HOUSTON — A day before the start of training camp last summer, Washington offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb had an idea. A vision, as he called it.
But before he would present this vision to his players, Grubb first wanted to share it with someone he trusted: former UW coach Chris Petersen.
To Grubb, Petersen is a mentor — “just an absolute stud,” as Grubb called him — and he wanted his input.
“I was telling him, ‘Man, I’m really leaning toward telling the guys: ‘Let’s go for a national championship. That’s what’s possible,’” Grubb said.
Petersen wasn’t convinced.
“He was like, ‘Ah, I don’t know. You do that, and then you have to retract it if you lose,’” Grubb recalled him saying.
Grubb valued Petersen’s feedback … but not enough to heed it.
“Screw it,” Grubb remembered thinking. “We’re going for it.”
He quickly added: “It’s like fourth-and-one in the Apple Cup. You have to go get it, right?”
Exactly 158 days later, Grubb laughed at the memory Saturday morning while sitting on a podium at the College Football Playoff media day in downtown Houston.
national championship Michigan 34, Washington 13
Goal-setting was at the heart of Grubb’s vision going into the season. He wanted to separate what was probable from what was possible for this team.
Going into the season, it was probable, Grubb said, for the Huskies to compete for a Pac-12 Conference championship. But that, he told them, wasn’t enough.
It was possible for this team to compete — and win — a national championship, and he wanted players to embrace that.
And to remind them of that, Grubb started a countdown that first day of fall camp. The first PowerPoint slide he presented before the first meeting with the offense revealed an image of the CFP National Championship trophy and a short message: “161 days to Houston.”
It would continue to be the first slide he would present during the offense’s meeting every Sunday during the season, the countdown decreasing by seven days each week.
On the eve of the 2024 CFP National Championship Game, that countdown number has hit 1.
“And here we are,” Grubb said.
Led by quarterback Michael Penix Jr. and the nation’s No. 1 passing offense, the Huskies (14-0) will try to close out a perfect season Monday night against Michigan’s No. 1-ranked defense.
From the beginning, Grubb said, his goal was to instill belief in the Huskies that they could, and should, be here.
“Just getting the guys fixated on truly what’s possible instead of falling and being conservative,” Grubb explained. “When you raise the bar up here, they’ll climb higher. They just will. And that’s exactly what they did.”
Setting the record straight
Want to get Grubb going? Ask him about the genesis of this UW offense and if it’s an offspring of Mike Leach’s Air Raid attack.
“I want to officially make sure I take that label off: We are not an Air Raid,” he said. “We lead the country in passing, but we are not an Air Raid. I hear that (label), and I don’t know where that comes from. Because if you’re watching our scheme, I think you’ll see different complexities. The number of wrinkles and pass progressions that our quarterbacks have to go through are very different than what an Air Raid quarterback would have to do.”
He paused, then added: “I’m passionate about that one, sorry.”
So how would Grubb describe this UW offense?
“If you are going to label it,” he said, “I would probably say a pro-style spread. When you think in terms of quarterback play, that’s where I always start, is that our guys have to be in a position to truly be comfortable in pro-style progressions. So complex reads. One through five on the progression, all the way through, things like that.”
One thing Grubb said UW coaches take pride in is the presnap shifts and motions they run — the kind that are typically more prevalent in NFL offenses. It’s something Petersen did in his offenses at Boise State and brought to UW a decade ago. UW coach Kalen DeBoer and Grubb have carried that on.
“That’s one of the things that makes us unique,” Grubb said.
‘In awe’ of Penix
Grubb said his admiration for Penix has grown in the two seasons they’ve worked together. The QB, Grubb said, never changed as his success and profile rose.
“There wasn’t like this drastically different kid showing up in my meeting room. It was like, yeah, that’s Mike,” Grubb said. “That’s exactly who he is going to be, and he is going to wear the same crappy flip-flops and it’s going to be Mike.”
Grubb and DeBoer attended the Heisman Trophy ceremony in New York to watch Penix last month.
“I was in awe of him, just watching him operate and just how he took everything in,” Grubb said. “Because I wouldn’t say Mike is necessarily the guy trying to go be out front of everything. It’s really not who he is. But when he has to and there’s people there, he’s fantastic.”
Locked on Odunze
Michigan had its star cornerback, sophomore Will Johnson, follow Ohio State star receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. in man-to-man coverage when the two rivals played The Game in Ann Arbor in late November.
The Huskies suspect Johnson will do the same against UW star receiver Rome Odunze on Monday night.
“I think it’s going to be a great battle,” Grubb said. “(Johnson) is a really, really talented corner.”
Harrison and Odunze are widely considered the top two wide receivers going into the NFL draft this year, both projected as top-10 picks.
Harrison had a productive day against Michigan, posting five catches for 118 yards and a touchdown. But the Wolverines won, 30-24.
Odunze has been studying film of Johnson — and the rest of Michigan’s defense — over the past few days.
“They do a great job in their secondary,” Odunze said. “They do a great job of disguising their looks … and they’re a physical secondary that comes down in the run game and is able to defend the pass as well, so definitely going to be a challenge for us.”
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