The Monday Morning Wash

Most of the media in the country agree's that the excessive celebration penalty was a bad call on Saturday. More than a few are saying if you actually take the time to read the rule the official was correct in calling it because the ball indeed went up in the air. They feel that it is simply a badly written rule.

According to the polls out there on the subject over 75% feel that the call should never have been made. The other 25% of the votes have a very heavy slant since most come from inside the state of Utah, or are from BYU fans.

These rules are in place to stop the taunting of opponents and speed up the play of the game. Everyone knows that Locker simply wasn't taunting anyone, the ball just got away from him as he came to his feet. It was a call that simply didn't need to be made.

BYU

I am pretty sure that BYU is not a BCS team, and I am equally sure that they won't beat UCLA this weekend. Frankly I think Utah is the team to beat in the Mountain West. Hawaii wasn't a BCS caliber team either.

Bright Spots

Washington had several bright spots this weekend in a game where they played better as a team and showed lots of improvement.

Kavario Middleton is going to be force as a receiver. He is the real deal and will be playing in the NFL if he can stay healthy. The only knock on Kavario at this time is that he is a major liability from a blocking standpoint. Blocking will come in time, and expect Mike Gottleib to come in for him on obvious running downs to help shore up that area.

Jermaine Kearse had a very good game on Saturday. He is one the best looking receivers I have seen in some time. He has a lot of maturity as a freshman and his TD catch made him look like a senior.

D'Andre Goodwin needs to hold on to the ball better, but he is showing he can get open anywhere on the field. Goodwin is a legit deep threat who had three steps on his defenders whenever he went deep.

Jordan Polk really looks good returning kicks and running routes. Like any freshman he is going to get better every week. I think as a group these receivers have the most potential of any group I have seen at Washington in over a decade.

David Freeman and Willie Griffin sparked the running game in the second half which was extremely good news with Chris Polk, and Brandon Johnson out of the game. Expect Polk to miss this Saturdays game with a dislocated shoulder. Why beat him up against Oklahoma? Give him a bye week and let him heal for conference play. Johnson should be back this week but look for them to give Freeman the start and move to more of a hot hand type of playing situation in coming weeks.

Tim Lappano called an excellent game on Saturday. The Huskies had a lot of opportunities to score deep and Tim kept the cougars on their toes throughout the second half.

I would like to see more of the power backfield consisting of Homer and Kravitz. I think in short yardage situations they are pretty tough to beat. I would have bet anything that UW could have picked up the two point conversion with that backfield in the game.

Ed Donatell wasn't exactly happy with the outcome but the Husky defense isn't exactly easy to read anymore. Donatell keeps changing things up trying to find the right combination that works for these particular players.

A couple things that would help on defense would be the return of EJ Savannah to OLB, and the rapid development of Johri Fogerson at safety. Fogerson should be ready for extensive play after the bye week and he will get a baptism of fire against Oklahoma on Saturday. No word on EJ but expect that question to be asked this week.

Quinton Richardson continues to sparkle out at CB. I am really surprised by his speed going in reverse. The eventual return of Byron Davenport is really going to help the pass defense.

Mason Foster continues to make plays and is Washington's best LB right now.

The young defensive lineman haven't made an impact yet and that is to be expected. I wouldn't say they are being pushed around but it will take some time before they learn to get off their blocks and make plays at the line of scrimmage.

Jared Ballman redeemed himself with an excellent game on Saturday. As Ty Willingham would say that was some exciting punting.

Oklahoma

From what I have seen of the Sooners they are pretty good. In fact they are national championship contention kind of good. The Sooner offense is probably the best in the country right now but the defense still has some growing to do. I would rate USC the better team right now because the Trojans have worked out their kinks on offense, and they have the best defense in the country. Defenses win championships.

Willingham

I really feel for the guy right now because he and his staff put together a pretty good game plan on Saturday playing an older and more experienced team. I think the improvement between week one and week two was very noticeable. He just might have a pretty solid team put together after the bye week when they play Stanford.

Washington is very capable of beating Stanford, Arizona, Oregon State, and Notre Dame. Speaking of Notre Dame the Irish were terrible in their home opener against lowly San Diego State. Washington desperately needs to win all four of those games.

After that easier stretch things ratchet up again with USC, and Arizona State.

The Huskies finish with UCLA, WSU, and California. I wasn't impressed with UCLA coming in to the season but Rick Neuheisel has them believing in themselves. DeWayne Walker has that defense flying around and making things happen. The big question about UCLA will be the health of their offense at that point. The Bruins are pretty thin. Don't forget the traditional UCLA end of the season slide either.

WSU is terrible so circle that one as a win. It's nice to see Paul Wulff get the worse loss in program history out of the way so early.

That brings up California who is playing a lot better than we thought. It looks like Jeff Tedford has turned it around and Jahvid Best is one real impressive running back. UW beat these guys last year in Husky Stadium but it will be a tall order on the road this year if early season indications are correct. Cal looks to me like they are one of the top four teams in the conference.

Where does that leave Washington?

I think it means battling it out with Arizona, and UCLA for 5th place and a 6-6 record.

The UCLA game is going to be a big one!

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