UW coach Tyrone Willingham held a quick conference call with reporters today to update what has been going on with the team during this bye week.

The short answer --- not much.

Willingham said the team has scaled back the physical nature of the practices during this bye week compared to the last bye week after the Oklahoma game since he thinks the team needs more healing of injuries. As a result, sounds as if there have been no new injuries of note. And as Willingham said earlier in the week, he expects to get back players such as David Freeman and D'Andre Goodwin for the Oregon State game Oct. 18, though it's still a little too early to know for sure.

As for practices this week, Willingham said: "We are on track to do what we said we'd do, get healthy and give our guys some quality work and at the same time, change it up just a little bit so they are not feeling like it is just work, work, work but also have an opportunity to have some fun.''

Willingham said he thinks the team has approached the week with a good attitude. "Obviously, nobody says it's not a difficult time for the football team. But they seem to be working and seem to have a good, solid attitude about it and if we can finish up today, I will be very pleased with the week and what we've gotten accomplished. We did not do quite as much scrimmaging as we did the (previous bye week) because we did not feel that would be as much of an assist this time, but we feel we got some good, quality work.''

Many of the assistants won't be at practice today as they are out on the road recruiting this weekend. That's a task that's surely not real easy right now. But Willingham said the commitment of his staff is the same this week as it would be any other bye week, with the maximum seven coaches out on the road.

"Most of them have departed, some Wednesday night and some this morning, to get out to some of the local high schools and do that,'' he said. "I'm kind of limited in a sense that because if you put seven out, the head coach can't get out. But we already have seven assistants out on the road.''

One thing the team has worked on in practice this week is getting pressure on the quarterback. UW got its first three sacks of the season last week at Arizona, but all were by Daniel Te'o-Nesheim, the one experienced player the Huskies have up front.

"We've had some other guys get close to getting some,'' Willingham said. "Chris Stevens has been one to put some pressure off the edge. ... We've still got to finetune how to get more sacks and more hits on the quarterbacks.''