Bellotti Gives Willingham Vote of Confidence

You might have read in the newspapers yesterday that Oregon coach Mike Bellotti gave UW coach Ty Willingham a vote of confidence in his post game press conference saying it is way too early for people to think of making a change.

Don James said the same thing tongue in cheek about Cal's Joe Kapp. James wanted Kapp to be named coach for life of the Bears.

In college football the Devil you know is much better than the Devil you don't know especially if you have been beating the crap out of the Devil you do know. I can't imagine a coach in the Pac Ten who would want to see Willingham go because he represents an almost automatic win on the schedule.

Mike Bellotti wants Ty Willingham to be named coach of the Huskies for life.

Lappano to open up playbook

I hate to be critical but how many of you did a double take when Tim Lappano said he was going to open up the playbook for BYU this week?

You are telling me that you went into a conference game with eight months to prepare and you didn't have your complete playbook at your disposal? Was that the reason your team wasn't able to figure out the nine in a box alignment that Oregon used to shut down your offense?

This game reminded me a lot of the 2003 opener against Ohio State except this Oregon team is certainly not as good as the 2003 tOSU team. Both games had plenty in common because Washington was completely shut down and ran out of the stadium.

It is only game one and our coaching staff is grasping at straws and this team is drifting back to a 2003 state of development.

This is going to get pretty ugly if it isn't turned around in week two.

Brigham Young's quest for perfection

Welcome to week two!

How many of you tuned in to watch Utah beat dominate Michigan in the Big House last Saturday? Utah is a pretty good team but BYU which plays Washington this weekend is picked to win the conference and challenge for a BCS bowl berth. The stars are aligned in such a way that the Cougars could be playing for all the marbles at the end of the season if they beat UW and UCLA. If they win those two non conference games Utah is probably the biggest hurdle in achieving an undefeated season.

Before the season I circled this as a winnable game and it still is if the Huskies can rebound from last weeks disaster. They say the greatest amount of improvement a team can make is in the weeks between the first and third game. Obviously the Huskies have a lot of room to improve and the talent on the roster to do it with.

One thing that has to emerge this week is team speed. The Huskies looked very slow against Oregon which was a surprise because we were supposed to be a lot faster this season. One thing that makes you look slow is not knowing your assignments well enough. That hesitation when you have to think about what you have to do next is a problem that all young teams have. It keeps the team from playing on all cylinders. If you look at the game film you will notice that Washington didn't have a mistake free play on either side of the ball last weekend.

If Washington is going to beat BYU they are going to have to play together better as a team. A better game plan plus some real game day adjustments from the coaching staff would be a big plus.

Another big key to winning this game would be to hit the playing field with emotion. Washington was flat last week in the first quarter against Oregon and it helped the Ducks run out to a 14 point lead which easily could have turned into 28. You have to figure that this team should be pumped up to play an opener in Husky Stadium against a nationally ranked opponent. If they aren't there is something seriously wrong with the leadership of the program.

Husky quote of the week

This one comes from Jordan White-Frisbee and it really sums up what happened last Saturday.

"With as many in the box as they had, it's going to be hard to run against anybody," White-Frisbee said. "We expected to dominate physically and they dominated us scheme-wise. They played smarter than we did."