Rumors are making the rounds that the Huskies are thinking of ditching Nike as their equipment supplier and going with another company, either Under Armour or adidas. One rumor has it that UW has already set its sights on Under Armour and that Nike is phasing out its selling of Husky merchandise.

Officially, however, nothing has yet happened and won't for a little while.

To clarify the situation, UW has had a contract with Nike since 1997, renewing it in 2001 and 2004. Under the current deal, UW gets roughly $1.1 million in product and about $210,000 in cash every year from Nike (that doesn't cover the entire budget for such items, and some UW teams also have separate deals with other companies to cover some specific apparel/equipment they need).

The deal between UW and Nike runs out July 1, 2009 and UW has already begun sending out "requests for proposals'' for companies to submit bids. The department will decide later this year which one to accept.

Some UW fans think the Huskies should align with someone other than Nike, which is headed by well-known Oregon Duck booster and alum Phil Knight.

Scott Woodward, UW's acting athletic director, said last week that would have "very little factor, if any'' in Washington's decision. "Whichever one provides the best value to the student-athlete will be the winner,'' Woodward said.

It's likely that any significant changes to logos and other such items won't happen until after the Huskies have signed a new contract.

Nike has already lost one major school this year when Michigan recently announced it had signed a new deal with Adidas. Michigan unveiled new gameday jerseys today that are a product of that new association.

A few of you have asked from time-to-time why the NCAA doesn't seem to be doing anything about the Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo cases, so I thought I'd pass along this story today from the LA Times addressing that topic.

Appears NCAA officials are growing sensitive to the notion that they are giving USC a pass and wanted to make clear that they aren't, while also pointing out the complexities that make the investigation difficult.

One of the interesting quotes in there is from author Aurthur Fleisher III who says that "most people don't understand --- the NCAA is the schools themselves.'' Former UW coach Don James once made this same point to me, saying that while he didn't agree with everything the NCAA did, it was simply made up of other coaches and administrators like himself --- in fact, he had served on NCAA committees during his career.

Nothing in the story changed several of my thoughts on the issue, specifically that I don't think anyone will ever get hit as hard again as UW and some other schools (Miami, Alabama) were in the mid-90s --- there's too much at stake now to levy such heavy penalties anymore, and the schools now know how to handle it better when issues do arise.

Ted Miller of ESPN has his own take on this story, as well as a few other Pac-10-related links.