Washington's Jimmy Lake fires assistant coach after loss

Washington head coach Jimmy Lake fired second-year offensive coordinator and quarterback coach John Donovan Sunday afternoon, according to Action Network’s Brett McMurphy. After firing the assistant coach, Washington promoted wide receiver coach Junior Adams to play calling duties for the 2021 season. Offensive quality control analyst Payton McCollum also received a promotion to quarterback coach.

Washington’s offense ranked No. 112 out of 130 FBS teams in 2021. The Huskies average just 332.1 yards per game and have 23 offensive touchdowns. The quarterback situation has also become a point of controversy with inconsistent play throughout the year.

After an encouraging 3-0 start in 2020, the Huskies finished the season with a home loss against Stanford. With high expectations in year two, Washington tanked with a 4-5 record through 10 weeks.

In addition to offensive concerns, organization problems rose over recent weeks. The week started with controversial media comments, and a sideline incident brought negative attention to the program.

Sideline incident

Washington athletic director Jen Cohen released a statement after Huskies head football coach Jimmy Lake was seen having a sideline altercation with one of his players during Saturday night’s game against No. 4 Oregon.

“We are aware of an interaction between Head Coach Jimmy Lake and a student-athlete during the first half of Saturday’s game,” Cohen’s statement read, via Christian Caple of The Athletic. “We have high expectations of the conduct of our coaches and we are working to gather more information on this matter.”

In the video of the altercation, Lake can be seen hitting redshirt freshman linebacker Ruperake Fuavai in the helmet. He then shoved him after Fuavai got into it with Oregon senior wide receiver Jaylon Redd following a play.

Controversial comments

Ahead of Washington’s meeting with Oregon, Jimmy Lake addressed whether he viewed Oregon as a recruiting rival. Instead of just answering the question with a simple answer, he went on to say that he views Oregon’s recruiting rivals as schools with high “academic prowess.”

“That is way more pumped up than it is,” Lake said. “Our battles are really the schools we go against – that have academic prowess – like the University of Washington, Notre Dame, Stanford, USC. We go with a lot of battles, toe to toe, all the way to the end, with those schools. So I think that’s made up and pumped up in [the media’s] world. In our world, we battle more academically prowess teams.”