I started covering the Huskies in Keith Gilbertson’s second season. Which means, I never got to cover Rick Neuheisel.

I got my first real time with him at media day; and he certainly seemed to say all the right things. I’ll have some of that in the Friday paper. But here is some of what we heard from Neuheisel.

ON GETTING THE UCLA JOB

Where I was in 2003 and 2003 to getting this opportunity has been kind of like a climb. I’ve been trying to climb back. And when you get that call, and you’re

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Pac-10 media day is over for another year. The Huskies are zipping home on a 2:30 flight out of LAX.

I’m about to get off-line for a while and start writing, writing, writing for tomorrow’s paper. But before that, I wanted to pass along three little notes that I found interesting from the one-on-one lunch session.

1.) UW quarterback Jake Locker says that he’s done with baseball. He said that he enjoyed his summer with the Bellingham Bells baseball team, but that fitting in the baseball and football duties was more difficult than he expected and he doesn’t

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The Pac-10 coaches speak at Media Day in reverse order of the previous sseason standings. That means things led off this morning with Washington coach Tyrone Willingham, who brought along quarterback Jake Locker.

Willingham broke no real news. He said his fourth UW team will be a blend of youth and experince and "we think we can hit this thing just right."

He also said:

* his team again has what he considered maybe the Pac-10′s toughest schedule.

* the timing issues (see post below) could be the most significant rules changes for the

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Media day typically ends with the league coaches being briefed on officiating rules changes for the coming season.

This season brings several significant ones.

One of the most notable will bring the NCAA game into line with the NFL, as there will be 40 seconds between plays in most cases.

College football also is altering several rules to emphasize player safety.

A particular area of emphasis is player safety. New rules will penalize tacklers for hitting with the crown of their helmet or targeting defenseless players with hits above the shoulders. There also are new rules

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Here’s the way the media that covers Pac-10 football sees the league race going this season:

1. USC (38 first-place votes)

2. Arizona State

3. Oregon

4. California (one first-place vote)

5. UCLA

6. Oregon State

7. Arizona

8. Washington

9. Stanford

10. Washington State

(This poll agrees with the ballot I sent in for places 1-4 and 9-10. However, I had Arizona at five, UW at six, UCLA at seven and OSU at eight.)

The media poll has picked the correct conference champion eight seasons in

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Pac-10 football media day starts bright and early at 7:30 a.m. Thursday with all of the league’s football coaches being briefed on rules changes and rules interpretations by the conference director of officials.

On its merits, that is more interesting some years than others. A couple of seasons ago — when the NCAA made its big changes in the timing of games — was especially interesting. But even in the seasons with little in the way of rules changes, it’s an interesting and relatively candid look at the Pac-10 coaches. It’s the only media day function when the

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Dawgman.com is reporting that the Huskies have secured their first oral commitment for its next football recruiting class.

And apparently it’s a good one: Keith Price, a 6-2, 180-pound runner-passer type quarterback from St. John Bosco of Bellflower, Calif.

Price received an offer from Washington last month, and others from Nevada and Utah, but decided to become a Husky.

Until he made the announcement, Washington had been the only Pacific-10 Conference school without any oral commitments. In fact, every other school has at least four.

The University of Washington has released a tentative schedule for fall football camp.

The Huskies will hit the field for the first time on Aug. 4 and will work with only Sunday’s off right up until Aug. 29 when they travel to Eugene for the Aug. 30 season-opener at Oregon.

The Dawgs will continue their recent custom of splitting the squad on four of the practice days, which the coaches believe allows time for more individual work.

There is no indication that any of the practices will be open to the public or media. However, the annual

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