By the way, today is the day of The News Tribune’s annual college football section. And we hope you’ll grab a copy and use it all season. But there is a good version of most of the features online too.
The Huskies arrived last night in Syracuse, land of Jim Brown, Ernie David and Floyd Little, and so did I.
One of the odd little footnotes of UW camp the past couple of days has been Tyrone Willingham’s contention that one element of playing in the Carrier Dome is that certain open doors might affect the wind currents inside.
So, it was interested to arrive in Syracuse last night just in time to watch the local news, in which the Syracuse media asked coach Greg Robinson about that. Robinson gave mostly a “huh?” answer, finally adding that
…The Huskies leave for Syracuse this afternoon.
Tuesday news: Cornerback Byron Davenport’s hamstring injury has made significant recent progress, and he is likely to travel with the team. However, true freshman will start against Syracuse regardless.
Kicker Nick Folk (back) likely won’t travel, but the kicking/punting duties haven’t yet been assigned to either Ryan Perkins or Jared Ballman.
Linebacker Donald Butler (knee) is improving, but if he can’t start Saturday, Willingham expressed confidence in Trenton Tuiasosopo.
The left tackle competition between Cody Habben and Ben Ossai also remains unsettled. At Tuesday practice, Habben started with
…At this morning’s Pac-10 Conference coaches teleconference, Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh announced that former Auburn quarterback Kellen Kiilsgaard has been moved to fullback.
The 6-foot-2, 220-pound freshman isn’t on the two-deep for the season (and Pac-10) opener Saturday against UCLA.
Other notes from the non-Washington schools:
OREGON STATE, the first Pac-10 team to begin the season, hosting Utah on Thursday: Coach Mike Riley said he explained his plan to start quarterback Sean Canfield in the first quarter and then use Lyle Moevao in second quarter, regardless of how Canfield performs. "These two guys haven’t separated enough to
…We just got a brief interview with Syracuse coach Greg Robinson.
He gave us an update on his team, including this overview on fall camp:
“We were undefeated and now we’re looking forward to going to the regular season. Camp went well. I haven’t met a coach yet who didn’t think (preseason practices) went well. Our players are working hard and I think they’re very enthused about the idea of playing on national television, playing against the Huskies, playing an intersectional rivalry like thi. It’s a nice thing to be a part of. It’s exciting for us.”
We got our first game-week briefing from coach Tyrone Willingham this morning, including a new set of two-deeps.
The most interesting name was Vonzell McDowell, true freshman, who will start at cornerback Friday at Syracuse.
And the most interesting missing name was that of Cory Nicol, who had been competing with McDowell for that spot. Willingham announced that Nicol had decided over the weekend to leave the team. Nicol later told reporters his departure was due to a nagging groin injury.
Redshirt freshman Matt Mosley will back up McDowell.
Elsewhere across the roster, a handful of
…UW reports that the Husky men’s basketball team is still scheduled to depart Monday morning to Greece, despite the fires raging though that country.
As of Sunday evening, the Huskies had received no information that any of the games will be cancelled.
In recent weeks, at least three books have come across my desk that I thought might be of interest to some of you.
One is “A Football Band of Brothers: Forging the University of Washington’s First National Championship” by Tom Porter. It tells the story of the 1960 Huskies, whose claim to at least a share of the national football title will be recognized by the univeristy Sept. 29 at halftime of this season’s USC game. I’ll take a much more detailed look at that team/book/issue in the week leading up to that game.
Also out is
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