When culture starts bleeding into performance

The college football season is two weeks in and my Washington Huskies are in a very strange spot right now. We’re 2-0 which is where we should be after playing two teams in lower divisions, but it’s maybe the most unsatisfying 2-0 in the country. We’ve looked anywhere from uninspiring to downright awful in our two games at home. We probably should have lost to Utah State last week.

This is just a weird team all around. I’ve seen teams that just have no talent and are clearly outmatched. I’ve seen teams that are just poorly coached with talent and they always seem like they are running around with no purpose. But this team feels like neither of those.

In fact, we look great for the most part and then somehow find a way to implode or shoot ourselves in the foot. Whether it’s just lineman tripping over their own feet, dropped balls, missed easy throws, or just simply boneheaded penalties, we seem to have all the above in the first two games.

I don’t have a great way to explain why this is the case. But I am worried that the worst case scenario may be that we have a culture problem that starts from the top and has bled into the locker room.

First, we have a head coach that was tinkering with a lot of job openings elsewhere in the country. Call it negotiation to get more money or resources or whether he was truly looking to get out, that set-up a weird situation for the players who he is asking to commit to us.

Secondly, we had a situation where our QB tried to transfer out during the offseason only to come back due to contractual reasons. Call that one immaturity or getting bad advice, it’s hard to see how that does not impact a locker room and feelings when your most important player actually tried to leave.

Lastly, I wonder what the impact of the new NIL is on a team like this. Money is the biggest motivator right now for most players, and we have done a good job as a program putting together a system that resembles the NFL. Do we just have a bunch of mercenaries at this point?

This is probably the worst case scenario so I hope I’m wrong. But I wonder if we have a bad cultural problem within the locker room where everyone seems to be playing for themselves, their contracts and NFL potential. If that happens, then the school’s wins and success suddenly don’t matter as much. I really hope that’s not the case and we can right the ship here and salvage the season.