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Times reporter Bob Condotta keeps the news coming about the Montlake Dawgs.

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October 29, 2008 12:07 PM

A few notes on the offense

One thing I overlooked yesterday with all the other stuff going on was passing on some notes from OC Tim Lappano, who held his regular weekly briefing with us.

Lappano didn't want to talk about the coaching news, but addressed a lot of other issues.

Most notably, he said criticism of the team's snap count procedure in the shotgun is off base.

Some have wondered if the Huskies aren't giving it away with Ronnie Fouch giving a motion with his foot right before the ball is to be snapped. Lappano said no.

Lappano said that "Oregon gives a hand signal, then it's on the center and one bobs, two bobs, and everyone in the NFL does the same thing. You give a hand signal, that doesn't tell the center to snap the ball, that tells the center that motion is clear and everything is okay to snap the ball because you don't want the center shapping the ball when the quarterback and the motion isn't ready. So you do it with a hand or a foot andn then the center, it's on his call. It's a silent count. It's the center making the cadence, not Ronnie. They can't hear Ronnie and they aren't going to hear Ronnie in the (LA) Coliseum.''

Lappano attributed much of the offensive struggles last week to sloppiness.

He echoed some rumblings that last Thursday's practice wasn't a real good way to end the week.

"We were a little bit slppy on Thursday,'' he said. "I didn't like Thursday's practice. It wasn't as sharp as it needed to be and there were signs of that on Saturday and we've got to get that cleaned up.''

Lappano said he doesn't expect RB David Freeman to play this week but said otherwise, health shouldn't be a real issue. Juan Garcia continues to struggle with an ankle injury but is playing through it, and Kavario Middleton is apparently 100 percent, his playing time limited mostly because of the return of Michael Gottlieb.

As for the task this week, he said the obvious --- it will be gargantuan. But he said that any college football player should be fired up to test themselves against a team as good as USC.

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