Monday, February 11, 2008

The Monday Morning Wash

It's the Monday after signing day and things are starting to slow down till Spring ball. I will try to keep it interesting till then. I will be doing some interviews with other Pac Ten Bloggers leading into Spring. If your a Pac Ten, or out of conference opponent blogger send me an e-mail and we will get it going.

Something interesting happened yesterday. I hope you tuned in to watch the basketball game. I had frankly written this years team off even though I kept watching them while on TV. I guess I was wrong, that was an impressive victory yesterday even though it may be too late to mean much at the end of the season. Too bad the Huskies didn't play with that intensity the past three games.

The Huskies go to Pullman next week, and the Cougs have been beatable lately, but they sure did pound USC into the ground on Saturday. We played them to a draw at home losing in the last seconds. Expect a similar duel in Pullman as the Huskies try to end their WSU losing streak.

Scratch the above, we go to the Willamette Valley this week to play the Oregon schools. We play WSU in the last game of the year before the Pac Ten Tournament.

Can Washington still make a tournament?

I think they are on life support right now, it would take a sensational finish to make the NIT. For the Big Dance we would have to win the Pac Ten Tournament. I guess we can still dream about a late season run like the one that Nate and the boys gave us a few years ago. You just never know when a young team will start clicking.

It would have been easy for this team to have quit by now, but Romar keeps them bouncing back.

Nathan Ware

(Don't feel bad, I am happily in the same boat.)

Luckily for me, the Dawgblawg fits into the people of Seattle's entertainment plans somewhere between the Game Show Network and those chick-shows on Bravo. I say that because I'm hoping that only about 10 people read my prediction of today's UW-UCLA game where I picked the Huskies to lose by 18.

A Tale of Two Jim's

How about Jim Zorn getting a shot as a NFL head coach? Jim has put his time in both in college and the pros over the last ten or so years to position himself for the shot. Washington is a pretty tough place to be succesful right now, but Jim will be well paid for the effort. You can bet we see him back in Seattle before he is all through.

Jim Mora was annointed as the successor to Mike Holmgren of the Seahawks after next season. To me it seems they are pushing Holmgren out the door because it seemed to me he was open for an extension. Mora's dalliance with the two Washington's made the Hawks play their hand about a year early. That hand cost them Jim Zorn, and maybe a Bill Cowher.

Recruiting Never Stops

The Husky staff hosted a number of local juniors this weekend at Montlake. Garfield's big DT DeAndre Coleman reportedly got an offer. Prep combines have already started in the Southland for the class of 2009.

Neuheisel on the Seattle Times Series From Matt Hayes of TSN

This is a must read article out on the national beat.

While covering Signing Day, I spoke with Neuheisel about a recent Seattle Times investigation into the 2000 Rose Bowl championship team. He hasn't talked publicly about the stories, but was clearly disturbed by the way he was portrayed -- and frankly, by his own admission, that he didn't do more.

Back then, I wrote a story detailing Neuheisel's termination from Washington and the direction he was headed with his lawsuit. After my story was published, a few staff members from the Seattle Times emailed me and voiced their displeasure.

Stanford Hires a New DC

Stanford hired Ron Lynn on Friday to be the team's new co-defensive coordinator and assistant head coach. Lynn, who has 38 years of coaching experience in college and the pros, will share the defensive coordinator duties with linebackers coach Andy Buh. The two will replace Scott Shafer, who left last month to take the defensive coordinator job at Michigan. Lynn has been a defensive coordinator in the NFL with San Diego, Cincinnati and Washington. He also served as secondary coach for New England, the Oakland Raiders and San Francisco 49ers.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Johnb, it was a terrific effort by the dawgs. We kept thinking when was UCLA going to go on their run. The excitement was in the air.
Next up is Oregon schools, WSU is last Pac 10 game before tourney.

bigdave967 said...

I think if we win out, putting us at .500 in the league with a 16-10 overall record with wins over UCLA, ASU, Oregon and WSU, as well as a good showing in the Pac 10 tourney, we should get a def shot in the NIT with a long look for the Big Dance. Its not out of reach if they just play the way they did last night.

John Berkowitz said...

Oooops, was just recounting the schedule backwards...on to the Willamette Valley.

I don't think 16-10 is good enough for the NIT, and I really doubt we win out.

I think our best chance is to win the Pac Ten Tourney to end up going anywhere.

Anonymous said...

A super effort by the Dawgs yesterday.
I'm happy to see someone nationally question the Times recent "expose". We need more writers actually giving thought as to the Times motives.

Anonymous said...

John, how do we email you?

John Berkowitz said...

john@medequote.com