“I feel the heartbeat coming back.”

Washington’s new era begins on Saturday. Head coach Kalen DeBoer’s first season kicks off at 7:30 p.m. PT against Kent State inside Husky Stadium. After a tumultuous 2021 season, there’s a ton of hope surrounding DeBoer’s maiden voyage with the Huskies. UW has more talent than its 4-8 record last year would indicate. DeBoer has expectations back up on Montlake.

Excitement, too.

And you can feel it. Washington dropped what amounts to almost a mini-doc to get fans ready for the new season earlier this week and it’s excellent.

That’s Lawyer Milloy in the opening, a former Super Bowl champion defensive back in the NFL and consensus All-American with the Huskies in the 90s. He’s just one of a number of former Huskies who have come back and spoken to the team as DeBoer readies for his first season.

DeBoer has seemingly hit all the right notes since coming to Seattle. But that probably should have been expected given his extensive background of success as a coach.

His first season as an FBS head coach was wrecked by COVID restrictions at Fresno State in 2020, and he managed a 3-3 record. In his first full season with the team, the Bulldogs went 9-3. They nearly beat the Oregon Ducks in Eugene, then turned around two weeks later and beat a top-15 UCLA squad in Los Angeles. To close out October, the Bulldogs beat a ranked San Diego State team on the road as well, handing the Aztecs their first loss at that point in time.

Counting his stops at the NAIA level, DeBoer has a career 79-9 record as a head coach. He won three NAIA national championships in 2006, 2008, and 2009 with Sioux Falls. In 2005, his first year with the program, he won 11 games and went to the NAIA semifinals. Over the next four years, the only loss Sioux Falls suffered in 57 games was in the 2007 NAIA national championship. 

“These are the kinds of opportunities … that we dreamed about back in Sioux Falls,” said offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb. “You think about, ‘Man, if we can put this formula on the biggest stage, what would it look like?'”

We’ll find out soon.