We’re starting to detect a pattern. The Huskies are treating its Pac-12 rivals like a baby treats its diaper, as Chris Peterson leads Washington on a serious revenge tour through the conference.
Meanwhile, the seat keeps getting hotter for Mark Helfrich, who somehow thought adding Brady Hoke as defensive coordinator was somehow a good idea. After getting mauled for 70 points, Oregon fans can feel the pain felt in Michigan during Hoke’s miserable reign there.
It looks like the Chris Petersen era is starting to blossom for the Washington Huskies as they destroyed the Stanford Cardinal last night. The Huskies unleashed a ferocious pass rush and beat Stanford at its own game with physical play on both sides of the ball.
Washington is now a serious contender for the College Football Playoff as they seem to be the team to beat in the PAC-12.
If this were Bobby Petrino, it would take him all of four minutes to clean out his office at Arkansas and be on the first plane to Gainesville.
But Bobby Petrino Chris Petersen is not. To Petersen, loyalty still means something, which is one of the reasons he may stay right where he’s at in Boise.
Since Urban Meyer stepped down at Florida, Petersen’s name has been brought up in connection with the Gators’ open head coaching job. And why not? He’s compiled a 60-5 record at Boise State and has turned the program into a yearly national title contender (even though the BCS would never allow the Broncos to actual contend for a championship). He should be the type of coach that Florida wants to replace Meyer. He has a great work ethic, his players love him and perhaps no coach in college football gets the most out of his recruits as Petersen does at Boise State.
But would he even want to leave Idaho? The assumption is that every head coach wants to land a bigger and better job, but the SEC is a different animal. If he took the Florida job, Petersen would have to recruit in the SEC (something he’s never done) and coach SEC-caliber talent (another thing he hasn’t had to contend with at Boise). Former Bronco coaches Dirk Koetter and Dan Hawkins also struggled when they left Idaho, so that’s something to consider as well.
That said, it would be insane to think that Petersen couldn’t recruit in the nation’s best conference or that he couldn’t handle blue chip prospects. But maybe he doesn’t want to either. He has long stated how happy he is coaching at Boise and seeing as how he’s not Petrino, I tend to believe him.
Petersen has a good thing going at Boise and it’ll be interesting to see if his name grows synonymous with the Florida job over these next couple of months. For right now though, it seems likely that he’ll stay put.
