Had our first briefing with UW coach Tyrone Willingham since Thursday a little whiile ago. Here are a few highlights:

--- Said J.R. Hasty is day-to-day with what apparently is an ankle injury (he didn't detail what it was). Hasty is in heavy competition for the backup RB spot and Willingham said this injury could impact Hasty's chances of getting that job. "Everything as you get closer affects it,'' Willingham said.

--- Said PK Erik Folk could be out for the Syracuse game with a lingering back injury. This is something of a surprise as we had been led to believe that Folk was beginning to recover from the back spasms that held him out earlier in camp. Willingham didn't go into detail about what is going on now, only confirming that it is still the back injury. But he said this means it is likely that Jared Ballman and Ryan Perkins will handle all of the kicking chores against Syracuse. In terms of which kicker will do what, however, Willingham said that is "still up in the air.''

--- CB Byron Davenport (hamstring), LB Donald Butler (knee), RB Brandon Yakaboski (concussion), WR Cody Ellis (hamstring) and DE Darrion Jones (ankle) also sat out Friday. That is particularly critical for Davenport, who was all but ruled out by defensive coordinator Kent Baer on Friday. Willingham agreed that it would now be hard for Davenport to see action against the Orange.
"We're getting close,'' to it being too late for Davenport to play against Syracuse, Willingham said. "He's missed a sizeable amount of time with conditioning and other things that could impact his ability to play.''

--- Willingham said he is likely to take 66-70 players to the game, a number that will likely include some true freshmen who may not necessarily be in line to play, such as No. 3 QB Ronnie Fouch.

--- For those who want to know who will be doing the game for ESPN, the play-by-play man is Sean McDonough with Chris Spielman, Colin Cowherd and Rob Stone assisting.

UPDATE 4:30 p.m. --- Back from practice and the injury situation looked much the same. Hasty was riding a stationary bike and appeared to be limping quite a bit when he was moving around. Folk was also moving pretty slowly, and Jones was still out.

Davenport appeared to be doing a little more but all we see are the warmups.
Still, he seemed a little more active running around. Ellis also appeared to be doing better.

On the issue of using the Dempsey Indoor to prepare for Syracuse, Willingham said today he doesn't plan to do that. Said the reason for not is that it constricts what can be done with the kicking game and that the noise can be replicated well enough staying outdoors. He said the heat may not be as big of an issue since he said a front is expected to come in next week that will make it a little cooler than it normally is this time of year.

Rick Neuheisel did use the Dempsey Indoor quite a bit but he had also pushed quite a bit for its building. It hasn't been used much since he left as Keith Gilbertson always seemed to think it was better to be outdoors if you were going to play outdoors and Willingham seems to think the same. I wrote a story about that a year or so ago that it was somewhat ironic that the football team barely uses the Indoor facility anymore when it was built mostly for football. But the baseball, track and softball teams all use it a lot, so it gets plenty of work.