Huskies left to lick wounds

Washington players sat in complete silence, many with their heads down, as they listened Monday to their football coach, Keith Gilbertson, tell them he and the rest of the staff would step down at the end of the season, casualties of a 1-7 season and counting.

Gilbertson then left the room, turning it over to athletic director Todd Turner, before the players met alone to discuss the program interruption.

Players acknowledged that they saw Gilbertson’s departure coming, but would have preferred that it had taken place after the season. They called their coach a good man, and a victim of a no-win situation.

Joe Lobendahn, junior linebacker and co-captain, noted how he now has to play for his third Huskies head coach, and his fifth position coach, which are reasons alone for the sad state of the UW program.

“I think it’s a distraction, a distraction to everything,” he said of the Gilbertson ouster. “It’s a distraction to next season. It’s a distraction to recruiting. It’s a distraction to everything related to football. I just want one coach, period.”

No one outwardly blamed Gilbertson for the program’s overload of troubles, which have seen the team flirt with the worst season in school history (1-9 in 1969), and more recently fail to score a TD in nine quarters.

Gilbertson has been on the job just 20 games, winning seven, since replacing the fired Rick Neuheisel shortly before the 2003 season. Neuheisel was let go after it was learned he had bet in NCAA basketball pools and lied about his interest in a San Francisco 49ers coaching job.

“It wasn’t fair how he got the job, dealing with those circumstances,” said co-captain Khalif Barnes, a senior offensive tackle.