The Monday Morning Wash

It looks like the world of college football is returning to normal after the deluge of expansion news that dominated the landscape over the past thirty days. The dream of a Pac 16 is not dead it is just on hold for now. The deal to save the Big 12 won't last very long.

The TV dollars that supposedly are available to save the conference are pie in the sky. Once Texas, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma figure it out they will once again be shopping for a new home that Texas will select.

USC is putting together a strong recruiting class due to recent sanctions. The Trojans are appealing the penalties but most think they don't have a snowballs chance in hell of lightening the sentence. The sanctions are severe. In fact they are more severe than the one's that Washington suffered through in the early 1990's. Most think that the Trojan football program will feel the bite until 2018.

BYU isn't happy that they are being left behind by Utah and that is understandable because the Cougars have always had a top notch athletic program with strong regional and national support. Despite that the Pac 10 has always felt that the school would not be a good cultural and academic fit as a member.

An e-mail I received Friday, from a Cougar named Paul, was similar to a hundred others. It read like this: "I'm ready to jump off the ledge. This hurts. The thought of Utah going to the Pac-10 and us being stuck in the Mountain West makes me sick. I'm not kidding. I want to puke. The Utes have been good for seven seasons. We've been good, other than the Crowton years, for 40 seasons. We've beaten them three out of the last four years. We draw more fans than them. We have a bigger national audience. And they go to the Pac-10? Why? Because of [our] religious affiliation? It sucks."

Salt Lake Tribune

Ted Miller of ESPN has been giving us his version of his top 25 players in the Pac 10. UW LB Mason Foster is the first Husky mentioned at #11 and I imagine that Jake Locker and Chris Polk should be popping up on the list any day now.

Recruiting Update

Football camps and clinics have started at the UW and will continue through the end of the month. This is the time of year when coaches get an up close look at mostly local prospects over the period of a few days in Montlake.

UW just completed a camp for the linemen this past weekend. No word on if another James Atoe stepped into the picture but if someone like him did we probably won't know until signing day. DE Jarrett Finau from Juanita HS picked up an offer from Washington after a strong camp. He already had offers from some Pac 10 schools but Washington wanted to see him up close before offering and they ended up being impressed by what they saw.

The 2012 OL class in the Northwest on paper might be one of the best ever according to Scott Eklund over at Dawgman. Players such as Zach Banner, Shane Brostek, and Isaac Seumalo are on the road to being top 200 recruits nationally. As for 2011 it looks like Washington will get the bulk of its beef from Hawaii and California.

Speaking of beef Auburn's Danny Shelton is still a Washington lean at this point even though he has enjoyed unofficial visits to other schools such as Oregon and UCLA. Shelton ended up being one of the most talented linemen at the Bruin camp last week. Sam Shirley from Juanita was also in attendance for that one.

The Austin Seferian-Jenkins recruiting tour has been going strong this month. ASJ has a list of eight schools and he is about to cut it down to his final five. Stanford just replaced USC in his top eight. Most of us are thinking that it will come down to UW and UCLA.

Washington will hold its annual "Rising Stars" Camp: Tuesday and Wednesday, June 22 and 23 at Husky Stadium. This camp will be interesting to watch because some lucky and talented QB will likely get an offer at the end of it. Brett Hundley who will not be attending remains Washington's number one target at the position. The Huskies are among the final schools on his list. Washington is expected to sign two QB's in this class.

What do you want to talk about?

We are now entering the dog days of summer which means that their will not be a lot happening until the frosh arrive for the start of the LEAP program and camp begins in August. In the meantime we will be doing the annual conference team previews and take a closer look at what the Huskies will look like when practice begins. So chip in some ideas about what you would like to read about over the next six weeks and I will try to get it covered for you as time allows.