HOUSTON – Troy Dannen had been serving as Washington's athletic director for just a few days when the Huskies notched a 36-33 victory against Oregon who started them competing for national championship on October 14.
As the game ended and the tension of the moment turned into a locker room celebration, Dannen observed that his coach, Kalen DeBoer, had barely changed the serious but serene facial expression he maintained on the sideline. Whether DeBoer's blood pressure was soaring or the adrenaline was pumping after arguably the biggest win of his career, Dannen couldn't tell.
“No emotion from him, nothing at all,” Dannen said. “I didn’t know this guy.”
Dannen, a veteran administrator who has been around many coaches after big wins, was intrigued by the reaction – or lack of reaction. After the party spilled out of the locker room and into the hallway, he pulled DeBoer aside to ask him a question.
“Are you OK?”
What Dannen would discover and what the nation would learn next Washington had one close game after another, is that DeBoer is doing more than well. In fact, the 49-year-old South Dakotan who coached NAIA ball until 2010 and had never worked at a power conference program until Indiana hired him as offensive coordinator in 2019 could be as glacial under pressure as anyone in the entire sport.
Just look at the evidence.
On September 30, with the Huskies clinging to a seven-point lead against Arizona, DeBoer ran a fourth-and-1 with 10 seconds left — and managed to end the game rather than turn the ball over.
On Nov. 18 against Oregon State, needing another first down conversion to ice the game with just under 2 minutes left, DeBoer and offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb didn't just try to get a first down. With ESPN commentator Kirk Herbstreit calling for a zone read type play, Washington instead emptied the backfield, stacked four receivers on the right side of the field and let quarterback Michael Penix find Rome Odunze 20 yards downfield with a back shoulder throw on a windy, rainy night.
And then, in the Apple Cup to end the regular season, DeBoer made such a risky call with 1:15 left that it's hard to imagine any other coach in the country replicating that decision. In a tie game and facing fourth-and-1 from its own 29-yard line, Washington opted for a misdirection fake play that threw Odunze backwards for a huge gain.
The Huskies won 24-21 on a field goal. If that fourth-down play hadn't worked, there's a good chance they wouldn't have been there. the college football playoffs.
“I think he likes to roll the dice,” said Greg McElroy, an ESPN analyst and former Alabama quarterback. “I think he likes to empower his players to make these plays and they've responded pretty amazingly throughout the season. He understands, 'Man, we're going to come out swinging and if we go down, we Let's fall on our own accord.'”
Beyond the enormous amount of offensive talent and experience that Washington brings, it's DeBoer's relentless aggression – combined with his almost expressionless sureness – that has made Huskies such a revelation this season.
And it's not just about fourth calls. This allows Penix to throw the ball when the conventional approach would be to run. It goes deep when there's a short route open for six or seven easy yards. It's not about worrying about the clock – like late in the Sugar Bowl while Washington could have taken the easier route home with more conservative play calls, but instead gave Texas one last chance to win it with enough time on the clock to hold a drive.
Of course, that one almost blew up in Washington's face. Texas ended up getting several good looks at the end zone, and DeBoer's game management would have been largely to blame if the Huskies had lost. But they haven't, and perhaps the reason is because the Huskies aren't reducing their aggression or changing the way they make decisions based on the stakes of the game – which are increasing every week.
“You can’t,” said Grubb, who met DeBoer at the NAIA program in Sioux Falls in 2007 and hasn’t looked back since. “As soon as you do that, you become predictable.
“I just don't think you should coach guys not to lose. To me, being offensive is just that. We should be the ones attacking.”
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DeBoer would say he's not reckless or even the most aggressive coach in the country, but he understands analytics and numbers and has a keen sense of his personnel. In other words, some of these key decisions might be different if it didn't have Penix at quarterback or if it didn't have a receiver like Odunze, who will come out on top in most games 50- 50.
He has also – at least this year – shown very good instincts.
“I think a lot of it comes down to the confidence of your players,” DeBoer said. “We have a very mature team, both offensively and defensively, that can handle that and be in those moments and be able to not get overwhelmed by the situation. Just go out and execute.”
Still, there were a few moments this year where Odunze was a little surprised by the risk DeBoer was willing to take — particularly late in the Oregon State and Washington State games.
“I thought, ‘OK, they’re really doing it,’” Odunze said. “I really recognize that some of these calls are risky, and I like the mindset that they're in attack mode and willing to take that risk and go get it.”
Dannen speculated that DeBoer's risk tolerance comes from years of playing for championships at the lower levels and gaining that experience away from the spotlight. You can also look at it the opposite direction: Someone of DeBoer's coaching pedigree isn't supposed to be here in the College Football Playoff, so anything that happens now is gravy. This too can be a liberating state of mind.
Either way, it's a trait that has been valuable to this team that has won eight games by one score this season. Don't bet that will change Monday night.
“You can’t do something different than what you’ve been doing all season,” Dannen said. “But every time it happens, my heart rate goes up.”
For DeBoer, proof of a pulse will be much harder to find.
