That’s an odd little video up there, but 40 seconds into the national anthem comes one of the most amazing runs in college football history, and certainly one of the plays of my life: Billy Cannon’s 1959 Halloween night punt return against Ole Miss.

As some of you know, I grew up in Louisiana. And this amazing run — I count nine Rebels who had a shot at Cannon over those 89 yards — was replayed every Halloween night through the years that I lived there, and it’s likely the tradition

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Washington and Louisiana State have agreed to a two-game football series.

The 2007-national-champion Tigers will visit Husky Stadium for the season opener on Sept. 5, 2009. The Huskies will make their visit to Tiger Stadium — the famed Death Valley of Baton Rouge — on Sept. 29, 2012.

Despite long histories, including national championships for each, the schools have met only once before, on Sept. 24, 1983, in Baton Rouge, when LSU pounded the ninth-ranked Huskies, 40-14.

Washington is 2-5 all-time against current members of the Southeastern Conference, and hasn’t played an SEC school since beating Florida,

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Former UW quarterback Marques Tuiasosopo has signed on to return to the Oakland Raiders.

Interesting ESPN hoops article ranks UW’s incoming recruiting class No. 21 nationally, and fourth in the Pac-10 behind UCLA (No. 1 nationall), Arizona and Oregon.

Oddly, though, it praises Scott Suggs and Elston Turner Jr. as the top two of the class, apparently rating them ahead of Tacoma’s Isaiah Thomas.

As the Sonics research their fourth pick in the coming NBA draft they are likely to focus on three Pac-10 players: center/forward Brook Lopez of Stanford, guard Jerryd Bayless of Arizona or guard O.J. Mayo of USC … according to TNT Sonics writer Eric D. Williams in today’s paper.

Given the current Sonics needs, I wouldn’t consider Mayo. I can see advantages to either Lopez or Bayless. But considering the Sonics’ apparent curse on big men … plus my answer in the Oakland Tribune’s annual Pac-10 survey that Bayless will have the best pro career of anyone in

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Fox college football columnist Pete Fiutak has taken what he admits is an absurdly early stab at predicting the coming postseason college bowls. And while he admits its absurdly early, it is interesting to see that the Washington Huskies are absent from his list.

That indicates that at least he is expecting an extremely poor showing from the Huskies this season, because the Pac-10 has a league-record seven bowl tie-ins this season — one more than last year, and enough to virtually assure that any bowl-elegible (.500 record) Pac-10 team will go bowling.

Here’s the Pac-10 bowl

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UW coach Tyrone Willingham is in Dallas this week, appearing this week at a football forum hosted by the National Football Foundation and the Football Writers Association of America.

There, he was on a panel covering several topics related to college football, when moderator Chris Rose asked this question: “I’m curious, I want to see hands from everybody on the panel, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being most trustworthy, 1 being least trustworthy, how many of you guys on the panel trust the media more than 6, from 6 to 10? I’m talking about a decent

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USC star guard — actually, one-and-done former star USC guard — O.J. Mayo answered claims that he received payments while in college with denies all around.

Here’s the story from the LA Times.