Troy Dannen has made his presence felt at Washington right away. The former Tulane athletic director took over for Jen Cohen, now at USC, earlier this week. While under his leadership, the Green Wave achieved new heights on the gridiron under head coach Willie Fritz. The Greenies are still in the mix to repeat in the Group of Five, but Dannen is now finally at one of the best Power Five gigs in the country.
During his first official interview as the face of Washington athletics, he certainly said some interesting things on KJR. He talked about the importance of winning big at U-Dub, how this will be his third and final AD job after having worked at Tulane and his alma mater of Northern Iowa previously and that Washington needs to be fully focused on doing its part in the world of NIL.
And that is kind of where the initial conversation went off the rails a bit. Dannen jumped off the top rope and drove major programs like Ohio State and Texas through a flaming folding table like we see at Buffalo Bills' pre-games from the Orchard Park parking lots. He said over the airwaves, "if budgets won championships, Ohio State and Texas would win everything -- and they haven't won much lately."
While I appreciate Dannen's bluntness, we are not in Tulane anymore. We are in Seattle, Washington.
Keep in mind that during the College Football Playoff era that Washington is one of only two Pac-12 teams to make the four-team field. Texas never has out of the Big 12 and Ohio State only has one national championship to show for itself in the last decade. 2014 is further away than you would think.
New Washington AD Troy Dannen crushes Ohio State, Texas in comment
Let's be clear about one thing. In the grand scheme of things, Dannen is absolutely right. Washington may be a regional power out on the West Coast, but the Huskies have not really been able to sustain the same level of excellence under their program-defining head coach in the late Don James. Although the Huskies can get to the playoff and win conference title, they are not Ohio State or Texas.
Yes, places like Columbus, Ohio and Austin, Texas are all about their college football. Then again, Seattle is so fortunate to have an outstanding Power Five program in their metroplex in U-Dub. However, Dannen may not have wanted to poke the bear that is The Ohio State University, as this is the best football program in the Big Ten most years anyway. Washington will be joining the Big Ten soon.
What I keep going back to is why this job was available in the first place. USC needed to replace Mike Bohn after his resignation back over the summer. Rather than promote someone from within the Trojan Family, USC wisely poached Cohen away from a past, present and future conference rival. Going with Dannen made a ton of sense, but it is clear that Washington is not of these programs' ilk.
Dannen may have great ambitions while at Washington, but it has some infrastructural limitations.
