More details emerge about Jimmy Lake's firing from Washington

The Washington Huskies is expected to fire head coach Jimmy Lake according to Yahoo’s Pete Thamel. Poor results on the field and off the field distractions have caused the breakup after just 13 games. Washington is still going to pay the buyout and will not fire Lake for cause.

More details have come out about the situation in Seattle from Brett McMurphy of The Action Network. A source told him that Lake “had to go” despite being the head coach for less than two full seasons.

“The recruiting was worst it’s ever been,” the source told McMurphy. “We were fearing we’d revert back to the (Ty) Willingham days. He had very few allies here.”

Ty Willingham was the Huskies coach for four seasons, having an 11-37 record that included an 0-12 season in 2008. Lake’s winning percentage is significantly higher at .500 but was off to a 4-5 record this season.

From a recruiting standpoint, Washington ranked No. 31 according to the On3 Consensus, behind four other Pac-12 foes. Notre Dame can be added to the list as well, who Lake considered one of the Huskies’ biggest recruiting rivals.

Contraversital moments from Jimmy Lake

Heading into a rivalry matchup with Oregon, Lake was asked about the off-the-field rivalry they had with the Ducks in the recruiting world. The now-former Washington head coach said the whole thing is blown out of proportion by the media.

“That is way more pumped up than it is,” Lake said. “Our battles are really the schools we go against – that have academic prowess – like the University of Washington, Notre Dame, Stanford, USC. We go with a lot of battles, toe to toe, all the way to the end, with those schools. So I think that’s made up and pumped up in [the media’s] world. In our world, we battle more academically prowess teams.”

On the field, he was suspended one game for having an altercation with a player during the Oregon game. In the video, Lake can be seen hitting redshirt freshman linebacker Ruperake Fuavai in the helmet. He then shoves him after Fuavai got into it with Oregon senior wide receiver Jaylon Redd following a play.

Washington athletic director Jen Cohen released a statement after the incident.

“We are aware of an interaction between Head Coach Jimmy Lake and a student-athlete during the first half of Saturday’s game,” Cohen’s statement read, according to a tweet posted by Christian Caple of The Athletic. “We have high expectations of the conduct of our coaches and we are working to gather more information on this matter.”