Moore is making a wise decision. Sad to see him choose Florida over Washington, though =(

Condotta, you are ridiculous for giving Dixon your second place vote! Mcfadden deserves it no question asked!! Get a clue!!!!!!!!!

Erik,
This is UW country. You are all clueless. When you spent the fall in the cellar, it is hard to see what is going on in the football world.

Just got back from watching BSU, and UW basketball. If TT wanted buzz, he should have hired Gordy Presnell. Anyway, just wanted to say so long to all the good blog buddies(you know who you are). It's been fun. Time to go. Enjoy the Dawg!!!

Here's our future Heisman winner, baby!!

http://derekjohnsonbooks.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/2007-flashback-huskies-24-boise-state-10/

You shoulda voted Dixon #1. If he doesn;t get hurt it's the Ducks and Buckeyes in the BCS title game.

No question Tebow deserves it this year. His stats are unreal.

I agree with leaving McFadden off the ballot. He is a great RB no doubt, but I just didn't see him dominate every single game like a Heisman RB should.

Pinkel's boy gets no love Bob? I would have had replaced Dixon with Daniel.

Florida sounds good to me about, now. Now, he may have second thoughts working out in Florida in August. Ah, well.

I certainly won't shed any tears if he doesn't get it, but injuries or not, I thought Dixon's season and importance to his team were the best and biggest this year. If I was an Oregon fan (har har), I'd be a little bitter if he missed out. That said, Tebow's great. I don't think anyone else is all that Heisman-worthy. If Dixon's injury is relevant, then so is Brennan's cupcake schedule... and isn't he like 30 years old anyway? :)

Bob

Did your ever consider Armanti Edwards of App State U. After watching his win at the big house as well as his win over Richmond tonight I think he is the best player and the most valuable player to his team overall. Not to mention he has take his team to it's third consecutive national title game.

I read the Heisman web page and oould not find any prohibition against a non bowl subdivision player (Non D-1 - these new names still confuse me) being awarded the trophy.

Has a non D-1 player ever won the trophy before?

A few years ago, I believe one writer gave a first place Heisman vote to U of Montana (I-AA) safety Vince Huntsberger. He had great on the field numbers, was a leader of a good I-AA defense, and had many solid off-the-field credentials as well. So I don't think it's against any rules to vote for I-AA players.

By the way, ater leaving Montana, I believe Huntsberger went to UW Medical School (may still be there).

Bob, I don't blame you for not voting for McFadden, but I will hazard a guess and say he will have more impact in the pros than the 3 you voted for, but that's not unusual for Heisman voting.
Boise, it sounds like you're resigning your commission in the Husky Blog, what gives?

AS much as would hate to see a Duck within 20 feet of the Heisman trophy there is no doubt Dixon was deserving, he was the entire offense of a top 5 team, without him the Ducks are predictable and easy to defend.

Schudule. Make it easier... When I first saw UW had the hardest schedule in football I knew it was a mistake. Ohio State had the 60th rated schedule and they are in the championship game. UW needs to learn from Ohio State.

I'm alone on this one, but Brennan would have received my vote. I think he got screwed last year -- just look at his '06 numbers. Many of them look like misprints they are so unreal! Anyway, his numbers dropped off a bit this year, but he still put up amazing stats.
I realize the level of competition he played against wasn't that good, but he was also working with a team made up of lesser talent than say a Florida or Oregon. So that does level the playing field somewhat.
At any rate, any guy who completely re-writes the record books at the most difficult and important position on the football field should win the Heisman. I kind of feel like a "big school" bias came into play here.
Finally, for those of us who actually watched him play, his accuracy is absolutely ridiculous. He could kill a fly on the wall from 90 feet away with a tight spiral! His ability to lay difficult passes right on the money was a lot of fun to watch. And that has nothing to do with the schedule. His accuracy was amazing regardless of the competition!
Anyway, just one guy's thoughts. To have a kid who owns damn near every record a quarterback can own not win the Heisman kind of makes the award seem more political than meritorious to me.

Caineman --

I agree 100%. I actually called Turner's office about this. There is little to be gained by scheduling out of conference games against the likes of Oklahoma, Nebraska, Ohio State, etc. Even if our program was on top of its game, my view is we should play out of conference teams like that in bowl games. The Pac10 provides us with plenty of good football to watch and plenty of difficult teams to play.
I view our out of conference schedule as somewhat of a "preseason." I would like to see three "warm up" games before the Pac10 season. Maybe schedule a patsy for week one (e.g. Idaho)to work out kinks and flaws, a slightly more established program for week two (e.g. Fresno State), and then a mid level program for week three (e.g. BYU). I think the negatives greatly outweigh the positives when you line up games against regular top 10 programs. And regardless of what folks say about strength of schedule, if we're 1-2 out of conference versus good competition that doesn't look nearly as good as 3-0 versus weaker opponents. And more importantly, I think an easier early season schedule allows our players learn more, develop better, and gain confidence when they have a chance to ease into the Pac10 schedule rather than playing a brutal schedule wire to wire. (as an example, recall this last year!)

is it possible that Ohio st, Oklahoma, and some of the other "big boys" see Washington as an established mid level program? One thing for sure...the Dawgs put up a fight but still loose. What more could you ask for in an out of confernce game? Do I like the "big games"? yes
Do I like loosing? Hell no! But it does seem that a change in U of W scheduling is in order for the good of the program.

An easier non-conference schedule makes sense (look at Kansas this year) but I still don't like it. Maybe it's just pride, but when the Huskies come back to top form it's fun to tangle with the best. I like the attitude that we want to play and beat the best. It's a version of Juan Garcia's attitude, of which we need more. Those tough non-conference games also produce widespread television coverage, once we are the big, bad Dawgs again.

The out of conference schedule will pay off during the conference schedule, in the bowl game, and the following year. When you play Ohio State ( A team in the NC Game) close during the "preseason" and with a young team. You then fear no one during the conference and bowl season and for underclassmen, the following year. The UW is playing those tough schedules to leave little question at the end of the year. That is if there are two or three one or even two loss teams in line for the NC or a major bowl the Huskies will have a strong case to play.

We are a program who should be and will be in the mix for not only conference titles but national titles as well.

That may be hard to fathom right now but most teams that play for the title usually schedule a tough team from another conference. We hurt Ohio State SOS and I am sure they were not thinking the Huskies would have a losing season when they scheduled the game.

We do and have scheduled the Nevada's, San Jose State's, Utah's. And Fresno States. No disrespect to those teams but they were pretty much automatic wins four out of five times in the past.

However, No team is an automatic win with parity of college football today. Just ask Michigan about App. State!

Hawaii illustrates my point and would be in the title game if they had one signature win against a top team from a BCS conference. Furthermore, a win sealed by a last second interception against the last place team in the pac 10 will not and did not get it done for the pollsters.

I would suggest to you that we look bad now so we can look really good in the future!

Steve, "...the Dawgs put up a fight but still loose. What more could you ask for in an out of confernce game?"

For crying out loud, how about winning?

Our four non-conference games included two former WAC teams, an historically awful football program and Ohio State. Three of the four games we should have won, Syracuse, BSU and Hawaii. The fourth is a game that you play because we are in the Pac-10 and nobody truly respects our conference. Kansas can get away with playing a cupcake schedule b/c they play in the Big-12 and the news media loves the Big-12.

The Huskies have have a great schedule and a mediocre coach that doesn't meet any of his own goals. If he met his own goals nobody would care about the schedule.

Boise I hope you aren't leaving the blog. You are one of the voices of reason on here. I'v e enjoyed your posts even when I didn't agree.

Look at USC's out of conference schedule last year. Four teams (including the bowl game) in the Top 25, I believe: Nebraska, Notre Dame, Arkansas, and Michigan. Obviously, off-years by ND and Nebraska hurt them this year, but it is clear what they were hoping for. Despite what Turner says, we do not need to be "like Oregon." Our goal is to be "like Southern Cal." We don't need to have a schedule as tough as that; but that is the kind of team we want to be like.

Jake Locker for the Heisman next year!!! The UW should starting promoting Jake Locker for the Heiman next year. It would be good exposure for the UW and Jake Locker. If Florida did with Tim Tebow then the UW can do it with Jake Locker...

Yeah, we need "to be more like Oregon". You know, a team that starts fast and then fades fast. Nice goal Turner.
If anyone wonders what is wrong with UW athletics, you only need to listen to Toad Turner talk to know.

The non-conference scheduling is being done in the same way it has for most seasons since at least the early 80s (I look at every season back to 1980). They usually try to schedule one game against a top level opponent (Ohio St. this year), one against a team from a smaller conference (BSU) and one against a mid-level or bottom-feeder team from another major conference (Syracuse). This year we obviously also had Hawaii as a bonus 13th game.


They have used this strategy in scheduling for many years. For example, in 2000 we played Miami (11-1), Colorado (3-8), and Idaho (doesn't matter). In 1992 we played Nebraska (9-3), Wisconsin (5-6), and Pacific. In 1983 we played Northwestern, Michigan, LSU, and Navy.


Yes, there are exceptions to this scheduling strategy, but if you look at UW's schedules back through time you will see that the last few years have not been an exception but rather the norm. The athletic department just didn't change their scheduling strategy when the team got worse. You can argue that maybe they should have, but then this team would have been playing schedules worthy of Oregon State teams in the late 90s when they would play 3 push over teams (at least one of which would be I-AA). Sure it might get a couple more wins, but do the fans really want to go to see the matchup between UW and San Jose St. (or equivalent) 3-4 times each year? (you may actually want to, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!)

Scheduling some patsies would have been nice over the past few years if for no other reason than it would give us some wins to pitch when we are recruiting.

Great post Bleedin' Purple!

And to answer your last point...
"Umm NO", I do not want to watch 3 pathetic Non-Conf opponents each year.

The scheduling is fine. We just need to shore up our defense and stop blowing games at the end.

Oh, and as others have pointed out before (myself included):

The non-conference schedule has NOT been a problem the last few years when TW has been running towards his goal of getting to a bowl game.

2006: 2-1 in Non-Conference Play.
2007: 2-1 in Non-Conference Play.

The problem is that we are getting smacked around in our OWN conference!

Ohio state is not complaining about their schedule....
Youngstown State...
I do not like BCS but it is the way to beat the system...

Fear the Blue I mean BOOOO, you are a dumbass!! Im a husky alum and 6 year season ticket holder!! YES this is husky country, thats why you DONT vote for a @#$%ing ducks!!! Mcfadden played in the toughest conference plus he was the best player on a team that beat LSU, Dixon wasnt even the best player on that team, J. Stewart was, hes a lock to be a 1st round pick! Get a clue Blue, you are not my boy BOOOOOOOOOO

P.S.
We were not 2-1 in Non-Conference paly is 2007???
We were 2-2...
Beat - Boise State and Syracure
Loss - Ohio State and Hawaii
Please check your math...
Until we can again handle our our conference we need to padding our schedule with wins so we can start going to bowl games every year...

My mistake on this year. Still, 2-2 against a VERY good non-conference schedule is fine. It's the 2-7 against the Pac-10 that's the problem.

Oh, and it's Syracuse. Not Syracure. Please check your spelling.

Don't any of you realize how far out the schedule is made?
It's very rare to be able to swap like we did with Oklahoma this year.
If they started padding the future schedules now, we'd all be complaining about the pathetic opponents in 2010 when we are good again.

The bottom line is that you simply need to win the games in your conference and you go to a bowl. The non-conference games (3 in a normal year) have very rarely been a key problem.

Well even though Moore did not choose to be a Dawg at least we don't have to watch him on a west coast team.

Bob - I agree with your picks - Tebow deserves as he finished out the season. I almost want to go with Dixson as he played with a ton of heart - especially still out there giving it his all with his knee injury.

C'mon Thompson and DeCastro - you know you want to be DAWGS!

Then you go to the non conference games and watch us get our butts kicked... Ohio State, Michigan, Notra Dame, Nebraska. I am tired of spending the money and watching the losing. You spend the money and go stud...

It's hard to argue with your ballot Bob, but I think I would have included McFadden over either Brennan or Dixon based on the LSU game alone. The best D in the country and he was unstoppable.

Ty the Loser, Fact of the Day

Brought to you by ticket buying Husky football fans sick of mediocre coaches & losing

Fact of the day #4: Dollars per win, 2007 Pac-10 coaches (salary/wins)

1. Dennis Erickson, Arizona State - $50,000
2. Mike Riley, Oregon State - $110,625
3. Bill Doba, Washington State - $131,292
4. Mike Bellotti, Oregon - $131,904
5. Karl Dorrell, UCLA - $141,667
6. Mike Stoops, Arizona - $203,058
7. Pete Carroll, USC - $279,466
8. Jeff Tedford, California - $300,967
9. Ty Willingham, Washington - $367,569

Thought of the day: We should also rank university presidents and athletic directors this way.

Ty the Loser, Fact of the Day

Presented daily until the University of Washington starts caring about winning football again.

Delivered daily to:

Dr. Mark Emmert, President of the University of Washington
Todd Turner, future Pac-10 Commissioner?
Pac-10 Recruiting Coordinators
Groz & Gas, Bert & Ernie
Mitch Levy, voice of reason (Seattle sports media, listen to Mitch's Husky Rant: http://www.kjram.com/pages/Mitch_in_the_Morning.html )
Dave Mahler, Seahawks Honk
Ian Furness, wishes there were more Jewish Huskies so he could get 8 great days of gifts instead of just one; 12/5/07
Dick Fain, John Clayton's hairdresser
Husky Half Brains, did they leap off the Aurora Bridge yet? Yep. (http://huskyhalfbrains.com/blog/?p=37 )
John Boyle, Everett Herald
Jerry Brewer, Seattle Times
Bob Condotta, Seattle Times
Tom Dienhart, The Sporting News
Ken Goe, Oregonian
Matt Hayes, The Sporting News
Dwight Jaynes, Portland Tribune
Greg Johns, Seattle P-I
Derek Johnson, Husky Historian
Steve Kelley, genius, Seattle Times
Ted Miller, Seattle P-I
Jim Moore, Seattle P-I, today is the last chance to pick-up Jerramy Stevens for Sunday's game in Yahoo! Fantasy Football leagues
John Sleeper, Everett Herald
Art Thiel, Seattle P-I
Nathan Ware, P-I Husky blogger
Bud Withers, Seattle Times
Molly Yanitty, throwing players under the bus
Firetoddtuner.com, voice of the frustrated UW athletics fan
Coacheshotseat.com, the finger on America's pulse
Deadspin.com
And Husky Fans Everywhere

Wouldn't you guys that are season ticket holders rather pay to see good teams, rather than to see Arkansas State, Idaho State, North Texas and other patsies? For instance, next 2 years, Neb ticket holders will be paying $65-75, plus the minimum $500 donation to see Western Michigan, Louisiana Lafayette, Arkansas St., Florida Atlantic, New Mexico State and San Jose State. That's probably 7 sure wins, but that's not much value for the buck.

Regardless of what those on this comment board might say about wanting to see wins for their money, the sure win games against the likes of San Jose St., Idaho, etc. tend to be those with the smallest attendance. Obviously there are quite a few people that would rather see a decent opponent win or lose.

soften the nonconference schedule???are you nuts? Are you college football fans?? Those games against ND, Okla, Ohio St are GREAT matchups...I woulod rather watch us struggle and lose to them foreveern than watch wins against Idaho, Syracuse, etc. WHat are you thinking. Yes, you are right...Indiana is in a bowl this year BECAUSE of its games at Akron and a bunch of nobodies. UW is just about the only team that has NOT palyed d2 teams...I agree, the conference is tough...go look at the details, they are revealing, Mike Price had a career losing record in conference. Oregon for years had the best record but not th ebest conference record...last thing I want is to start playing bums

I can't remember the last time I cared about the Heisman. It's always a trophy that goes to the best player who had the privilege to be on national television every week.

Losing Moore is no real shock. Seemed like he wanted the biggest stage to show his skills, and it's hard to argue against Florida for that. I'm sometimes baffled, though, at these guys who choose to sit on the bench at one school rather than be a starter somewhere else. I can't imagine Florida could be that hurting for receivers.

I couldn't agree more bomberboy. We are one of four schools left who have not played a d2 team. Let's keep it that way and play a real schedule. The lamewads to the south (uo, osu) pretty much guarantee they'll go undefeated in nonconference play with their schedules, beavs in particular but remember the beavs used to go 1-2 against the likes of eastern washington, portland state and idaho. Keep a real schedule because we'll be back where we are used to being -- top 3rd of the conference.

Bomberboy: I believe that there are now only five teams not to play I-AA teams:

Washington
Notre Dame
USC
UCLA
Michigan State

Not bad company. Know who was on this last only a year ago?

Michigan.

(Actually, Ohio State was on the list last year, too; now let's see how they fare against some real competition. USC would destroy tOSU this year). There is never a good reason to play a I-AA team. It will not help you gain respect if you win; that is expected. It will destroy all respect for you if you lose. And it is always a discredit to your program's honor to play against such inferior competition.

Personally I am proud of the UW's desire to play quality opponents. This isn't the Gil Dobie era, when we simply couldn't FIND enough good teams within traveling distance to play against. At least we played the ones that we could find! May Washington never schedule a I-AA opponent.

Willingham:

11-25 Overall
1-8 vs NW Schools
6-20 Pac-10 overall
Worst statistical defense ever

Thanks. You'll see this again.

Show Me The Integrity!
WARNING: Some content may not be suitable for children. Well, most of it isn't. What else is new? You can drop F bombs in this format. That's new. Lot's of great writers use curse words. They are important to the story.

The forces of Sky Marshall Turner are sweeping up the last of the rebel Half Brain forces and are closing in on my undisclosed location as I write this. The slaughter is complete and bloody and the loss is devastating. Make no mistake about it, the Half Brain revolution was crushed as badly as a Kent Baer defense.

Forces loyal to the Upper Campus Elite Guard pulled a flanking maneuver and crushed all resistance in a stunning display of bureaucratic efficiency that took every bit of Sky Marshall Turner's thirty year insider knowledge.

We foolishly thought that facts and logic would win the day but we were no match for the agenda of the Elite whose disdain for championship football is legendary. The fog of war has obscured all of the facts involved in the great victory for mediocrity and slogans over substance.

We never had a chance. The game was fixed. We needed more bullets. We came through some turbulent waters. We didn't look like Turner's minions. We should have aspired to be like bureaucrats.

The war was lost in 1993, as many of us long suspected but didn't want to admit to ourselves. I can still see the plastic, botox enhanced smile of Mistress Hedges as she slipped the blade into Don James back on orders from Herr Gerberding. The Crapzini Family had already hit Mike Lude. That left the Husky Football program wide open to be looted by the Upper Campus who were tired of unpaid campus parking tickets and bonus sandwiches to football players at the Tyee Golf Course, no relation to the fast dwindling Tyee Club.

This is where the first glaring lack of integrity was shown by the pious hypocrites who are always piously and hypocritically talking about integrity. Championship football does come with some boys will be boys behavior that is harmless but often magnified by scandal mongering old media hacks. Florida has had 9 players arrested since they won the National Title. Hey, that means 74 haven't been arrested. This is the type of balanced reporting only found in the new media here on the Internets.

Our Upper Campus Elite did not like the "expose" on the program done by the Trojan Newsletter in LA. So they acted to take out the King and to de-emphasize football.

That in itself is completely in the purview of a major university to do. I said so at the time but there was no Internet so nobody heard me. What shows a complete lack of integrity is that the powers kept Mike Lude's pricing structure that was bringing in tens of millions of dollars each year and supported the Sears Cup sports that the pinheads liked.

Let me make that simple for any Willingham supporters reading this. They didn't want the winning and the headaches, but they wanted the cash. That shows a lack of integrity. And yet I, and thousands of others, continued to write the check and even paid more as Mistress Hedges added surcharges to both the Tyee and the tickets. Soon Olympic Sport venues began appearing on the campus and the football stadium and the team slowly rusted away.

The scam was to talk like they wanted big time football to keep the cash flowing in, but to act against big time football by having such an incompetent administrator in charge.

That incompetence manifested itself when the bungling Babs ended up firing Rick Neuheisel in June to try to save her own wrinkled hide. Mistress Hedges soon followed Rick out the door only to be replaced by........

Todd Turner! The Vandynman came with his thirty years of insider knowledge and proceeded to fire Keith Gilbertson for going 7-16 in his two years attempting to navigate the turbulent waters that he came up against.

Then Sky Marshall Turner launched an extensive 60 second search to find the best just fired mediocre coach he could get.....

Tyrone Willingham!

And I, and thousands of others, are still writing that check each year. Strange but true. Sad but true.

Coach Willingham hit the ground running as he went on vacation and then signed a couple of recruits and waited for the fall campaign. After all, it would be three seasons in before there was any sense of urgency relayed to Coach. How was he supposed to know he needed to win games? Winning can be so distasteful for a man of Willingham's great integrity.

Coach proceeded to prove Turner right by going 7-16. And yes, we still wrote the fucking checks. Big checks thanks to Turner's inspired price hike between 1-10 and 2-9 seasons.

More of that integrity, don't you know?

Which brought us to this year where almost everyone but Turner and Internet quarter brains thought that Willingham would have to get a bowl game to stay. You know the stats. You have heard them a thousand times. They are on this website.

Willingham goes 4-9, blames his players, screws the pooch and the revolution was dreaming of dancing in the streets to celebrate the fall of both Turner and Willingham. Surely University President Mark Emmert, who had promised to bring back Husky Football, would step in as he had done at LSU and wash away the twin towers of loserdom and hire our hero, Jim L. Mora.

Or not.

The Triplets of Integrity decided to instead tell all of us who had willingly been suckers for this shell game for 15 years this simple, yet clear message:

**** ***!

Turner stays, Ty stays, and if you missed the message, Baer stays too! **** ***!

Lots of talk about the classroom and sad disdain over the primitives who are concerned with stupid stuff like wins and losses. And a scolding for those half brains that had bothered the Supreme Leader with silly emails complaining about an 11-25 record and a publicly speaking challenged Sky Marshall Turner.

Shut up and write the check, I mean, let's get behind the team! Let's do it for Jake!

And **** ***!

These beacons of integrity are giving the old shell game one last go around. Lecturing fans and donors about their misplaced emphasis on winning and losing and spouting pabulum about, well, integrity. Scoffing at big time football while still demanding that we pay the price of big time football that they refuse to give us.

Willingham still whining about how tough the job was three seasons ago and asking for us to stick by the career .500 coach for a promise of future glory. The guy can always sell used cars if this whole coaching thing doesn't work out. Blaming players and spinning tales about great talent waiting in the wings if we'll just give him another shot to "see what he could do".

Some integrity. Willingham is basically stealing 7 million dollars from the UW.

And Turner and Emmert are basically smearing winning coaches all across this land with their bizarre theory that the more you lose the more integrity you have.

Some integrity. Emmert is Elmer Gantry pitching his rainmakers spiel and Turner is talking about a stadium renovation while doing everything he can to see that it never happens.

And of course their message to football fans who remember real Husky Football:

**** ***!

It was real. Husky Football did die the day they stabbed Don James in the back. Husky Football quit on me. I didn't quit on it. I gave them 15 more years against all odds and despite massive evidence that I was a fool for doing so.

No more. I understand that many fans won't be able to do so this year. I respect that. It is the only way to get their attention and the product they are giving us in unworthy of support but college football is a drug more powerful than heroin and nicotine.

That is why we gave this last, ultimately futile gesture of the Half Brain pod casts and this website. We wanted to be sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that Husky Football was indeed dead.

They had to fire a coach with the pathetic record of Willingham. This was the test. No school serious about championship football would keep him. This isn't about the Cult of Ty that has sprung up for reasons unknown to anyone. This is about Husky Football.

They kept Ty. And in the ultimate insult, they had Turner announce it with more bull shit about integrity and more vague answers about wins or expectations. Elmer Gantry followed it up with an insulting radio appearance where he stayed on the message:

**** ***!

And so like old soldiers throughout time, we fade away. We were beaten and we were crushed. There is nothing left.

I loved all the time on Dawgman and all the friends I made. I loved talking Husky Football all year around. But I can't do it anymore. There is no Husky Football. There is only Upper Campus Moneyball and I can no longer write the check. Fool me 15 times shame on you. Fool me 16 times shame on me.

Dawgman.com has to look at themselves as well. They could have taken a stand, but they stayed on the fence. Now they are left with the boring Williball and no prospect of a firing to generate interest. The Tyron Curtain will fall over the program again and the message boards are left to the victors. I promised I would not continue the argument for another year. If this year didn't do it, it will never be done. I go in peace. I will keep my word.

It was a great run while it lasted but it is time to invest in other things in life that are much more rewarding than wondering if Ty can win 5 games some year.

So thanks for the memories and all the good times. Root for the Dawgs and think about cutting off the cash.

And to Emmert and Turner, when you send out that Tyee and ticket application please remember my words to you:

**** ***!

Thanks for reading one last time - Race Bannon, proud half brain legacy of winning Dawg.

AK Mike - agree on the Heisman. Who cares? If Jake or a future husky is ever in the running, maybe...

ADawg, if you could condense that down to about 5 lines, I'd read it and it would probably be about as interesting. Life's too short to waste slogging through boring rants by half wits who think they're clever writers. I think there are some creative writing blogs you might want to cut and paste that into. You'd probably get some useful feedback.

I am not as convinced as Bob is that the Ducks' performance without Dixon proved Dixon's greatness. I certainly don't contend that Dixon was not really good. But the Ducks' collapse against Arizona was more a product of Belloti having a very bad back up plan (or none at all). They were forced to play a quarterback whose style was 180 degrees from Dixon's. Any team would have struggled mightily in those circumstances. Again, I'm not saying Dixon doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the Heisman race, just that Oregon's poor performance without him doesn't prove anything.

Way too long for me to read too. It's time to move on guys. I'm tired of reading it. You sound like my kids, gosh, get over it. I skim or skip all together all the negatyrone posts because they are boring, repetative, and a waste of my time. Let's talk about the football team, recruiting, next years schedule, the depth chart, anything but the coach, please.

To all the prosy posters turning their backs on the program when it's bleak, ala D. James, "Good bye and good luck." I hear the Patriots have room on their wagon. All the totals in the win column you could want. You're right; why waste time here?

For the rest of us, damn right about this great news coming out all week; sought after recruits saying yes, and then this Juan Garcia story... just awesome. I can't wait to give Garcia an ovation in person some time. Frickin' awesome.

What relevance is this to the current thread? Because Garcia is going to anchor an O-Line that's going to help Washington bring home a Heisman. At the very least, Locker should be getting Heisman Hype next year. Especially after opening wins against Oregon, BYU, and Oklahoma. Then he runs roughshod over Notre Dame.

Can you believe 14 yards short of 1000 on the ground this year?! Oh man! We should've gotten those in the 4th QTR against Hawaii when instead we used less than 2 minutes on a possession...oh, whoops.. sorry folks. That was last year.

Thought I saw Janelle at a party last night. No way to know for sure. What's this coug stuff? She put more than two sentences together and her dad likes Sixkiller and not Brian Davis. No way she can be a coug. Dude who said probably a stealth coug hinself.

Hey Boise, what do you mean, so long??? Hopefully, you mean for the night.
Malibu

I just hope that by the time this recruiting class is full, we have a lot of defensive talent coming in. I already feel confident with our offense next season.

Nice post Ballard.

Things have been bleak in Huskyland for the last 5 seasons, so I understand the negativity from others. But like you, I am *psyched* about next year. A lot of posters have talked about dropping their season tickets. I will be buying them again, partly because I am a lifelong, loyal Husky fan, but also partly because I see light at the end of the tunnel.

I think our O line (finally, we're going to have a solid Husky O line -- the hardest thing on a football team to develop quickly), Locker and Curtis Shaw will be good enough to mitigate our shortcomings at RB and WR. I think there'll be a new DB coach hired (maybe also a new coordinator, though honestly, in my opinion that's less important than the position coach), and that some kid will step up in secondary and make us better.

We can sit here and argue about whether Ty should have won 7 games instead of 4 this season -- certainly the Arizona, Wazzu and Hawaii games were brutal -- but the fact is, the lack of talent put a ceiling on the upside this year. Two years from now, the sky is going to be the limit. Think how good we could be two years with the players we've got coming in.

Personally, I hope Tyrone wins 7 games next year so he's around to see his hard work finally make things happen in 2009. Because whoever is coaching in '09 will win.

'07 Heisman: #1 Dixon-we forget that the award is suppose to go to the best football player and that was Dixon...I've never seen anyone have such a influence on a game...although I would hate to build a defense for Tebow.
'08 Heisman: #1 Tebow #2 ? #3 Locker
'09 Heisman: #1 ? (Tebow leaves early) #2 Locker #3?
'10 Heisman: #1 Locker #2 ? #3?

This is all well thought of after a few glasses of wine and a couple of beers...IMHO. Have a great holiday and a productive off-season.

I just recently found this blog when I was looking for info about what was going on. I usually just went to gohuskies to get game info. I have been reading the different oppinions and I find a lot of them quite amusing.

I am a long time Huskie fan. My begining was listening to the games on the radio, with my first tv game being the Rose Bowl that the Huskies were big underdogs. Not only did the dawgs prevail, they totally whooped Wisconsin 44-8. Yes, that was the 1960 Rose Bowl. I was just begining high school then, in Seattle at Lincoln. I have been a dawg fan ever since.

It really amazes me how pathetic some of the so called huskie fans are. In all those years,I have seen the dawgs up and down. I have been totally pissed, like now, at what was going on and had a hard time watching some very miserable performances. The good thing though, was that they didn't last for a long time.

The dawgs were the 1991 National Champions. The second year after, which was the first of the probation years, 1993, one of the Huskies opponents pulled out of their contract to play Washington. Florida State and Bobby Bowden completely chickened out in coming to play the dawgs. Since that time I have no respect for the Florida State program and Bobby Bowden. They pulled out at a very late date and Wahsington was able to finally fill that date with San Jose
State. By the way, Correy Dillon ran circles around them. Now I'm hearing "Huskie fans" and also rumblings from the school about getting out of games that have already been scheduled with tough opponents. Washington is already looked at as a doormat now and some of you want the dawgs to cancel tough opponents and to pad our schedule with pansies so we can show a winning record. How sick can you get. That's not the Huskies, not the real Huskies anyway. Many of you on here have no idea what the real Huskies are all about, you don't know what winning is and think that 3 losing seasons is quite alright, as long as you are told that we are about to turn the corner. Some of you get completely bent out of shape because others don't agree with you, and even some of you start bringing in politics into the picture of Husky football. That is putred.

The following are some samples of seasons played by a Pac-10 team, along with the won loss records: season and non-conference records, placing in the conference and Pac-10 records against non-confernce teams in that year:

1993
7-4 overall; 5-3 Pac-10 (4th place); 1-2 n/c, lost to Ohio State (10-1-1), 21-10 Pac-10 against n/c (non-conference).

1994
7-4 overall; 4-4 Pac-10 (4th place); 3-0 n/c, beat
Ohio State (9-4) and Miami (9-3); 17-12-2 Pac-10 against n/c.

1995
7-4-1 overall; 6-2 Pac-10 (Co-Champions); 1-3 n/c, lost Ohio State (11-2), lost Notre Dame (9-3), lost Iowa in Sun Bowl (8-4); 18-13-1 Pac-10 against n/c.

1996
9-3 overall; 7-1 Pac-10 (2nd place); 2-2 n/c, beat BYU (14-1), lost Notre Dame (8-3), lost Colorado in Holiday Bowl (10-2); 19-12 Pac-10 against n/c.

1997
8-4 overall: 5-3 Pac-10 (4th place); 3-1 n/c, beat BYU (6-5), lost Nebraska (13-0), beat Michigan St. in Aloha Bowl (7-5); 26-7 Pac-10 against n/c.

1998
6-6 overall; 4-4 Pac-10 (4th place); 2-2 n/c, beat BYU (9-5), lost Nebraska (9-4), lost Air Force in Oahu Classic (12-1); 24-10 Pac-10 against n/c.

As you can see, this team didn't shy away from anyone. This period of time also shows how competitve the Pac-10 was then, not just now. The team in the sample is non other than the Washington Huskies. By the way, the coach during this period of time had been with the Huskies for a long time, over 20 years. I remember him as a student assistant. Yes it was Jim Lambright and he got fired because his record was not good enough. 45 wins, 25 loses and one tie in six years. One Pac-10 Conference Co-championship. During the Huskies National Championship season in 1991, Jim Lambright was the DC and the OC was Gilbertson.

A lot of coaches are great assistants that are really brilliant at what they do, but not good as head coaches.

The really succesful coaches surround themselves with brilliant coaches that make them look good by winning. The unsuccesful coaches do not do that. They either don't know how to pick good coaches or they will pick coaches that are not quite as smart as they are, and in turn, their teams don't achieve success. Some coaches can talk a great game plan, but they can not produce. Some coaches have great talent to work with, but because they lack the skill to teach and motivate, they don't succeed. They can not bring the best out of the players, they don't kow how. Other coaches can have mediocre playes, but they have great success anyway, because they know how to get the best from their players.

I find it very distressing that this set of coaches are allowed to continue embarassing what I know of as the Washington Huskies. The OC and the DC are incompetent at what they do. I read comments that the a player did this and did that and if they had done this and done that then we would have won. If you really watch the game as it is going on, you will see that the losing of the game was going on for quite a while because decisions by the coaching staff plain sucked. The one conclusion that I came to after I thought about what I had seen is that the coaches can only impart knowledge that they know, and if they don't know something, then they cannot teach it.

It makes me laugh at how many of you hope that the DC will be let go, yes it would be best, but. When this coach was hired, one of the things he said then was that he has never fired a coach. He does not like change, he abhors change. That is typical of an analytical personality.

Neither the DC or the OC know how to utilize what they have. They are both one dimensional and don't seem to be able to react, in a positive way, to adjustments that are being made to counter what they are doing.

It is exciting to see the players that are committing to be Huskies. A few of them will be able to contribute right away. Most of them, however, will have to learn more skills before they are able to make contributions. The biggest problem that I see is that I don't feel this coaching staff, with a couple of excetions, is capable of imparting the knowledge these kids are in need of.

When this coach was hired, it came as a surprise to me. After reading what he had to say, I figured I would give him the benefit of doubt and see what he does. I have to say that not only am I not happy with the results, I don't feel he is capable of making the changes that are needed. I hope I am wrong because he is going to be the coach and I can't do anything about it. I have to live with it.

I have been a Husky fan for almost 50 years now, have seen a lot of different things, but this by far is the worst period of Huskie football I have seen. I will not forsake the dawgs for anything, even in the worst of times. I know they will be back on top, just hope its alot sooner than what I feel it will be.

If this coach does not make changes in his staff and goes with what he has, with one exception (the new head coach of Indiana State), I feel we will set a new standard for futilty 1-11.

Guntis

Regardless of where you stand on the Willingham debate, I want this clear: Washington has had NO lack of talent. Any arguments to the contrary are not based in fact. Some facts about recruiting:

Historical rankings of Washington's recruiting classes and where they landed in the Pac-10 (sources: http://interact.cstv.com/recruiting/football.cfm and scout.com for added measure)

2008 - currently ranked 18th in the nation. Behind only USC and UCLA.

2007 - ranked 27th nationally ahead of ALL but USC, Oregon and California - in the upper half of the PAC

2006 - ranked 35th. Ty's first full class was ranked ahead of ALL but California, UCLA, USC, Arizona State - firmly middle of the PAC

2005 - Ranked 55th in the nation. Ty had no time to get this class together with the firing of KG. 4 spots behind Oregon State, 8 behind WSU, but still last in the PAC.

2004 - Ranked 22nd in the nation and ahead of ALL but USC, Oregon and WSU. These guys would have been sophomores in in Ty's team.

2003 - Ranked 18th in the nation and ahead of ALL but USC. 2nd best in the Pac-10. These guys would have been juniors on Ty's team.

2002 - Ranked 23rd in the nation ahead of ALL but UCLA and USC. 3rd best in the Pac-10. These guys would be seniors in Ty's first team.

Definitive:

1. In all but 1 year (the year of firing KG), UW has been in the top half of the PAC-10 in recruiting. THERE IS TALENT HERE AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN. Don't even bother looking at the recruiting for teams such as Hawaii, Air Force, Nevada...they won't be in the same echelon as UW's.

2. Ty has consistently lost to programs that have markedly less talent than UW (OSU, WSU, Stanford, Arizona, ASU, and even CAL).

Subjective:

1. In these losses, Ty is getting outcoached. How else to explain inferior results with superior talent?

2. if you want, we can go into recruiting for other teams that Ty's coached: Notre Dame and Stanford. The results are at best mixed, mostly non-impressive.

Enough with the no-talent arguments. Show me facts.

Race, it is sad to see you take your balanced viewpoints, passion and intelligence away from Husky Nation. Pay no mind to the Johnny come latelies that have little vested interest in the huskies and confine their passion for the huskies to mainstream opinions that are not funded in facts or research. Folks like you have decades (and I know cause I've been with Dawgman since before scout.com) invested in the Dawgs through effort, blood and money.

Well written Dear John and I hope it's not the last we see of you.

Race, it is sad to see you take your balanced viewpoints, passion and intelligence away from Husky Nation. Pay no mind to the Johnny come latelies that have little vested interest in the huskies and confine their passion for the huskies to mainstream opinions that are not funded in facts or research. Folks like you have decades (and I know cause I've been with Dawgman since before scout.com) invested in the Dawgs through effort, blood and money.

Well written Dear John and I hope it's not the last we see of you.

Bob, In your Heisman evaluation, did you consider the fact that Tebow's statistics included games against these "powerhouses": Western Kentucky (49 - 3); Troy (59-31); Vanderbilt (49-22); and Florida Atlantic (59-20). That represents four of Florida's nine wins. Pretty impressive schedule for the defending national champions and the Heisman trophy winner, huh?