U-Dub Dish

Athletic Director Todd Turner Resigns
By andrewjh Section: News
Posted on Tue Dec 11, 2007 at 10:24:21 PM EDT

I am sure many of you out there are pleased to know that this afternoon Athletic Director Todd Turner submitted his resignation. We sure know that those over at FireToddTurner.com are very pleased.  Effective the end of January, Turner will step down from his post of AD.  Personally, I am not going to make too much of this at the moment.  President Emmert claims that "there wasn't any one thing" leading to the resignation and that it was more that Turner was no longer the "right fit" or the Huskies program.

So how much should we read into this?  Does this mean that last week's decision to keep Coach Willingham no longer stands?  And what does this mean for the long term picture of Husky athletics?

I'd say that right now it is just too early to read into any potential answers for those questions.  Obviously, this shakes things up considerably.  Willingham was Turner's guy and a new AD may want to remake the program with his new vision.  It really is too early to tell what will happen.

However, Bob Condotta has done some speculating on his blog about how this impacts Husky football:

Emmert said the controversy over last week's decision to keep Tyrone Willingham as football coach, something Turner wholeheartedly supported citing Willingham's rebuilding of the culture of the program as much as the won-loss record, was not a major factor in the decision.

When asked if Turner was more supportive of football coach Tyrone Willingham than he was, Emmert said that was "an inaccurate observation and people are making too much of that.''

"There was not any connection to coach Willingham's situation,'' Emmert continued. "He's going to be our football coach next year and I'm very happy about that.''

Turner, however, said the discussions about Willingham played a factor in the events of Tuesday.

"For me it did,'' he said. "It was just was enlightening about where our society, culture and support group has gone in their expectations of what constitutes a quality program on a campus of higher education.''

For Emmert it was not a factor, but for Turner it was? Hmm... something does not smell right there. Like I said, too early to say that this means Willingham will be canned after all, but it definitely makes it questionable once again.

And what's all this about "our society, culture, and support group"? What an odd thing to say. I've never been much of a fan of Turner's and his comments at times have really raised eyebrows and even been upsetting at times, so how fitting for him to go out with something like that.

The search for a new AD begins. Who will be Turner's replacement and lead the program in a new direction? We'll know soon enough.
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Athletic Director Todd Turner Resigns



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