Washington Husky head coach Ty Willingham has hopefully improved his defense next season by recently hiring Ed Donatell, a veteran NFL defensive coordinator with both the Green Bay Packers and Atlanta Falcons.

Washington's inept, pathetic excuse for a defense last year needed to be cleaned up and clicked up about 20 notches.

The Huskies ranked 94th nationally last year in scoring defense (giving up 31+ points per game), 99th in pass defense (261+ yards per game and 27 touchdowns) and pass efficiency defense, and 102nd in total defense. These rankings were among the NCAA's 119 Division 1A teams. In other words, the Huskies did not have a defense. They lacked speed, talent and experience. I said last year that the Washington defensive secondary could not cover my grandmother on their best day. I was not kidding.

Donatell should be congratulated for being willing to try and clean up this sorry mess. He just might be able to turn it around based on his experience and performance. To wit:

1) As the defensive backs coach for Denver's Mike Shanahan, he helped the Broncos win back-to-back Super Bowls in 1997 and 1998 by taking over a secondary that ranked last in the NFL and led them to a Top 10 ranking for 5 consecutive years.

2) As the defensive coordinator for Green Bay's Mike Sherman for 4 years, Donatell's leadership helped the Packer defense lead the NFL with 144 takeaways, averaging 36 a season, and lead the league with 2.25 forced turnovers per game.

3) As the defensive coordinator for 3 years for Atlanta's Jim Mora (a University of Washington grad and new designated coach of the Seattle Seahawks when Mike Holmgren retires after the 2008 season), Donatell piled up more success.

His 2004 Falcon unit led the NFL by holding its opponents to a league-low 30% on 3rd-down conversions. His Falcons also led the league in sacks for the first time in team history, and in 2005 his defense ranked 3rd in the NFL with only 28 passes allowed of 20-or-more yards. In addition, Atlanta won the club's 3rd division title and advanced to the NFC championship game.

Donatell also had ties to Washington before arriving. In addition to coaching for Jim Mora, he was a graduate assistant for Don James, the legendary Dawgfather and Washington's greatest coach. Donatell also was the defensive backs coach for 3 years at Idaho under former Washington coach Keith Gilbertson.

Donatell said his style of defense will be "based on speed and explosion, high energy, enthusiasm, (an) attacking style." Heck, I already like the guy. So Donatell can not only talk a good game, he can back it up.

I remember another guy named Jim Lambright whose legendary defenses were fast, furious and swarming; he experienced quite a bit of success as well, like a 1991 national championship as a defensive coordinator. The 1991 Huskies were 2nd in the nation in rushing defense (67.1), total defense (237.1), scoring defense (9.2) and turnover margin (+1.73); they led the Pac-10 in virtually every defensive category.

Let us hope that Ty Willingham and Ed Donatell go on to great success next year and in the following years. What Willingham and Donatell will have to do is start winning, and keep winning. When they do, they will have to get in line behind a couple of other guys with really great success records as Huskies-Don James and Jim Lambright.

For the record, Don James won a national title, went to 6 Rose Bowls (4-2 mark), won an Orange Bowl title and went to 15 bowl games (10-5 record) in 18 years. Oh yeah, James was 153-57-2 (72%), including a then-record 99 wins in Pac-10 conference play, and Washington won 22 consecutive games from 1990 to 1992.

Copyright © 2008 Ed Bagley