Huskies Set for Today's Scrimmage

Ratcheting up the intensity, the football team went full speed last night in Husky Stadium.  Among the developments:

• Safety Jason Wells went down after tweaking his Achilles tendon, though the injury is not thought to be serious and was likely related to residual scar tissue from his springtime tear. The training staff iced him down and will monitor its condition today, but expect Wells to miss a bit of time.
• The coaches experimented with different combinations on the offensive line, as the staff is attempting to identify their top seven-to-eight players.  A huge concern right now, the offense performs well in seven-on-seven drills, but when O-Line joins the drill, the unit simply isn't producing at expected levels.
• The receiving corps had a challenges holding on to the ball.  However, throughout fall camp they overall have performed quite well.

Please see Bob Condotta's complete wrap-up in The Seattle Times.

Steve Sarkisian hasn't released a depth chart but this is how it looks so far at practice, with the pecking order to start settling today:

Offense

QB Locker - Fouch - Price

TB Polk - Griffin - Fogerson - Shaw - Bronson

FB Homer - Sylvester

WR Aguilar - Boyles - Johnson

WR Kearse - Bruns - Leonard

WR Goodwin - Polk

TE Middleton - Izbicki - Boyce

OT Schaeffer - Fancher - Thomas

OT Habben - Scott - Armelyn

OG Kelmente - Rosborough

OG Ossai - Christine - Shugert

C Tolar - Ikehara

Defense

DT Ta'amu - Duncan - Tokolahi

DT Elisara - Matthews - Noble

DE Jones - Aldrich - Chrichton

DE Teo Nesheim - Pulu - Thompson

WLB Savannah - Gage - Wallace

SLB Foster - Houston - Tucker

MLB Butler - Tuiasosopo - Dennison - Mangum

CB Glenn - McDowell - Gobern - Persley

CB Richardson - Long - Mosley

S   Walker - Aiyewa - Fellner

S   Williams - Batts - Logan - Wells

First Scrimmage Today

The first full scrimmage of the fall is set for 3:00 PM this afternoon. The Seahawks will also practice at Husky Stadium, with a workout slated for 6:45 PM, making today a great opportunity to head out to Montlake.

One of the readers asked last week why there hasn't been more written on coach Holt during camp? Going back to what I said previously, beat writers typically start with the head coach and the QB, then work themselves through the rest of the lineup when the coaches are available. Today Ted Miller of ESPN focuses on Nick Holt and the Husky defense.

Miller believes the Huskies have a chance to be noticeably improved on defense compared to the past two seasons. Of course, when you are coming off the worst two defensive seasons in school history, it is difficult to determine how far they will come until the schedule starts.

At this point, Holt's primary charge is mental and psychological rather than physical. He's trying to make the Huskies believe they are better -- way better -- than the 2008 unit, which ranked as the worst in school history, a fitting part of a 0-12 team.

"I think that's the biggest issue -- getting them to believe, to expect to win," Holt said. "We need to understand how to overcome adversity when something bad happens. We can't get our heads down and look in the rear-view mirror all the time. We need to throw away that rear view mirror."

Ted also noted a that Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer was the guest of honor during lunch at the athletic dining hall. Steve is from Detroit, and one of my neighbors and good friends out here is a childhood friend of his from prep school. Balmer just happens to be the type of guy that could write a $150 million check and not feel it.

First off, for those of you who believe Washington is out of juice, you should have seen the guest of honor sitting behind me at lunch in the athletic dining hall.

Steve Balmer. He's ranked No. 29 in this poll.

Ted also focused on the receivers who rewarded him with a below average day compared to previous practices. Too bad Ted won't be around for today's scrimmage. He heads down to the Willamette Valley today.

Goodwin leads a receiving corps that may sneak up on some folks. The Huskies run a solid six deep at the position, and that doesn't include impressive freshman James Johnson.

A big issue with the Huskies is quarterback Jake Locker's accuracy. He looked good to me during the morning practice, and the overwhelming consensus is he's improved in that area.

If the Huskies offensive line can protect him, Locker has the tools at receiver to move the ball through the air.