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What Jimmy Lake’s speech means for Washington football

By Roman Tomashoff

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - DECEMBER 21: Coaches Jimmy Lake (L) and Chris Petersen of the Washington Huskies celebrate with the game trophy after defeating the Boise State Broncos 38-7 in the Mitsubishi Motors Las Vegas Bowl at Sam Boyd Stadium on December 21, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - DECEMBER 21: Coaches Jimmy Lake (L) and Chris Petersen of the Washington Huskies celebrate with the game trophy after defeating the Boise State Broncos 38-7 in the Mitsubishi Motors Las Vegas Bowl at Sam Boyd Stadium on December 21, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images) /
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During a matchup with Oregon basketball on Saturday, Washington football head coach Jimmy Lake during the floor and showed that some big changes are coming to the program

Even though the basketball team lost in overtime to the Ducks, Jimmy Lake’s speech during Washington football’s unofficial junior day signified a big change coming to the team’s recruiting strategy.

In the past, Chris Petersen wanted to stay as far away from the recruiting process as he possibly could, talking about how much he didn’t like it, and never really seeming to acknowledge the importance of acquiring more talent. Now this isn’t saying he didn’t do a great job in the last few seasons acquiring top-flight talent, but with Oregon recruiting at the elite level they have been over the last few seasons, it’s important that the Huskies stay on the same level.

The state of Washington has never seen talent like this, which includes three of the top 10 players in the country in the 2021 cycle. All of them were in attendance on Saturday, along with a bunch of other four-star recruits in the 2021 class, and many more highly rated underclassmen in the 2022 and 2023 classes.

We’ve never seen the coaching staff put this much of an emphasis on recruiting, especially in the state of Washington. But all this means is that Jimmy Lake knows what it takes to compete for and win a national championship.

Its been said before when it came to the recruitment of Sav’ell Smalls, talent gravitates towards talent. If the Huskies can lock up commitments from guys like J.T Tuimoloau and Emeka Egbuka, who’s to say elite players in California like Korey Foreman and Troy Franklin wouldn’t want to join them? Keeping these guys on the West Coast is not just crucial for Washington, it’s crucial for the Pac-12. Keeping all the five-star guys on the West Coast away from the Alabamas and Clemsons of the world will go a long way towards giving the conference the respect it needs nationally to get recognized by the CFP committee.

Spring Game

During his speech, Lake talked about wanting to have the highest attended spring game in the country. Things like this matter to recruits, seeing how passionate potential school’s fans are for their team, and after the last few years of having a low-attended, non-publicized spring game, this will be a major shakeup that is a very exciting change for the team.

After a very hotly-debated hire at offensive coordinator, the Lake era is off to a hot start on the marketing front and recruiting trail. Every major prospect in the state of Washington was on campus on Saturday, along with some big targets from out of state who were in town for a 7on7 tournament.

The next step is closing these 2021 prospects. Lake has said that he wants to be aggressive in everything that he does, and now that the recruiting dead period is over, it’s time for him to get to work.

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