Blaine Newnham / Times associate editor
Change was inevitable for UW football

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If ever there was doubt about how important the football program is to the new president of the University of Washington, there isn't now.

Not only couldn't the new administration — president Mark Emmert and athletic director Todd Turner — wait for Keith Gilbertson to finish out his four-year contract, it couldn't wait until the end of this year.

This is about the big business of college football.

It didn't take Emmert and Turner long to realize there was no excitement about the Huskies with Gilbertson as head coach.

That in the future it would be more and more difficult to raise the money needed to rebuild Husky Stadium and bring the Huskies in line with the country's great programs.

They saw no appreciable recruiting going on. They saw no hope in a sport that lives on hope. They concluded "nothing" was to be gained by keeping Gilbertson and having him win four games next season.

In less than one season at LSU, Emmert fired Gerry DiNardo with a game remaining. Yesterday, UW took advantage of Gilbertson's desire to have his fate known earlier rather than later and announced his departure with three games left.

Turner said Gilbertson wanted the announcement made now rather than after the season.

"I think they could have waited," said senior cornerback Derrick Johnson.

"It would have been better had it happened after the season," added senior wide receiver Charles Frederick.
 
Although harsh, the premature announcement was good on a number of fronts.

It grants Gilbertson his wish to concentrate solely on coaching. It also gives the Huskies a reprieve with recruits — which could be crucial — and Turner time to think about successors, and successors time to think about Washington.

Gilbertson, forever the good soldier for the UW, said that for the first time since Don James quit in 1992, he wanted to see a real commitment for football by the university. Well, he got one.

Emmert has been telling every booster who will listen that football will be fixed. Turner said yesterday that the university needed to "make an impact statement."

"We gave Gilby the ball but didn't block for him," said Turner, who was talking indirectly about the years of Barbara Hedges when it was more important to build a softball stadium than fancy offices for the football coaches.

Last week, Turner took a group of boosters across the country to look at the athletic facilities at other universities.

He saw they understood the need to improve the situation at Washington. What he didn't see from them was hope for the Huskies under Gilbertson.

"Keith is a good man to whom our university owes a great deal," Turner said.

He has no idea. Turner wasn't around when Gilby was wooed away from Idaho — where he was a successful head coach — to bring James into the modern era of college offensive football. Gilbertson was in the press box calling plays when the Huskies went undefeated.

Turner wasn't around when Gilby got the messy mid-summer handoff from Rick Neuheisel.

"It became apparent to me probably as early as the first day I took this job that when we didn't get a long-term commitment, I was basically going to be the interim coach," Gilbertson said yesterday.

The new administration wasn't about to give Gilbertson an extension on his four-year deal unless he demanded one by the way his team played.

The fact is that Gilbertson wouldn't have gotten the Washington job under any other circumstances than he did. His record at California for four years — 20-26 — wasn't good enough.

Whatever the state of affairs following the firing of Neuheisel, Gilbertson at least had an opportunity. It was not one, for a number of reasons, that he was able to do much with, however.

He was never able to set the agenda, looking instead for others to decide his fate. He was not presidential on the sideline or in front of the media. He didn't craft a game plan to defeat superiority. In the end, he was a talented offensive coordinator who did everything he could for his school.

"He made us a lot tougher, and more disciplined," said Johnson, the cornerback. "We had a better work ethic and everyone believed in the system."

But who could forget that the Huskies — even with Cody Pickett and Reggie Williams — lost at home to Nevada a year ago.

Or that this year they had far too many turnovers — the most in the country — and far too many empty seats at Husky Stadium to suggest Gilbertson was the long-term answer to the kind of success Emmert wants and will demand.

The Huskies are under new management.

When Gilbertson talked about his favorite days at Washington, he talked about sitting in the press box, calling plays that would "throw the ball around the yard."

Those were his days as an assistant. They were far less enjoyable as head coach.

He disliked the critical chorus that had become talk radio and the invasive and persistent nature of the Internet reports that didn't have to be true, and often weren't.

"I'm not angry at the University of Washington, I love this place," said Gilbertson. "I want the school to make a commitment to football again like it did when I was here before and we were the best football program in the country."

At his expense, perhaps it has.

Blaine Newnham: 206-464-2364 or bnewnham@seattletimes.com.