LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- You want greatness from your team and you don't want it tomorrow. You want it today and you're not thrilled that you did not have greatness to celebrate yesterday.
College sports has never been more lucrative or demanding. Patience has gone the way of the landline. The five-year plan has been turned upside down by the five-day plan.
That's one thing I see when I look across the college landscape. But when I look at the Michigan-Washington national championship football game that will be played at 7:30 p.m. Monday in Houston, I see this:
Patience rewarded.
Patience in Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh. Patience in Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. Patience in Washington coach Kalen DeBoer.
Harbaugh comes from one of football's most admired families. He needed nine seasons to take Michigan to the season's final game.
This was after many observers inside and outside (including me) the Wolverines' program were not certain Harbaugh was the guy for the job.
Why?
He wasn't Nick Saban. He wasn't Dabo Swinney. He couldn't beat Ohio State (mainly Urban Meyer).
He even stumbled against Indiana when the Hoosiers were led by a former Indiana high school coach. Harbaugh lost to a program Michigan had not lost to in 33 years.
I didn't matter that Harbaugh was a Michigan alumnus or that he proven his skills at Stanford and by taking San Francisco to the Super Bowl.
You went 2-4 in 2020. Take a hike or a pay cut, pal.
Speaking of Indiana, I see Penix, who scrambled and labored for four seasons as the Hoosiers' quarterback.
He was promising. He was sensational. He was injured. He was dreadful. He made throws no other quarterback could make. He missed throws any quarterback could make.
After the 2021 season, Penix was finished, right?
I thought so. Time to give the IU job to Jack Tuttle, Connor Bazelak or Dexter Williams in Bloomington.
In 2021, his final season with the Hoosiers, Penix completed less than half of his passing attempts in three of five games. He was shut down with another injury for IU's final seven games.
As a sophomore, Penix ran for 67 yards in his first start against Ball State and 35 more against Maryland.
Indiana quarterback Michael Penix Jr. (9) throws a pass during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Iowa, Saturday, Sept. 4, 2021, in Iowa City, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
As a senior, Penix finished with minus-24 yards rushing. He was hit more times than Joe Frazier's sparring partner.
Who could look at seven interceptions and four touchdown passes and see a quarterback capable of making a serious push for the Heisman Trophy and taking a rebuilding team to the national final in two seasons?
Kalen DeBoer could.
The Washington coach certainly belongs on my list of guys who benefited from patience while advancing to this glorious moment.
DeBoer turned 49 in October. Washington is his ninth stop on the coaching carousel. DeBoer was 40 before he got his first opportunity at the Division I level — if you consider the offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach at Eastern Michigan an opportunity at the Division I level.
Most people consider Eastern Michigan a coach killing dead end position.
Google Maps says that it is 6.3 miles from the Eastern Michigan campus in Ypsilanti to the mammoth University of Michigan operation in Ann Arbor, but it is the longest 6.3 miles in college football.
DeBoer made it through to Fresno State, where he did big things for two seasons. Then Tom Allen needed somebody willing to take another dead end job: offensive coordinator at Indiana.
After the 2018 season, Allen needed somebody help Indiana score more than 26 points per game and create a scheme that would fit a pair of quarterbacks with dissimilar skills.
Penix had a dynamic left-handed passing arm but could be a hesitant runner. Peyton Ramsey was a right-handed thrower but a more productive, experienced runner,
DeBoer made it work. IU bumped its touchdown total from 39 to 51. The Hoosiers passing yards per game jumped from 257 to 302.
IU won at Maryland, at Nebraska and at Purdue, the only time Allen defeated Jeff Brohm for the Old Oaken Bucket.
The rest of college football noticed. One season of doing big things at Indiana is all DeBoer needed for doors to open. Fresno State hired him. He won 12 of 18 games.
Typically Washington shopped in the Flavor of the Month aisle when the Huskies hired a football coach. Rick Neuheisel coached there. Steve Sarkisian was supposed to win a title there. So was Chris Petersen, after the Huskies recruited him from Boise State.
The national media went gaga over those guys.
Kalen DeBoer had never been the Flavor of the Month. The national media shrugged over DeBoer getting the Washington job.
Neither Neuheisel nor Sarkisian nor Peterson were as successful as DeBoer has been in two seasons in Seattle. After convincing Penix they could do great things again, the DeBoer/Penix combination has won 24 of 26 games and put the Huskies on the brink of the program's first national title since 1990.
That, of course, is one of the major storylines Monday night in Houston.
But so is the patience that surrounded the ascension of Jim Harbaugh, Michael Penix Jr. and Kalen DeBoer. Maybe it's not such an old-fashioned idea.
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