Monday, August 21, 2006

Monday Morning Wash

I know it is the Monday Morning Wash, but I was delayed till the afternoon because I wanted to get the official word before posting something that may, or may not be factual.

Good news in the Husky Camp today as a new highly recruited RB has arrived on the scene by way of transfer from the University of Texas. Ty confirmed the rumor this afternoon in his press conference. Just the other day I was bemoaning the fact that Ty hadn't picked up a transfer, or walkon at RB and he pulls this bull from out of his sleave from the Longhorns.

Michael Houston at 5'11 238 is the big back they have been looking for. He will have to sit out 2006, but will have three years to play. Texas played him last year and he had three carries for 27 yards. The Denver native was originally recruited by Notre Dame, UCLA, Texas, and Colorado, and was rated among the #63 RB in the nation by Scout in 2005. Texas wanted him on defense, and looking at his size he may have been a pretty damn good LB, but he wants to play offense, and now he is at Washington where he will immediately gain playing time in the starting rotation for next season. His HS coach describes him as the second coming of Lendale White. No word on how long Washington had been recruiting him, this was a tight secret that lasted till he checked into the dorms last night. It would be nice if he had a couple of OL show up by surprise too! Anyway this is a really nice piece to help finish out the future puzzle in a true area of need. Good insurance if Hasty doesn't make it back, since Ranking would have been the only RB with experience on the roster next year.

Michael Houston is an impressive kid.....check this out

Scout from 2005.

Willingham also announced that walk-on linebacker Mark Farney of Bellevue High has rejoined the team.

Greyson Gunheim is ok, and can come back within 1-3 weeks. Chances are he will be just fine when we head to Oklahoma. He should be ok for SJSU, but the coaches and training staff will be conservative. One encouraging sign is that the guys behind him Ala, Winter, and Rayford are also playing well this pre season. You hate to see Greyson slow down, but we have some depth behind him. Ala is a senior, he has something to prove.

Nothing on the JC's yet, but you would figure that grades would be posted today, or at least early this week. We haven't heard zip on Chancellor Young, get that paper in Chancellor! Something should happen soon, just don't know the exact moment on all these guys.

The team had the day off from practice yesterday but was still together for the most part working on stuff that did not count as an official practice. Good move by Willingham who sensed them hitting the all on Saturday and gave them a little time to recoup. So far I really like the way he is running his camp this year. This is going to be a tough week for these guys, it's still limbo time till you are a week out from the opener. Plenty of competiton for starting jobs still going on, plenty of extra conditioning too.

Will be back later today as more stuff pops up, but all in all a pretty good news day!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

johnb, this is a fantastic get. I have always said we should be looking at a JC RB in this years class with 3 to play 3 purely for balance with Rankin and hasty next year. This is even better as we know he is already here and we don't have to go through the hoops we are doing with this years JCs. By my count, it looks like we will have the full 25 to offer for this year. I see 1 punter, and at least 1 per each position on O and D, with the two remaining schollies going to OLs to make up the shortfalls. Of course if TW can pull more rabbits out of the hat this year, we will be in even better shape.

John Berkowitz said...

I think it is pretty good too. It will nice to have him practicing against our defense ths season while he gets ready to play in 2007.

I don't know if we end up with a punter, we may, but Perkins can punt if he recovers from his knee injury. We still have another year of Braunstein. will be interesting to see what they do.

This kid arrived just like Chancellor Young did last year, but what makes more impressive is that he is from Texas, not Duke.

I can see us taking up to six OL this year, two being JC's. We will definitely grab a JC CB too.

I am getting excited about this team, I can hardly wait to see them play.

hairofthedawg said...

So what does Houston do this year? Work out with the scout team? I don't know that that's the best way for him to learn the offense, but he'll make a big difference there, I'm sure.

John Berkowitz said...

Houston will work with the Scout team som, but in Ty's system even the Scout team guys get meaningful minutes playing with the regulars.

Because of the lack of depth at TB this will allow Ty to rest James,Rankin, and Sampson more during practice while giving meaningful time to houston to get him ready for a big roll next year.

He is now listed at 6'1 238, but coming out of HS was more like 5'11, so maybe he put on a few inches last year. They will try to keep him under 230.

Make no mistake about it, Houston is a true Pac Ten back, and a big get for next season. If Hasty comes back we will have three experienced backs plus two frosh.