Tuesday meant our regular weekly meeting with UW offensive coordinator Tim Lappano.

And say what you want about what is happening on the field, but those of us who deal with these guys every day are gaining an added respect for Lappano, who isn't ducking any of our questions in these unquestionably tough times.

Lappano even brought up one controversy --- the delay of game penalty on the first snap Saturday --- before any of us had a chance to ask him.

His whole meeting with us today lasted about 16 minutes. For now, I'm just going to give you the most pertinent info as Lappano discussed, among other things, the use of Cody Bruns, the infamous goal-line stand at the end of Saturday's game, and that delay penalty:

ON BRUNS: Lappano said they intended to give him major playing time last week until he hurt his hamstring on Wednesday. The plan remains the same this week, Lappano saying he met with Bruns and the receiver told him he wants to play.

Here's the full quote:

"He's going to go. Hopefully that thing will hold up. He will go this week. I've talked to him and he wants to give it a go and whatever happens, happens. If he pulls that thing, then he pulls it and he's going to miss more time. But hopefully that thing can hold together. That's kind of why we didn't want to play him Saturday. Because he had just pulled that thing on Wednesday and he didn't feel good about going in on Friday and if we put him in there and he pulls it again, now we are going to lose him for 4-5 weeks and it's too bad for the kid. Trust me, he's a great kid and the last thing we want to do is mess with that kid. That's not the idea. The idea is to put it on ice (last) weekend and get the rest of the season out of him. That's (the idea). Hopefully he has a good day today and that thing doesn't blow up.''

ON THE DELAY OF GAME PENALTY: "I'll take full responsibility for it. That's Ronnie's (quarterback Ronnie Fouch) and my job. Number one, we script the first 15 plays of every game. We rehearse them on Friday night. We have everybody on the sideline. And as soon as they kick the ball off we gave the play on the sideline and went out. It's my job and all the coaches job if they are not getting up to the line fast enough, we've got to see that, yell at them. And Ronnie has to see the clock.''

Asked if Fouch lost track of the clock, Lappano said: "Well something, something. But I'll take full responsibility on that. It was a penalty.''

Lappano said there was not a mixup of personnel as he said all the right players were on the field.

"We had the right people there. ... we've never had that problem here. You can second guess any call you want --- we haven't had a lot of delay of game penalties here in three years.''

ON THE GOAL LINE STAND: Lappano said it was still "unacceptable'' that UW couldn't get the ball in from a yard away late in the game.

But he said watching the film gave a clearer view of what happened.

"The worst call I made there was quarterback sneak (on first down) because Ronnie wanted to go over the top and he needs to bull down in there, get his shoulder down in there and run his feet. On (the second-down play, a run by Luke Kravitz) we missed a block. On the naked (bootleg on third down), Kavario (Middleton) was wide open like I told you (after the game). That showed up big time.

"What happened there is Ronnie got away with pulling the ball down in practice against our show team. In practice, the same thing presented itself, there was a crease from here to the mic (on a table about seven feet away) and against the show team it stayed open. Against Oregon State it just, zip, went like that and shut down fast and he got shocked. On the last play, that was a stretch play we needed to keep outside because we had the edge sealed. Paul (Homer) had the corner four yards knocked off there into the middle of the end zone. We had the stretech play there and that ball has got to stay outside.''

MORE NOTES:

--- Lappano said he anticipated David Freeman returning to practice today and was excited to see him compete with Terrance Dailey for the TB job. But he said for now, Dailey is the starter. Lappano said Dailey "gives us that home run threat like Louis Rankin did last year. He made something happen. ... He did give us that spark.''

--- He said Notre Dame will bring pressure at least 50 percent of the time which will call for a different game plan than last week, when Fouch did a lot of throwing deep. That obviously means a few more quick-hitters, slants and things like that, will likely be in the offing.

--- Lappano said Fouch was hit 13 times against OSU and praised his guts hanging in the pocked. He said any throwing off the back foot Fouch appeared to be doing was simply from trying to wait until the last minute to let receivers get open. He said ideally a QB gets hit only 3-4 times a game on average.

--- He said there were two missed protections in the first half but none in the second half.

--- Lappano said he thought the O-line continued to play a little better against OSU, though it still has a lot of room for improvement. He said the big problem last week was pressure off the edge.