Nothing Personal

The college football punditocracy is generally falling all over themselves congratulating Washington coach Steve Sarkisian for hiring Cal assistants Tosh Lupoi and Eric Kiesau (along with Tennessee assistants Justin Wilcox and Peter Sirmon).
For the moment, let’s just focus on the hiring of Lupoi and Kiesau. The fact Washington raided a fellow Pac-12 school for its coaching staff and is now attempting to co-opt Cal’s recruiting class is dismissed as “part of the business.”
But here’s another way of looking at it: How bankrupt was Washington that its coach enters his fourth year with his best hope of getting better stealing another school’s recruits to beef up a barely three-star recruiting class?
The recruiting class, ranked 46th by Rivals.com, will surely improve now but is this where a program the Huskies’ size should be entering Year 4? Maybe this is a reason why the Pac-12 went 2-5 in bowl games.

18 thoughts on “Nothing Personal

  1. Isn’t Tosh Lupoi the coach who got in trouble for directing his players to fake injuries to buy time on the clock? can anyone confirm?

  2. He had his players fake injuries when they were playing Oregon to slow down the Ducks offensive tempo.

  3. Yep, it was Lupoi. So a classless coach goes to a classless school. So no surprises there from U-Dumb.

  4. How long does it take to turn around a program? The two Coaches (Totaling 6 years) preceding Sarks had a combined record of 18-53, (while sarks is almost @ 500) so…I guess you can assume the team wasn’t loaded with talent when he arrived. Could be it’s taken sarks 4 yrs. to convince the administration they needed to PAY up or shut up….or maybe just find another coach. You think it’s easy recruiting against Stanford, Cal, $C, UCLA, Arizona & Ariz. St. when you’re up in Washington?
    After 6 years and a 18-53 record, i kind of figure the decision makers at wash. are o.k with a 500 coach for now, and Sarks has convinced them, he knows how to get to the next level.

  5. Some days I feel bad for Sark. He seemed like the heir apparent to Caesar, except kid brother went for a wild ride and then came back and scalped his gig. Sark probably figured he could kick it at U-Dub for five years while Pete wound his career down, then come back and keep the tempo going. Now he’s got to recycle his staff just to keep his gig, and may have to have his teams playing consistent .600 ball for the next decade to get his shot. Coolest guy in the world… Gave my buddy his cell number at a Laker game back in the day. Sark just got upstaged by the paragon of arrogance, and Arrogant Nation is OK with that.

  6. A few things:

    On Lupoi being called classless because he encouraged his players to go down to slow up Oregon’s quick strike offense… are you kidding me? After any given play, half the defense is probably nicked up. It would probably be legit if a few went down to a knee to recover from a cramp or from getting the wind knocked out of them. So what if they decided to take advantage of the rule that allows them to do it. I would think they were idiots for not doing it. Why would you try to rush up to the line and get ready to play the next snap if you tweaked your ankle or needed a breather? It’s not classless, it’s smart. More teams should do it. To paraphrase Marcellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction, “After each play, you may feel a slight sting. That’s pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts. It never helps. You fight through that shit. Take a knee.”

    You could however, call Lupoi classless for running out on his alma mater a few weeks before signing day. I’m not sure he’ll ever be as affective as a recruiter as he was when he was selling guys on “family”. Here’s a guy who played at Cal and coached at Cal. Now, he’s ditched out on them (and all his recruits) to go to a different school. This is WAY worse than what Kiffin did to Tennessee. Kiffin had zero connections with Rocky Top, so his leaving to go back “home” was certainly defensible. Lupoi’s move, while right for him and his family as far as money goes, was wrong for all the guys he pulled into Cal on the premise of being a family.

    FIGHT ON!

  7. First off, Sark could have been the USC job but declined the chance to interview.
    Wolf…..the PAC 12 was 2-5 because they were the underdog in every game but the Oregon game.

  8. Oh yeah… almost forgot (since it’s mostly UCLA fans on this blog… lmao)…

    THIS is the mentality of UCLA football fans:
    spedjones said: “Embarrasing as in playing in the first ever PAC 12 championship game or getting hit with the hardest cheating sanctions since SMU? Hmmmm.”

    UCLA fans on this blog are actually proud of their appearance in the Pac-12 championship game thanks to USC being on probation (USC 10-2 UCLA 6-8 and a 50-0 shellacking). The UCLA fans that I know on a personal level are embarrassed. UCLA is a joke. Like these message board geeks. LOL

    Worst sanctions since SMU and still humiliating UCLA 50-0 bahahahahahaha!!!

    FIGHT ON!!!!

  9. Perfectly said by an Oregon Ducks fan:

    Quack Attack said:
    Not that I have any particular fondness for USC, but what is up with the UCLA people? Reminds me of OSU and the little brother syndrome. So as a public service to little brother programs everywhere let me address a few things:
    – if you’re doing it right, you don’t need a comeback. I don’t know what Barkley’s record is, but it’s better than that crap I saw from UCLA at Autzen the last two years.
    – if your team is being mentioned as a potential bottom half finisher in your division and you’re bashing a team considered a potential top 5 team, you should probably hold your water. Probably better to worry about being bowl eligible.

    USC 50 ucla 0

  10. Can’t blame Tosh for leaving a $164K a year job for one that pays in excess of $500K. Also keep in mind that Washington state has no income tax. I don’t blame him for leaving when he did. If he were to leave after signing day, it would be worse. For someone whose main job is to recruit, he has a small window of time to make a decision like this and that would be the month of January.

  11. It’s all about the person sitting in the president’s office and how much they really care about a quality football program that has & will bring them in lots of money…………….isn’t it? That was a damn easy question to answer!

  12. Mr. Wolf, don’t you think should illustrate the flawed recruiting rankings considering that Cal has had a top 20 recruiting ranking for the past few years and they are still mediocre. Clemson has had a top 10 recruiting ranking for the past decade and their best bowl showing was their blow out loss to WVU b/c it was a BCS game. A great recruiter does not equal a great coach.

  13. Realistic expectations at WA against the backdrop of the past 65 yrs would be 7 Ws/yr with a RB about 1/7 yrs. Sarks Huskies are 19-19. After 3 yrs thats not good enough. But considering WA had been 12-47 over the preceding 5 yrs 19-19s not bad. If Sark leads WA to 2 more 7-W seasons he should be satisfying realistic expectations. Over the next 5 yrs he needs at least 7 Ws/yr & at least 1 RB.

    (From 46-83 (when the SCt deregulated CF on TV) USC & ASU were winning with the elite. UCLA had become a top 25 program & WA was the only other above ave program on the west coast. Since the end of WWII USC has remained among the elite with ASU, UCLA & WA on the next tier.)

  14. Feel Sorry for Suckisian LOl … 10 years ago the dumb ass was selling used computers. Then after a series of backstabbing and cons jobs , the fraud is stealing 2 mil a year from Udub.
    Feel sorry for Booty and Sanchez and all the other SC guys who came to play for Carroll/Chow and ended up with a phony hack like Suckisian calling his shit plays and losing to 40 pt underdogs despite having 30 NFL players.
    Udub sucks too … they never go 0-12 if Locker isn’t hurt in 2008. SUCK would have gone 0-12 without him too last year.
    Steve Suckisian blows

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