2012 UW Football Preview

The last time I got the energy to write on SS&O, I promised to be back to my usual semi-frequent writing self. Since then, I have realized that I don’t have that in me. Not even a Felix Hernandez perfect game could get me to write. The King had arguably the best individual performance in Seattle sports history and I didn’t comment on it. I did instagram about it though (b_boyd619, I don’t take THAT many pictures of sunsets and I could use some more non-sorority girl followers). But the point is that I am not the writing machine I thought I could be when Stanton and I started this blog last year. The application to the UW Football Preview is coming soon folks, trust me. There is one thing that will infinitely motivate me though. Ever since I was probably about ten, my dad stopped buying a program for every Husky Football game, and so did most of the people in the vicinity of Section 32, Row X, seats 3 and 4. They had me. I am a wealth of Husky Football knowledge. People who want to know a little bit about the team to have enough to talk about at a tailgate ask me how the team is going to be this year. That is what I can do for you. Husky Football is the one thing that I will always have the time to write about. So here we go. Welcome to the 2012 Washington Huskies.

The above image is the lasting one for the 2011 UW Football campaign. Robert Griffin III and Terrence Ganaway ran away from the UW defense in the Alamo Bowl back in December. The Dawgs lost 67-56 that night, giving up 777 yards of total offense. Those numbers are disgusting, even for the biggest proponent of offensive football. Such was the case for most of last season. Nick Holt and co. gave up 51 points to Nebraska, 65 to Stanford, 34 to Oregon, 40 to USC, and 38 to Oregon State amidst several other lousy defensive performances. To make matters worse, the offense was absolutely dynamite at times last season. Keith Price set passing TD records, Chris Polk ran for almost 1,500 yards and highly touted freshmen Kasen Williams and Austin Seferian-Jenkins performed extremely well. The firing of defensive coordinator Nick Holt after the Alamo Bowl was in my opinion about a month too late, but absolutely requited. You can’t be paid to be a defensive coordinator if your defense actually looks uncoordinated. I’m telling you, there are way better defenses out there with much worse players than the Huskies do, so the finger points up.

In steps the Great White Hope, or hopes actually, the new UW assistant coaches. New defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox, linebackers coach Peter Sirmon, new secondary coach Keith Heyward, and the gem of the group, D-Line coach and recruiting extraordinaire Tosh Lupoi. Lupoi’s impact won’t be seen on gameday necessarily, but his impact on the recruiting scene is absolutely incredible. The guy is cooler than Sean from Boy Meets World and 18 year old kids love it. I can’t say this with 100% certainty but he’s the reason we got Shaq Thompson. Who’s that?

SS&O’s Pac-12 Football Preview

Pinch yourself. Yep, this is real life. And football season is finally here…

Some say the Holiday season is the best part of the year. Others can’t wait for Summer to come and then never want to see it end. You may even call March the best month of the year, for obvious reasons (Madness anyone?). But I brush all of those opinions aside. Because you’re wrong, and it’s not even close. The best time of the year, bar none, is FOOTBALL SEASON. The roar of the crowd, cracking of helmets, and maybe even the sizzle of large amounts of meat on a grill. This and much more form to make an experience that is impossible to recreate, no matter how hard you try. So buckle up your chinstrap and get ready, because it’s about time we welcomed back the best thing since…well, nothing actually.

The Pac-12 conference was full of excitement and surprises last season, and I am sure we are in for much more of the same this year. We welcome back USC to postseason contention and Oregon is still full of thugs with a scum of the earth coach. And no, UCLA, we are not giving you credit for winning the South division last year.

The conference has also welcomed many new faces into the head coaching ranks, including the likes of Mike Leach at Washington State, Jim L. Mora at UCLA, Rich Rodriguez at Arizona, and Todd Graham at Arizona State. With their additions we are sure to see changes not only in style of play, but also in the standings. The biggest change could in fact be out on the Palouse, where Mike Leach already has everyone “swinging their swords.” I wonder when somebody will let him know this isn’t the show at Treasure Island in Las Vegas. But I digress, we unfortunately will not have much time to talk about pirates’ role in the Pac-12, but we will get to the new-look Cougars later in this article. (Edit: It’s not looking that great so far)

Let’s just make this easy and dive into the meat of the article right off the bat. Season Predictions. Feel free to disagree all you want about our preseason take on the conference, and I encourage you to let your opinion be known in the comments below, but after long consideration, this is what we came up with.

UW Football Recruiting Update – 1/24

The recruiting process rolls on as we are only a week and a day away from Signing Day. The Dawgs have been quite active over the past week, attempting to play the part of the antagonist and steal recruits from various schools, specifically Cal. Here’s what happened since our last recruiting update:

• Four star WR Jordan Payton (Oaks Christian HS, CA) took an official visit to UW this weekend and seemed to love what he saw on Montlake. His player host was Keith Price, so how could you go wrong. He was in attendance at the UW-Stanford basketball game at Hec Ed, accompanied by Sark and WRs coach Jimmie Dougherty to name a few. The Dawg Pack even helped by chanting his name during the second half. What was most encouraging though was what he said on his Twitter account: “Dawgs in the house”, “Let’s just say its a done deal now”, and the real eye opener, “I like the rain.” I would be very surprised if the Huskies don’t lock up his services at the end of this process, as most other recruiting analysts would agree. Look for him to make a decision sometime later this week, particularly during the Huskies in-home visit on Saturday.
• The Zach Banner (Lakes HS, WA) saga continues as he took an official visit to USC this past weekend and claimed it to be the best one yet. At this point, his final three schools are Washington, USC, and Oklahoma. Banner will announce next monday and not on signing day as he had planned in order to ensure he doesn’t overshadow others who are also signing national letters of intent. On top of that, he also cancelled in-home visits with all three head coaches of the schools still involved. I tend to believe he’s leaning towards USC at the moment, but Sark is supposedly taking this recruitment into his own hands which is encouraging. Regardless, these are the kind of players that need to be locks for the Huskies. Sark was able to wrangle up the big in-state recruits last year, but this time around seems to not be the case.
• Cedric Dozier (Lakes HS, WA), a teammate of Banner and another 4 star recruit, is still a commit to California, but is also considering WSU and UW. I would say at this point the Huskies are a long shot due to the fact they are recruiting him as a CB, whereas Dozier prefers Safety. He visited WSU over the past weekend and enjoyed the Pullman, but I don’t see it being enough to overcome the commitment he has to California.