Chris Petersen bemoans Huskies hype: ‘We’re the all-offseason team ... we’re not doing anything’ (plus thoughts on Jonathan Smith, attendance and more)

-- Had a chance to sit down with Huskies coach Chris Petersen on Thursday afternoon for a wide-ranging interview previewing Washington’s 2016 season. Here is part of it, including Petersen’s (unsurprising) thoughts on UW’s preseason expectations, and how he and the program have evolved since his first year in Seattle.

(Does this summer feel different than the last two? More settled?) “Yeah. I think our guys are very focused. I think our players and coaches are very focused and kind of all understand the plan, at least. So it’s the third year bringing recruits in. And you recruit them with a certain mission, as well, so they understand it more coming in. So I think it does feel more all in alignment.”

(As far as handling all these expectations and hype …) “See, what people don’t understand is, our expectations are not one bit different from the second we stepped on campus. It’s not one bit different. I mean, we’re trying to compete for a Pac-12 championship, and that’s no different. Now there’s some different expectations from people that predicted us to win four games last year, so that makes me really nervous. It’s all these people that don’t coach with us, don’t play for us, that don’t have anything to do with it, and just try to take a stab, like ‘who might do something?’ And now everybody jumps on that bandwagon. Now I get the importance of preseason polls and that type of stuff, for the pageantry of college football and those types of things. But they absolutely mean nothing, and I’ve been saying that – and every coach will tell you – for 25 years. You shouldn’t have them. Like, I’m a voter in the top 25 and all that. It’s like, why would we do this until at least game five or six? Let’s play. So if people want to talk to us after game six when we play three Pac-12 teams – at Arizona, short week on Stanford and then at Oregon – and after that want to make a big deal about things? OK. But until then, why are we talking about this stuff?”

(That’s probably an easy enough concept for your staff to understand, but do you have to address it more with the players?) “Yeah. I think it would be a mistake (not to). We talk about everything. We talk about what’s going on in this country. We talk about things that are going on on campuses. So we’re not going to bury our head in the sand in anything on this. So this is something that’s going on in our program. We talked about it last year, when they talked about us going to win four games, maybe. So we’ll talk about the same guys that predicted us to win four games are now saying that, ‘hey, they might do something.’ None of that matters. We’ve got to go play.”

(You probably got a lot of practice at that with the expectations at Boise State) “Here’s the big difference – we actually had done something over at Boise State. We haven’t done a whole lot here. But even if we had, it doesn’t matter. It’s a new year. We don’t need to talk about it. We need to be about it. That’s always our message with everything that we do. And so I always get a chip on my shoulder, whether people are talking without any factual backup. Meaning we haven’t played any games. We’re the all-offseason team, and every week we get better, because everybody just starts piling on. And I know that’s how it goes. When you play for real and you’re doing bad, everybody’s going to pile on. You start doing good, everybody’s going to pile on. At least we’re playing games and guys are piling on one way or another. We’re not doing anything and people are trying to pile on.”

(If your offense improves at just one thing this season, what would you hope it would be?) “It sounds obvious and almost maybe ridiculous for me to say, but we need to score more points. I don’t care how we do it. We need to score more points.”

(Are you in a position with your personnel and experience where you can add a little more or tweak some things offensively?) “I think that’s part of it, too. We get that we need to score more points. So how do we do that, what’s our strategy to do that? And that’s what the coach’s job is, to figure out OK, who’s our personnel, what fits us, and what gives us a chance to score more points? By running the ball, by throwing the ball more, implement some different schemes, less schemes? All those type of things. Those have been some of the hard discussions and hard and intriguing and challenging and competitive things we’ve been working on. That’s why we do this. It’s a hard conference now. It’s a tough, hard conference. But that’s one area of our program that we have to improve, for sure.”

(Does Jake Browning continue to be what you hoped he would?) “He’s been great. I thought he had a good spring, so I thought there was progress there. And it’s just a process. Really, the trick is, can you stick to the process? This grinding process, and stay true to who you are, and some of that stuff – it’s not even the outside noise. That’s part of it. But it’s also just like, the kids are smart. When it doesn’t go well for you, can you still stay true to who you are? And when it does go well for you, can you still stay true to who you are, what got you here, in terms of your humility and work ethic and those types of things? Jake’s continued to be really good in those areas, and really stay hungry to improve.”

(What about tempo? You guys slowed down quite a bit last year by design) “Here’s the thing – don’t think that didn’t help our defense. We’re in this together, you know? But there are some things when you go fast all the time, you can’t use your personnel how you want to use it. If you’re just going to be a fast tempo team, you’re going to live with who’s on that side, who’s in that position. We can go on and on. There’s plusses and minuses to every single thing you do. And so yeah, I would like to go faster, on occasion. We need an identity of who we are and what we’re all about, but one of the things we’ve kind of always been is like, we’ve been a little bit hard to identify exactly. Are we a spread, up-tempo fast, are we a shifting motion (team)? So I think that’s part of it, giving the defense some different things to have to deal with and work on.”

(The thing people noticed the most about the new contracts for your staff was that offensive coordinator Jonathan Smith was the only coach to get a one-year extension instead of two years. Is this season going to serve as a referendum on that position?) “First of all, Jonathan Smith is a good football coach. I’ve been around a lot of coaches, and not to try to sound arrogant or whatever, but I think I know a good coach when I see a good coach. How he treats the kids, how he strategizes, how he schemes, how he treats other coaches. I mean, there’s a lot to being a really good coach. He’s a good football coach. But at the end of the day, everybody’s got their area of responsibility, and there’s nobody out there who doesn’t know, hey, one of the things we have to do to take the next step is score more points. We’ve got to get better on offense. And we will. I have every bit of confidence that we’re going to.”

(Does this team look different to you than the first two you had at UW?) “It’s hard to say, because we haven’t played. We’ve got to go play. but just in terms of how we operate, and like I said, the alignment of things, it’s different. You can’t walk into a place and say, ‘hey, this is the way we’re going to be, everybody got it?’ That’s like, we’re going to put this play in one time, and go, ‘everybody got it?’ I mean, it’s the same stuff. It takes hours and days and months and hundreds of reps. The same thing about how we lift, what our culture is all about, what we believe in. let’s just break down every segment of our program. And it takes time to do that. And you just can’t do it, like – unless it was like, the faster it’s going to be is the closer it was when you came there. And if things are a different style of offense or how you practice and all that is different, then it takes a while. And even when you’re there a while, it’s still always work in progress, and you’re working your tail off to create this great culture and strategy and then get everybody on the same page and everybody believing, and then part of that comes with success, so all that takes some time. So it’s all these things that have to all flow together before the momentum really kicks in.”

(Is there any part of your program that you did a certain way for a long time, but have decided in the past few years to change? Like, ‘actually, maybe we should do it this way now?’) “I think a lot of things. I mean, I think we’re really passionate and adamant on certain things, certain aspects of the program, certain guys we want to recruit, certain guys I want around me on our staff. The more I’ve done that, the more (time I’ve spent) here, the more I even believe in that stuff more strongly. But I think there’s a lot of little things that we’ve changed on all the time. We pay attention to every little thing. I pay attention to every little thing. It’s like, everything. Everything we’re talking about, I still look at and go, are we keeping up with the times here? Are we studying the game correctly? Am I missing here on how kids are? So it’s not like, hey, this is who we are and it’s always worked. I pay attention. It’s like, is this truly the best thing? So we think like that with an open mind. I think that’s one of the things I try to pride ourselves on. It’s like this idea of continuous improvement and extreme ownership of responsibilities and high standards. But in that structure – is this cutting-edge stuff? Is this the best for the world we’re living in and the game we’re playing right now? So I think I’ve changed.”

(Like getting a Twitter account because that’s how recruits communicate now) “Certainly social media. Certainly. Like at Boise before, it was like, we’re not doing that. I’m not doing that, and the kids aren’t doing that. Well, no, yeah, we are. I mean … that horse is out of the barn. That boat’s sailed. So, for sure. Whether I like that a lot or not, that’s not the issue. It’s like, how do we use that to help us and help our lives and help our program and all those things?”

(Does it help that you have two sons around the age of your players?) “I think it probably does. And they’re different. One of my sons is very much into what’s going on, and social media and all that, and my other son is maybe more like me and like, whatever. Kind of has it, kind of pays attention to it. But I see their friends. So whether it’s just athletes or just that age group, that type of thing. I think all that helps to keep your eyes wide open.”

(Obviously expectations are high for your defense this season, but is there something that really concerns you about that group?) “Well, one thing is, again, what most people don’t understand is the four really key guys that we lost off that defense. They’re not even kind of talking about them. You take four out of six key guys, key seniors, you take Cory Littleton and Travis Feeney, who were really, really good college football players. We’ll see how they do in the NFL. And they were a key component in terms of like, generating pass rush. I mean those were big, big, important guys. You take Tani Tupou out of the middle, who truly was one of the leaders, not only of our defense but of our entire team. You take Brian Clay, who not only was a starting safety but was on every special team. That really makes you different. That changes the chemistry of everything. So we’ve got to replace those guys first and foremost, and step up to play that level. But we’re optimistic. But those are just concerns. People want to fast forward past that stuff. They want to fast forward past all this stuff. There’s no fast forward past that. That’s a huge thing that we’ve got to address to even get back to that level of play. And now we get to the season and everybody goes, hey, they’re pretty good on defense, so everybody’s going to heighten their awareness when they play us, and bring their A-game. All these little subtleties change everything.”

(What has Darrell Daniels done to become the kind of player and leader who you want to represent the program?) “I think he and Kevin (King), both those guys. Those guys were here in the past and for those guys to evolve and be all about the way we do things now and truly believe, like, hey, this is awesome, and not right or wrong, but ‘I get this,’ and this will work, and this is good. That’s way harder on those guys than it is on these freshmen we’re bringing in. They know what they’re getting. We’ve recruited them this way the whole way, then when they get here it’s like, yeah, this is what they said. So for those guys to be all in … it’s only as good if it comes from the locker room. I can stand up there and talk all I want, but if it’s not coming from the locker room, it’s not happening. I know that loud and clear. So those guys have been really instrumental in helping us align strategy, beliefs, schemes, culture, all that stuff.”

(Obviously, it’s not your job to balance the athletic department budget. Yet everyone knows the surest way to reverse the deficit is to sell tickets and fill Husky Stadium. Do you worry about attendance?) “Yes. Let me say this – pressure, expectations. I go back to that. They’re not different. I’ve felt tremendous pressure every year that I coach. I mean, we get it. This is a pressurized job. It’s expectations. If we didn’t win all of our games at Boise, it wasn’t good. So you can’t worry about that, or you’re going to drive yourself crazy and be miserable all the time. But do I worry about … is the attendance a concern? Absolutely. Because when you say this is the greatest setting in college football – and I believe that, and that’s one of the reasons I came here – to me it’s only the greatest setting in college football when that stadium is jam-packed and the energy and the passion is in there like it was in the old days when I used to come up here and play against (UW). It didn’t matter who it was, what the team’s record was, they were there in full force. That, to me, was the greatest setting. So that’s one aspect for recruiting, for what we’re all about as a program. Kids want to know, how passionate is this place about football? And certainly also the stuff that we have going on, budget-wise, that’s going to change things as well. And it goes hand in hand. What comes first, the chicken or the egg? If you win, they’re going to come. You don’t win, they’re waiting. My message to our fans is that we’re in this together. And so we’ve got to do this together. So even if we haven’t (won a lot recently), let’s pack the place, and eventually it will come. It’s a process. It will. I know that from the bottom of my heart, that it’ll come. But what is different than maybe the old days of Husky football, I think this league is different, in terms of the competitive balance from top to bottom. I think in the past, there was a handful of teams in the Pac-10, back then, that were really pretty good, and then the other teams, the good teams knew ‘just don’t blow it and you can beat them.’ And now I think you’ve got to play your best each Pac-12 game, and that’s hard to do.”

This story was originally published July 15, 2016 at 10:55 AM with the headline "Chris Petersen bemoans Huskies hype: ‘We’re the all-offseason team ... we’re not doing anything’ (plus thoughts on Jonathan Smith, attendance and more)."