By Mason Kelley
GoHuskies.com
Danny Shelton stood outside Chris Petersen’s office carrying a conversation in a manner that fits the 339-pound defensive tackle – loud with a lot of laughter.
While the boisterous senior was chatting, Washington’s head coach was talking about his first year with the Huskies, taking a look back after his first 13 games on Montlake.
When Petersen got up to shut his office door, Shelton turned to his coach and shouted, “Hey, have a great day!”
Petersen replied with a robust, “Hey, you, too!”
The fastest active FBS coach to reach 100 wins had just finished describing how he could “really feel good progress being made” over the Huskies’ last three games of the regular season. The proof, though, was in his interaction with Shelton.
The new coach on the block embraced by the veteran standout.
The 2014 season has been what Petersen described as a “work in progress.” When he agreed to become the program’s head coach, he made the commitment understanding that, “when you come to a new place all of the research says it is 18-24 months before a true new culture is established.”
Washington’s new regime is closing in on its first anniversary and, so far, Petersen sees a solid foundation taking shape.
If we’re going to compete in this elite conference, at the upper end of it, it is going to be hard. We’re going to have to be really strong, resilient and positive when it doesn’t go our way.”
“Change and progress does not happen at a snap of the fingers,” he said. “It’s a gradual process where maybe one game you start to feel like that was progress and you can build off that. Sometimes even before a game there’s good progress being made and a lot of hard work is done in the meantime to get to that stage where you can make progress and deserve to win.”
The first half of the Huskies’ season was up and down. There were games when the program played “some really good football,” Petersen said. “There were other moments when the performance “wasn’t good enough and we had more to us.”
For Petersen, proof of progress is the way Washington played over its final three Pac-12 games. But he saw signs well before the late-season success. In fact, it was when the Huskies were in the middle of a stretch that featured five losses in seven games Petersen began to believe things were pointed in the right direction.
“When you have a tough patch in the middle of it, it’s very hard to stay strong, to stay positive, to keep a top-notch work ethic,” Petersen said. “Human nature pulls us away from doing things correctly. I think they worked through it in a really strong way and, at the end of the season, it (progress) showed.”
There weren’t many moments Petersen walked off the practice field questioning the performance of his players.
“Even through that tough stretch those kids showed up every day to go to work to try to figure this out and to try to get better,” he said.
When Petersen arrived on campus, he wasn’t quite sure what to expect. He knew how he wanted the program to function, but he also understood it wasn’t realistic to directly transfer everything from Boise State and seamlessly sync at Washington.
Petersen showed up with his “mind wide open.”
“I didn’t know how different that would be from the past, and I didn’t know how quickly guys would be able to figure things out so we could all be rowing in the same direction,” he said.
As the program turns its attention to the Cactus Bowl and a Jan. 2 matchup with Oklahoma State, the Huskies seem to have their oars in order. They are rowing in the right direction. Now they are working toward picking up speed.
“Things that are going to be big accomplishments are going to be hard,” Petersen said. “That’s one of the points we really want our guys to know, if we’re going to compete in this elite conference, at the upper end of it, it is going to be hard. We’re going to have to be really strong, resilient and positive when it doesn’t go our way.”
Washington turned tough situations into opportunities for success in 2014. Petersen sees tangible improvement in the way the Huskies played against Arizona, Oregon State and Washington State. He sees it on the practice field. He sees it when his boisterous defensive tackle is shouting outside the coach’s office.
Sitting in a chair that overlooks the Husky Stadium turf, Petersen thought about his first year. He looked back on the good, the bad and the next step.
His conclusion: “I know good progress is being made.”
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