Whats up next for Sarkisian?
by John Berkowitz on Feb 6, 2009 6:59 AM PST
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PrintSo what exactly is the next step for the Washington football program? If your a coach it is a few days off with family so you can start getting your life organized. This coming Monday preparation for spring practice and the coming football season starts in earnest.
Molly Yanity of the Seattle PI got the opportunity to interview Coach Sarkisian and she came up with some good insight into what the staff will be doing until March 31st when spring practice begins.
"Our practices are not easy," he said. "They are physical, and they are tough, and they are intense. We have to be prepared for those practices because we can't practice one day and have half the team out the next. Physically, we have to get ready for that."
As far as the exisiting players go this will be there time to start making impressions on their new coaches. Sarkisian insists that the slate has been wiped clean and that everyone on the roster is getting an equal chance to show what they can do.
"We're going to evaluate them on athletic ability, but on character, on work ethic? We have to make those evaluations on our own throughout spring football. That's the clean slate."
Expect a tough sixty days for this squad as they go through the tougest conditioning period of their lives. From what we are hearing the bar has been set pretty high when it comes to the winter conditioning program this season.
Don't call them mat drills anymore. That terminology which has been used at Washington for decades is being phased out by Sarkisian. He feels the term is way to old school to decscibe what they are actually doing today.
One thing to look forward to if you are a fan is a lot more information coming out of the program at this time of year. After the recruiting party Willingham just disapeared until spring football started. Expect this coaching staff to be on the radio and TV quite a bit as they promote the program the way it should be and get husly fans all over the state excited about the upcoming season.
We talked about culture change earlier this month and how Jim Owens and Don James earned the respect of their teams. Both of those legends ran extremely tough regimens when they arrived and there was lots of attrition along the way followed by championships only three years after arriving on campus.
NCAA rules have changed to such an extent that it is impossible for Sarkisan to have his own death march or extended spring practices but winter conditioning is one of those area's still left where you can push a players to their physical limit to see what they are made of.
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Like what my dental hygienist said...
…I think I may have told you guys this already but I’ll say it again. I ran in to my dental hygienist in the grocery store and he told me that “the health of your teeth depends on you and the way you take care of them on a daily basis”. It dawned on me how this statement relates to football. “The success of your football team depends on the work they put in on a daily basis in the weight room and on the practice field during the off season.”
Midgets
Hopefully we won’t look like midgets when we play other teams. Gilby took a lot of heat for that midget comment, but now I think most of us understand what he was trying to say. The Oregon game last year in eugene was when I finally understood Gilby’s comment as the two teams passed by the crowd. We looked like a JC in comparison, soft, Oregon looked cut.
Recruiting Banquet
I attended and it was “off the hook”! Is that term still even used? Anyway, the buzz at the Banquet was unbelievable and the place was absolutely packed! Coach Sark is a much bigger man than I envisioned. He looks to be in the 6’2" range and commands a lot of presence. The coaching staff was fired up! One of the funniest moments was when a couple of the other coaches use Nick Holt’s “AWESOME”! several times. The audience was just rolling with laughter over that one! Nick Holt is one intense hombre, SHEESH! that guy had a lot of the old Huskies in the audience ready to strap it on! I was going to say that Mike Cox was the other guy that was really fired up but to be honest with you most of the coaches were. I would single out Cox and the running back coach though. I saw Bill Fleenor there and I later regretted asking him about the Husky Stadium project. He and some of his boosters from Walla Walla were there, I should say I assume they were because they had donated something for the auction. It was some kind of wine package, anyway it was good to see him again. Him and I go way back and when both of us were working on the Campaign For The Student Athlete. Gosh I hated that name! I am so glad Hedges is gone and all of her lame ideas. I would run on about how Hedges squandered the 20 million dollar a year surplus during her tenure that could have been used for Husky Stadium but that’s another story. Anyway in closing I just want to say the banquet was a blast and we had a lot of fun with it, as did the other 700 plus Huskies who attended. I know all of you who didn’t were there in spirit! GO DAWGS!!
Thanks for the recap...
Sounds like a great time to be had by all.
I can’t wait to move back West and be able to watch the Dawgs rise back to the top. Every dawg has his day and my day is coming soon. I am pumped for spring ball!
Another thing that was interesting from the Banquet...
…I can’t remember if it was Coach Sark or Nic Holt but one of the coaches said that they attended a function like that in Socal and there was only 200 people there! He said the Husky crowd and passion just blew him away and that the only word he could use to describe it was…you guessed it…AWESOME!!
Awesome
If they said Awesome then I am 99% sure it must have been Holt!
Awesome! WOOF!!!
I think other then taking a much needed family vacation for the coaching staff would be to hire a receivers coach. Any word on who we might get? I still like James Lofton. The guy has played and coached in the pro style for over 20 years. And I firmly believe Lofty would be a great recruiter w/ his NFL connections.
On a different note one of the key areas in order to compete is strength and conditioning. Last year we looked flabby and out of shape, we looked slow w/ no quick first step. We’ve got a lot of kids returing to this program, kids who have talent to win. Right now our strength and conditioning coach must turn these flabby stomachs into chissled, cut, six pack totting lethal football machines. Then come spring ball it is the coaches responsibility to turn up the volume as to what is expected of a BCS football-playing mindset.
Nick’s word of wisdom is “AWESOME”, a word that needs to come back into focus. The pressence of Sark and Holt and the command for excellence is going to make this place an AWESOME place again. Win and the recruits will pipeline it in here. Win and the stadium rennovation deal will get done. Win and USC will find itself in a very tough annual battle for the Pac 10 championship- currently a cake walk, right Oregon and Cal? This is the perfect storm and Sark is the best hire at Washington since a young Don James arrived.
Go Dawgs! WOOF!!!
All I saw was purple
Drink the Kool Aid...
… it’s spiked with a winning attitude. Don’t just drink it, let’s do shots.
Go Huskies! WOOF!!!
All I saw was purple
Woof
I am pretty excited and I am listening to Nick Holt doing an extended segment with Softy on KJR.
I've got Holt on DVR...
… and I am going to burn it to DVD. A lot of work to get done but this place is going to be AWESOME again. It’s just a matter of showcasing Sark, Holt, and a winning atmosphere on national tv for recruits to start pipelining in here once again.
The curtains have closed and the audiance is filing out of the theater. Sark knows the big job starts now while the curtains have closed. The work he and the coaching staff put in from now until August the show will reopen. I’m buying my tickets in advance.
All I saw was purple
They need to get out the trash cans
I remember hearing about how when Urban Meyer got to Florida, his first offseason there they set up garbage cans for conditioning drills so that players would have a place to puke. He (or his strength coach, can’t remember for sure) actually said that they were trying to get players to quit the team. They didn’t want anybody who wasn’t strong enough mentally to push themselves beyond their limit.
I think it worked out pretty well for them down in Gainesville.
WOW! That's intense...
…that would definitely qualify as the toughness test though. There are times in games when you have to suck it up and keep bringing it to win the game. We definitely need to get that back.
It was All Inspired by Bear Bryant
Tough love is what it’s all about. You teach a kid a tough lesson and he won’t forget it. Same applies to football. You want to succeed on the football field then you’d better teach success. I have always frowned on football coaches that don’t teach live tackling. How can you simulate that in practice? You can’t and when you don’t simulate the speed of the game nor the brutality of the game then a kid goes into the game not knowing what to expect. In order to have success you’ve got to teach success and practicing live, full speed tackling is all apart of it.
Coaches that worry about injuries in practice don’t quite get it. Here’s the deal- if you are too worried about injuring a kid in practice then you’ve already defeated the purpose. It’s an old clique but they say that football injuries occur when a player is not prepared or is timid. I believe that religiously! The trash can thing and getting kids to quit was inspired by Bear Bryant and is a great tool involving conditioning- I hope like hell Sark and Holt implement that tool- because then you find REAL FOOTBALL PLAYERS that are ideal for defense and special teams.
I believe everything coach Sark, Holt, and the coaching staff will do is teach towards game-like situations. Everything that is done in practice will be game related. It will be full speed and full contact and you don’t stop until you hear a whistle (like in football). Jogging is not football and should never be done in practice. I hate the idea of a coach telling his kids to take a lap. Taking a lap is not football. You wanna have a kid run then that conditioning should reflect the game. Let’s face it the only time you jog in football is when the team comes out of the tunnel. You run in the game, you run onto the field, you run off the field, and you run to the water station. Football is a full speed sprint not a slow endurance jog.
We’ve got good coaches, coaches that get it and success is just around the corner because of what they stand for. You want to win on saturdays? Then you’d better win in practice leading up to gameday!
Go Dawgs! WOOF!!!
All I saw was purple
Yep...
…they come from a pretty darn successful model. Holt said (I’m sure you guys heard it too) that there would be live tackling in every practice. You practice the way that you intend to play.
Did you guys read Molly's article? An LA article is a Must Read
Check out the link from Molly’s article from the LA Daily News. It’s nothing but smear job.
All I saw was purple
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