Commentary: It’s time for UW to lock up coach Kalen DeBoer for the long haul

Following No. 5 Washington’s 35-28 win over No. 16 Utah on Saturday – its 17th straight under Kalen DeBoer, the second-longest streak in the nation – offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb stepped into an ecstatic locker-room huddle, as the Huskies abruptly hushed.

“Some of you may or may not know … but there is nobody I would rather lock arms with, to be here for coach DeBoer’s 100th win,” Grubb said, before giving his longtime friend and colleague a game ball and a hug.

As a visibly touched DeBoer smiled and held the ball over his head, a chorus of woofs echoed off the walls of the locker room.

Indeed, the 49-year-old DeBoer has won exactly 100 games as a college head coach – 67 at the University of Sioux Falls (his alma mater), 12 at Fresno State and 21 at Washington.

It’s new UW athletic director Troy Dannen’s job to ensure DeBoer is here for a hundred more.

On Monday, DeBoer confirmed Dannen has made the first step.

When asked if Dannen and DeBoer’s representatives have begun negotiating another extension, the Husky coach said: “Yeah. Troy’s been very intentional with that, and I’m very appreciative of that. It is hard. The question was asked earlier (about maintaining focus during the season). You’re in the middle of a great season like we have and I’m trying to keep the focus on that, but you also understand that those things need to continue to happen for our program to continue to move forward.”

It is important that Dannen acts quickly, because as the chaotic coaching carousel spins, sharks will begin to circle.

On Sunday, Texas A&M – the team with college football’s greatest gap between money and wins – fired sixth-year head coach Jimbo Fisher. The school (with help from its notoriously wealthy donor base) is expected to pay Fisher roughly $75 million in buyout money, and more to his successor.

In the aftermath, ESPN’s Pete Thamel tweeted: “Early list of potential names for Texas A&M, knowing money is no object: Lane Kiffin, Mike Elko, Mike Norvell, Dan Lanning, Jeff Traylor, Chris Klieman, Kliff Kingsbury and Kalen DeBoer.”

Given that DeBoer has built Washington into a Pac-12 (and soon-to-be Big Ten) powerhouse in less than two full seasons in Seattle, he may not be keen to start over in College Station, Texas, where expectations loom the size of the Lone Star State.

But if it’s not Texas A&M, it might be Michigan – where embattled coach Jim Harbaugh has been suspended twice in the same season. Or USC, where Lincoln Riley could always entertain a jump to the NFL.

The point is, success will always attract envy.

Prepare your pocketbooks.

While flipping a 4-8 team into an 11-2 contender a year ago, DeBoer received a modest raise – from $3.2 million to $4.2 million annually – last November. He also earned a two-year extension, stretching through 2028, with base pay set to escalate to $4.7 million by the end of his term.

That’s no longer enough.

DeBoer’s $4.2 million salary ranked 44th among head coaches at public institutions in 2023, according to USA Today. That figure also sits seventh in the Pac-12 (excluding Riley at USC, a private institution not required to make position salaries public) – behind Oregon’s Dan Lanning ($6.62 million), Utah’s Kyle Wittingham ($6.63 million), UCLA’s Chip Kelly ($5.98 million), Colorado’s Deion Sanders ($5.5 million), Oregon State’s Jonathan Smith ($4.85 million) and Cal’s Justin Wilcox ($4.4 million).

Of the coaches hired by high-profile Pac-12 programs in 2022, Oregon’s Lanning is 19-4 and USC’s Riley is 18-7.

DeBoer is 21-2 … and a combined 3-0 against Lanning and Riley.

He’s also 100-11 as a head coach and 13-0 inside Husky Stadium.

To borrow a phrase from the TikTokers, the math isn’t math-ing.

Pay the man.

Granted, a jumbo raise and extension could quickly backfire, as it has (so far) with Husky men’s hoops coach Mike Hopkins. But the bigger mistake, by a Montlake mile, would be losing the coach who resuscitated a punctured program in a single offseason.

Plus, this was all part of Dannen’s pitch. When UW’s new athletic director was introduced on Oct. 10, he touted the retention of Tulane coach Willie Fritz – who opted to stay in New Orleans following a 12-2 season and Cotton Bowl win over USC despite interest from ACC program Georgia Tech.

“Our job is to put [DeBoer] in a position to succeed,” Dannen said. “You talk about retention of coaches. Our guy could have left last year at Tulane. Everybody leaves Tulane after that year, and he stayed. Part of it is, as much as we talk about the money and the contract, keeping them in a position to win.”

That means continuing to feed UW’s assistant-coach salary pool, which grew from $5.745 million in 2022 to roughly $7.483 million this offseason (thanks in part to Grubb, whose salary spiked from $1.02 million to $2 million ). It also means continuing to invest in UW’s name, image and likeness efforts as a critical recruiting and player-retention tool. It means paving a sustainable path to the top of a booming Big Ten.

And yes: Money matters.

Judging by the differing fates of UW’s past three coaches, the man at the top might matter even more.