After coaching Washington to a Pac-12 championship and an appearance in the College Football Playoff, Chris Petersen is now the highest-paid coach in the Pac-12.
On Tuesday, the Huskies reportedly rewarded Petersen with a three-year contract extension that now runs through the 2023 season at a value of $4.875 million per season. Will Washington get their money’s worth on the new deal?
The simple answer is yes, they will. That may not mean Washington will win the national championship during the course of Petersen’s contract, but the Huskies should be expected to be among the top contenders in the Pac-12.
Petersen’s new contract surpasses the $4.06 million paid by Stanford to David Shaw and the $3.65 million paid per year by Utah to Kyle Whittingham. Petersen was the third highest-paid coach in the conference before the revised contract with $3.6 million per year. (USC head coach Clay Helton’s contract is not recorded by USA Today‘s coaching salary database.)
Petersen has taken Washington over the hump the program could not get over for years. Last season, Washington was legitimately good enough to be considered a playoff contender and certainly took advantage of a dismal season at Oregon and a step back by Stanford. The Huskies nearly ran the table in regular season en route to a victory in the Pac-12 championship game and the school’s first berth in the College Football Playoff. Though Washington was outmatched by SEC champion Alabama, Petersen proved his run at Boise State was no fluke.
Petersen was expected to improve Washington to a level where they would compete for Pac-12 titles. He did that in his first three years at Washington. He may just be getting started too.
The question is how long can Petersen keep Washington on top of the Pac-12? This season the conference race is hyped to be in favor of USC with quarterback Sam Darnold the new rising star around college football (and already a Heisman Trophy favorite). Stanford is not exactly going to fall off the map, and it may just be a matter of time before Oregon bounces back under new head coach Willie Taggart. If Petersen is going to keep Washington in front of the pack, it will not be easy.
Then again, nothing Petersen has ever done has been considered easy. Building a program to the status Petersen did at Boise State is a testament to what Petersen can do for a program. In the middle of Idaho, building a college football program that can go toe-to-toe with a team from the ACC, Big 12, Pac-12 or SEC is nearly unthinkable.
Yet, Petersen accomplished just that at Boise State, earning wins against Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, Georgia in Atlanta, and Chip Kelly’s Oregon Ducks. At Washington, the job was set up to be easier to lure talent compared to what Petersen could do at Boise State, and that has certainly been the case. That won’t change, but what will change is the rest of the conference. If Oregon bounces back, will it come at Washington’s expense? USC has always been a recruiting leader in the Pac-12, but if the Trojans can match the preseason hype, will that impact what happens at Washington?
If nothing else, Washington knows they have a coach who is not looking to go anywhere, and that could be said even before extending the contract. It took years to convince Petersen to leave Boise State. If it took that long to get Petersen out of Boise, then he may just retire as head coach of the Washington Huskies in 20 years. He is not the kind of coach who is looking for his next gig and payday. Petersen appears comfortable in his surroundings at Washington, and that kind of loyalty will help keep Washington in the thick of the Pac-12 race for years to come.
