Monday, February 04, 2008

The Monday Morning Wash

National Letter of Intent Signing Day is almost upon us once again. The Huskies could have a surprise or two at the end, but for all intents and purposes recruiting is finished for Washington and they will likely save the one, or two remaining spots for next year.

Overall once it is all said and done the Huskies should have at least a top 15 recruiting class once all the dust settle on Monday.

Dawgman

Dawgman will be the place to be all day on Wednesday as each recruit faxes in their official LOI. Nobody knows recruiting like Dawgman so be sure to check in during the day to see if there are any surprises.

Go Huskies Recruiting Pay Per View Special

GoHuskies.com will have an interesting "Pay for View" feature this year. As soon as each new Husky sends their NLI and financial aid agreement to the UW athletic offices, it will be certified as official by the compliance staff and announced right here at Signing Day Central.

In addition to biographical sketches, information and photos of each signee, veteran Husky play-by-play announcer Bob Rondeau and legendary former Washington quarterback Sonny Sixkiller will host three live online analysis shows. For a one-time fee of $6.95, Husky fans can watch Bob and Sonny analyze each signee, the overall class and their impact on the UW program.

Throughout the three shows, they will also interview various UW coaches and players.
The first show will begin at 9 a.m. (Pacific) with the two remaining shows streaming at 10 and 11 a.m. Each show will also be archived for viewing throughout the day.

Also, video highlights of each signee will be available to pay-per-view registrants beginning on Thursday morning. Coach Willingham's official press conference will begin at 2:30 p.m. and will be streamed live free. The annual Signing Day Celebration and Auction at Bank of America Arena will take place that evening. Doors will open for the event at 6:00 p.m. for dinner and the official program will begin at 7:30.

Husky Basketball R.I.P. 2008

This is the time of the year when college basketball fans start taking RPI seriously, but at Washington they are thinking more RIP. The Huskies were throttled by Stanford on thursday, but bounced back a bit on Saturday only to lose again because of poor foul shooting to California. This may be the worst overall foul shooting team in Washington history. On bright spot was Artem Wallace who had the game of his career on Saturday subbing for foul prone Jon Brockman. Help will arrive next season with the next recruiting class. Isaiah Thomas is capable of being the Freshman Player of the Year in the conference next season. The kid his lightning fast, and can shoot the ball. His play will revive the fond memories we all have about Nate Robinson.

Recruting Tid Bits

David Decastro, and Bradly Roussel seem to be the only players left on the UW board at this time. Roussel was headed to UW earlier this year until Willingham asked him to wait a few more weeks to see if a spot would open up. That spot is now open, the question is whether UW still get him after he committed to Tulane a couple of weeks ago. Decastro is likely headed to Stanford but they are still keeping a spot open for him at UW.

Could UW be on someone else we haven't heard of?

They could because you never know about Ty Willingham who keeps everything pretty close to the vest. We have had a couple signing day surprises since he has been here so you never know.

New Assistant Coaches

Word on the street is that Washington should be in the position to name the other two coaches they are going to hire this week once contract details are worked out.

Nathan Ware

Just four years ago, UW Athletic Director Barbara Hedges - who was likely the worst AD in the nation - resigned. I use the term "resigned" loosely as most Husky fans believe that she was essentially fired. At the time, the department was wrecked. When combined with the problems we read about last week, Rick Neuheisel's basketball pool scandal and the Dr. Feelgood scandal were the straws that broke the camel's back. Hedges had finally sunk the ship. Four years later, with exception of some wins by the football team; the UW athletic department is as well-run of an organization as you'll find in the conference and maybe the country. Hopefully, those football wins are coming soon to complete the story.

Super Bowl

I picked New England because of Tom Brady's quick release which is the best I have seen in many years of watching football. The New York Giant defense on the other hand didn't allow him to use those tools yesterday and it was one of the best fourth quarters we have ever seen at a Super Bowl. The Giant defense was pretty special as they saved their best game for last. You have to hand it to Eli Manning for that last drive. How he ever escaped the clutches of a near sack to effectively end the game and hit David Tyree for that top of the helmet catch will be forever part of Super Bowl lore. Brady under pressure looked mortal for the first time this season. You could see it in his eyes, and that is what makes football interesting because you just never know.

Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet

We were surfing through the dial and found something called Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet. My wife said who would ever watch this? Well we ended up watching it for around 15 minutes because it was hilarious watching puppies, and puppy toys tumble around a little gridiron playing with each other. They even had a half time show featuring kittens. How ceative, and bizarre can you get? Two thumbs up for Puppy Bowl!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

john,

puppy bowl is on every year and it's on for hours... and yes, it usually sucks me in for a total of about a half hour or 45 minutes b/c it's hilarious.

John Berkowitz said...

It was the first time that I had seen it, pretty hilarious.

hairofthedawg said...

Thanks for the heads up! I just checked the channels over here and it looks like I tuned in at halftime. First I've heard about it and I can't imagine a group of puppies not being hilarious.

Anonymous said...

Roussell has recommitted to the Dawgs. I'll save my money and "watch" LOI day at Dawgman.
He took the spot they offered the kid from Hawai'i I believe.

We had the puppy bowl on for a while also....funny stuff

bigdave967 said...

where did your recruiting analysis go??

John Berkowitz said...

Dave- I will be publishing the recruiting analysis as soon as I am sure the class is finished. There are still a couple of questions marks floating around as of this morning.