not sure they would respond to his style."

Observers also say Willingham benefited from more relaxed admissions standards at Stanford in the 1990s. Those standards stiffened in the summer of 2000 when there was a change at the top of the admissions department, one reason many say the Cardinal football and basketball programs, as well as some other sports, have dropped in stature.

A San Francisco Chronicle story in 2007 quoted former Stanford assistant coach Dave Tipton — who was recruiting coordinator during Willingham's tenure — as saying the admissions standards at the school are "markedly" higher than they were in the mid-1990s.

In general, recruiting at Stanford — due to its tough academic standards — is different from just about anywhere else in major college football. The team draws from a limited, but national, pool of recruits. Players that show interest in Stanford, and make it through the lengthy admissions process, generally don't waver once committing.

"He had a remarkably high hit rate," Husak said.

That's harder to accomplish at public schools like UW, where the competition for recruits is more widespread.

"Sometimes things work well in one situation and not another," said Dickey, who wrote a column in 2002 predicting that Willingham's style might not work at Notre Dame.

Murphy said he visited with Willingham during a trip to UW for a basketball game last winter and could feel the disappointment from the coach.

"I hate to say I feel sorry for Tyrone, because that would indicate we feel there is some kind of demise coming on," Murphy said. "But I do feel sympathy for him. He's doing everything he possibly can. I can assure you it's more frustrating for him than it is for [UW fans]."

Notes

• Ken Winstead, UW's associate athletic director for fund development who has worked in the athletic department since 1998, announced his resignation this week. Winstead, who recently turned 50, said he was resigning "to pursue other career opportunities," which could include starting his own business. Winstead said the timing of his decision "had nothing to do" with the naming last week of Scott Woodward as the school's permanent athletic director.

• WR Chancellor Young was on crutches with his left leg wrapped at practice Wednesday. Willingham didn't mention the injury when speaking with reporters beforehand. The coach said S Johri Fogerson has an ankle injury but indicated it isn't serious. Freshman DT Craig Noble took part in his first practice with the team Wednesday and Willingham said coaches won't rule out that he could play this weekend.

• Freshman CB Anthony Gobern, who had shoulder surgery early in camp, has left the team for the rest of the season but will return in January. Willingham said it was a mutual decision of Gobern and coaches that will essentially turn this into a grayshirt year, meaning he will enroll in January still having five years to play four.

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com