UW offered ‘Big Ten’ contract to Kalen DeBoer, AD Troy Dannen says

SEATTLE – As he closed his address Thursday to a sold-out room inside the W Bellevue Hotel, Washington Athletic Director Troy Dannen smiled and said, “I really appreciate the opportunity to come here. It is not the agenda I thought we’d be talking about when I agreed to do this in November.”

(Cue the wave of sympathetic laughter.)

“But it’s a great time,” he concluded, donning a black suit and a purple tie. “Regardless of what has happened in the last 10 days, this is a great time in the history of the University of Washington, and our best times are still ahead.”

When Dannen agreed to speak at the Bellevue Chamber luncheon in November, he did not expect to address football coach Kalen DeBoer’s departure to Alabama. Or the subsequent hire of Arizona’s Jedd Fisch two days later. Or the Huskies’ outgoing transfer-portal parade.

Regardless, Dannen graciously dissected UW’s past 10 disorienting days.

Including the inability to retain DeBoer.

“We put numbers in front of him that were, quite frankly, unprecedented for this university,” said Dannen, who added they began contract negotiations in October, 10 days after he arrived. “We put a Big Ten package in front of Kalen, not a Pac-12 package. …

“When it wasn’t signed, Kalen said the right things publicly, and I said the right things publicly … but it gives you pause.”

Enough pause, in fact, that Dannen began preparing for the possibility of a coaching search. “I had done diligence along the way,” he said. “At the same time, the last thing I wanted Kalen to see was me out there trying to find another coach. So I did a lot of things behind the scenes.”

Including consulting an adviser who intimately understood the role: former Husky coach Chris Petersen.

“We had an $8.7 million annual contract in front of Kalen at Thanksgiving,” Dannen said. “After the Sugar Bowl we had a $9.4 (million annual offer) on the table, which would have put him in the top eight in the country. When that didn’t get signed, I started talking to (Petersen), just in case. ‘Hey, who do you like? Who have you run across?’

“When Alabama called me last Thursday (to interview DeBoer), I had Chris in my office the day before, running through a list of people – my list. Who did he like? Who did he not like? Who were the people that were not on my list? Then I took Chris out of it. I still used him, but I didn’t have him in my daily meetings. I didn’t have him in the interviews. But I talked to him every day.”

Dannen told The Times following Thursday’s luncheon that DeBoer and agent Jimmy Sexton did not counter UW’s $9.4 million annual offer, opting instead for Alabama. That number would have landed at No. 7 in the nation (among public universities) and third in the Big Ten last fall, according to USA Today’s salary database.

Instead, Dannen’s list led to Fisch, a man who has coached on 11 teams in the past 15 years, including college and the NFL.

Despite UW churning through three coaches in the past five seasons, Dannen does not fear change.

“I sure would rather be getting a buyout from somebody than paying him to go away,” he said. “So if people are in a position where others are interested in them, so be it. I’ve had that question a ton. I say, ‘You want me to hire somebody because they’re never going to leave?’ ”

When he was introduced Tuesday, the 47-year-old Fisch did not promise a permanent stay, same as at Arizona.

In Tucson, he inherited a team that had lost its past 12 games and went 1-11 in his first season. On the strength of an impressive prep recruiting class, the Wildcats improved to 5-7 in 2022 and 10-3 in 2023, with a season-ending seven-game winning streak. They were projected to return 18 starters from a team ranked No. 11 in the nation.

Considering the contender he built from scratch, why start over in Seattle?

“The gap between the Tulanes and the USCs is getting wider and wider and wider,” said Dannen, previously the athletic director at Tulane. “There’s a new gap now, and that’s the gap between the Arizonas and the Washingtons. Moving into the Big Ten, that gap goes like this (extending his arms). Why does a coach of a top-10 team come here? My recruiting pitch: ‘You want to be in the Big Ten or the SEC, because that’s where the future will be determined.’ ”

Which is why Washington moved into the Big Ten, too, simultaneously burying the previously prideful Pac-12 Conference.

UW entered the transfer portal.

And since DeBoer’s departure, 16 Huskies have done the same.

“After Kalen met with the team when he was leaving, I stood up in front of them afterward, and I said, ‘Guys, you will never hear me complain about the transfer portal. I came here through the AD transfer portal in October. Kalen came here through the transfer portal from Fresno State. He leaped into the transfer portal to Alabama.’ The only people in this enterprise who have never been able to actually move are the kids,” Dannen said.

“The idea that they’re committed to Washington, so they shouldn’t be able to move, is antiquated. The university is important, and the culture of the institution. But they’re coming because of the coaches. They’re coming because of the people that are recruiting them, often not even the head coach. It’s the assistant coach, the one who’s going to be their position coach day to day. So that’s why they’re here.”

In the wider scope of Husky history, they won’t be here for long. Coaches, players and athletic directors will continue to come and go. Some stops will be shorter than others.

Washington will withstand all of it.

Dannen believes the Huskies will win.

“We haven’t slid all the way off the mountain, now,” Dannen said. “Everybody’s like, ‘Oh my God, we lost all this and this.’ You know what? We’ll be right back. Because the institutional commitment’s there. The community commitment’s there. In fact, I haven’t found a place where everything I think we need to succeed is not there. So with all that said, I just appreciate what you (donors/alums/fans) have done to put this place in the position that it is in at the University of Washington.

“One, as an institution it’s in a phenomenal place. But from an athletic-department standpoint, you have done so much over the years, whether you knew it or not, whether you consciously did it or not, to put us in the position for what just happened (in the College Football Playoff).

“So as things change, don’t get discouraged. Because it’s what you did. It isn’t what Kalen did. It isn’t what (quarterback) Michael Penix did. They wouldn’t have been in the position to accomplish on the field what they did without what this community and what this university have done to put them in that position. Do not ever forget that.”