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April 18, 2008 11:25 AM

Huskies blanked on Outland Trophy watch list

The Football Writers Association of America has released its 70-person watch list for the 2008 Outland Trophy, given annually to the best college football interior linemen in the country.

Here's the list, and while it includes 10 players from the Pac-10 Conference, none of them are Huskies.

Eight of the Pac-10 players on the list are offensive linemen, including three centers --- Cal's Alex Mack, Oregon's Max Unger and Stanford's Alex Fletcher. All are deserving candidates, and speak to the strength of that position in the Pac-10 this year. Mack is the defending Morris Trophy winner in the Pac-10 and some early draft lists for next year I've seen have Unger as the first conference player taken.

Still, I figured Juan Garcia had a good chance to make the watch list for this award after having been named to an all-conference second-team pick a year ago (same as Fletcher and three other Pac-10 players who were named to the watch list --- Oregon State's Andy Levitre, Arizona's Eben Britton and Oregon's Fenuki Tupou.

It's possible the people putting the list together don't know that Garcia is back since he's listed as a senior on the All-Pac-10 team from a year ago --- which he officially was at the time before deciding to return for a sixth year of eligibility that had been awarded the previous spring.

The fact that there are only two Pac-10 defensive linemen on the list is illustrative of what is thought to be a pretty down year for experienced D-linemen in the conference.

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