No. 4 Huskies proved season-long hype was warranted, but head coach Chris Petersen still doesn’t like it
Dec 18, 2016, 6:00 AM
Chris Petersen on the hype surrounding UW in 2016: "That was really obnoxious and annoying to a lot of us." (AP)
(AP)
Chris Petersen’s Washington Huskies have been trying to block outside noise since before the 2016 season started, but now that the fourth-ranked Dawgs are in the College Football Playoff, it hasn’t gotten any quieter. And even though his team has won all but one of its 13 games thus far, Petersen still isn’t thrilled that the spotlight has been so bright on UW from the start.
“It’s been since the summertime. We had a lot of focus on us, really undeservedly so,” Petersen said earlier this week during a Peach Bowl press conference on the Washington campus. “(The UW players) understood that. So that was really obnoxious and annoying to a lot of us, and then they started to play good and win games and earn some of that attention.”
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You can easily see the point Petersen was making. The Huskies needed a win over Southern Miss in last year’s Heart of Dallas Bowl to finish the season over .500 at 7-6, so their 2015 record didn’t suggest they were the next big thing in college football. Their personnel, though, which includes rising stars on both sides of the ball like quarterback Jake Browning, wide receiver/kick returner John Ross and safety Budda Baker, and the coaching ability of Petersen and his staff was enough to get members of the media fawning all over them before 2016 kicked off.
While it annoyed Petersen and other members of the UW program, that season-long hype train just may end up working out to Washington’s advantage when it faces undefeated, top-ranked Alabama on New Year’s Eve live on 710 ESPN Seattle.
“We just talked about how we keep that in check and what’s important,” Petersen said about how the team handled the media attention early on. “And so they’ve been great about it, but we don’t ignore it. We don’t just block it out. I don’t think it’s realistic. But we do try to figure out how to keep straight on the train tracks, so to speak.
“… We just talk to our kids all the time about where they need to focus. They’re going to hear it. They’re going to know what everybody says, for the most part. But what do we think about, what do we pay attention to, where do we focus? How do we treat all this attention coming their way?”
Apparently they’ve treated it just the right way. Otherwise it’s highly unlikely they would be one of four teams still in play for the national championship.
