The Huskies are primed for another championship run in 2017, and because of the east coast bias that is still very prevalent in college football, I’m going to give you 3 reasons why you should root for the Washington Huskies during the 2017 college football season.

The first reason, Chris Petersen. In both my biased and unbiased opinion, I believe that Chris Petersen is the best college football coach in the country. Nick Saban, Urban Meyer and Dabo Swinney always get the best players in every recruiting class to work with, and that’s really because of the tradition of the programs that they coach at. Washington isn’t like that, this program has been through some hard times and Chris Petersen has gotten this program on the right track over the last 3 seasons. Petersen has brought this team from a mediocre 7-6 team in 2014 to a 12-2 national title contending team in 2016. And the best part about that? The recruiting classes. The top ranked recruiting class that Petersen has brought in has been ranked 22^nd overall, and those guys are going to be freshman this year. And when we look ahead to next year’s class, it’s already rated in the top 10! If Coach Pete can take a recruiting class rated in the low 20’s to the College Football Playoff and hold his own against Alabama, imagine what he can do with a top 10 class.

The second reason sort of ties into the first, it’s the type of player that Coach Pete recruits. He hasn’t been able to recruit top of the line talent, seeing as his program at Boise State, as good as it was, was still a mid-major school and didn’t have the same benefits that the Alabama’s and USC’s of the world have. And during his first couple years at Washington, the program was still seen as rebuilding, which isn’t something a high schooler will always want to commit to, as if the program can’t truly bust through it will hurt their potential draft stock. Let’s look at some of the talent that Coach Petersen has developed that have entered the 2016 NFL Draft, and let’s start with Mr. 4.22, the fastest man (well soon to be) in the NFL, John Ross. John Ross was overlooked by lots of other schools in the country, and after truly bursting onto the scene last year with 19 total touchdowns, he is widely regarded as one of the top 3 receiving prospects in this draft, and is one of Coach Petersen’s biggest accomplishments. But personally, I believe his biggest success is arguably the top cornerback in this draft class, Sidney Jones. Coming out of high school, Jones was the 73^rd rated cornerback in the country, which isn’t terrible but at the same time, not a lot is expected from you. Now he is considered one of, if not the top cornerback in this draft class even with a partially torn Achilles tendon.

My third and final point, who doesn’t love a good underdog story? Well sure they might not be the biggest underdogs anymore, but this team is now 8 years removed from the worst season in college football history. 0-12. Since then they have gone through 3 head coaches, 5 quarterbacks, and a number of blowout losses that caused a number of fans (including my father) to lose faith in the team. But those trends are over now, as the Huskies took it to their opponents this year, outscoring them 583-248. Some said they didn’t beat good teams, but in the 3 games against opponents ranked in the top 10, they outscored them 92-40. Let’s keep in mind that 24 of those 40 came in their one loss of those 3 matchups, against #1 Alabama.

The Huskies taken the long, slow rebuilding process and accelerated it. They’ve developed some excellent pro talents in the process, and now, they’ve proven they’re ready to be a competitor for the national title every year. So be ready, because Chris Petersen is building a monster in the Northwest, and there are only two choices, jump on the bandwagon or get out of the way.