Washington is working on several moves to its 2008 schedule to create what would turn out to be three byes, changes that could become official this week.

The moves would consist of:

1, moving the Sept. 13 game at Oregon to Aug. 30, the season opener for both teams;

2, moving the home game with Oklahoma on Sept. 20 to Sept. 13;

3, and moving an Oct. 11 game at Cal to Dec. 6.

If all of that is approved, then UW would have byes on Sept. 20 (in between home games against Oklahoma and Stanford), Oct. 11 (in between games at Arizona and home to Oregon State) and Nov. 29 (the week after the Apple Cup).

The Huskies wanted to create some byes to avoid playing 12 games in 12 weeks, as they did during the 2006 season. And in years when the Apple Cup is in Pullman it takes even more creativity as WSU doesn't want to move the game from its Saturday-before-Thanksgiving date due to the fact that students are off the following week and attendance would suffer.

Aside from creating byes, UW athletic director Todd Turner said he also likes the revamped schedule because "it spreads out the year and it keeps you playing right up until the last part of the season, so if there is a post-season in your future, you've kept your team sharp. The other piece about it is that if probably opens up some TV opportunities for us. I think we will have some pretty good TV exposure.''

There was talk of playing the Oregon game on Aug. 28, a Thursday night, but that couldn't be worked out, Turner said.

Turner said there was no real discussion of changing any opponents for next season --- UW will host Oklahoma, BYU and Notre Dame in non-conference play.

Turner noted that UW already asked Oklahoma once to move its game, from the 2007 season to 2008.

"I just didn't think we could go back to them again,'' he said.

He also said all of those opponents are ones UW would like to continue playing in the future and simply canceling contracts, etc., wouldn't be fair.

All of this is subject to Pac-10 approval, which could come this week.

If approved, it would create the longest regular season in UW history in terms of the time span from the opening game to the final game.

Here is the 2008 schedule as currently constructed and before any of the proposed changes.