Ty Willingham: Back in the Game

A strange thing is happening in college football this week. People are showing genuine admiration for Ty Willingham. After at first criticizing Willingham's lack of progress at Notre Dame, the media then shifted to deploring Willingham's firing from Notre Dame and resurgence at Washington as a racist move by the Irish. Today, as it turns out, it's completely different. Ty Willingham was just waiting for his chance to do something better. As one headline reads, "Turns out Notre Dame wasn’t good enough for Willingham."

Look, I have no problem with Notre Dame bashing, but we are now classifying Washington's 2-0 start and new, fast QB Jake Locker (Bruce Feldman calls him "a fast version of Tebow") as the second coming. Here is what I will give to U Dub: TW's recruits are coming of age, they're coming off a good win against Boise State, and it looks like the program is back in order. And it's a feel good story, for sure.

But today I'm wondering if some of the praise is the media is trying to make up for the fact that they all screwed up in the first place and blamed his firing at Notre Dame on him? Columnists are now having a field day with the Weis vs. Willingham stories, because the contrast is striking (although there are some Willingham players still on Weis' squad). But this week's game against Ohio State is providing columnists across the nation to talk about the coaching prowess that Washington has heading into this big game.

In fact, Scouts (which does game breakdowns for ESPN.com) gave the Coaching advantage to Willingham in this game. As far as coaching in Division 1 football games, Willingham is 72-67 as a head coach and Tressel is 64–14.

Tressel has one National Championship and Willingham has none.

I'm not saying Willingham is not a quality coach, and the capriciousness of the media is not at all surprising, but let's at least let him win ONE big game. That's all I'm asking.