Dots? Never heard of 'em. Oh . . . those Dots? What's it to ya'?

• Injury-Gate continues to get the attention of the media (of course, they can't resist when the media is the story). Art Theil chimes in with his own opinion. I'm not sure it is all that different than the majority of other media people, but worth a read if you still have tolerance for this story.
• The big story facing UW right now is preparing for a suddenly awesome looking Stanford. Ted Miller notes that the Dawgs have a little extra time to prepare.
• Todd Dybas takes a look inside the Husky playbook: Inside Screen. I think he must be working with the Cassino.
• Also from Dybas, a little on Shaq Thompson and the outstanding progress that he has made in just his first three games. It is pretty obvious to anyone watching the game that Shaq has been one of the two or three best players on the defensive side of the ball so far (right there with Shelton and Tru) in what is a rapidly improving unit.
• So, what do you think? Has Justin Wilcox "delivered thus far"? As I just alluded to, I think the signals so far have been pretty good. I know a lot is being made about the lack of sacks, but I think that this is more an indictment on the lack of passes thrown against our Defense as much as anything else. We'll know more once we see those teams that pass the ball more frequently: USC, Cal, Oregon State, WSU, etc.
• The Husky Haul profiles one of the fill-in O-Linemen - Mike Criste. A good read about a lightly recruited guy getting thrust into the spotlight.
• Husky great, Lawyer Milloy, is going to have his high school number retired and his former league mate, Jon Kitna, will be on hand to witness it.
• The DirecTV drama rages on. Avinash has covered this topic well to date and, in this article, notes that the pressure might be mounting on DirecTV. While I respect his work, I respectfully disagree. The Pac12 is on crack if they think that they can get DirecTV to accept the same deal as Cox and Comcast for the simple reason that the cable companies can control (and have yet to even do so) the national roll out of the channel, thus limiting their exposure to unruly per subscriber fees. DirecTV cannot segment their subscriber base in the same way. Furthermore, there simply isn't that enough demand from people who are willing to drop Sunday NFL Ticket in order to get Pac 12 Networks through Dish TV. Until the cables actually execute a national rollout, there is really almost no pressure on DirecTV to capitulate and, honestly, why should they. Larry Scott overplayed his hand and got burned when he didn't take steps to ensure that the cables rolled out nationally. He now needs DirecTV more than ever if he wants to have any hope of the cables doing a full roll out. That is where the real money is - everyone knows it. The pressure is on the Pac 12 to get this done before the season goes too far along and any bit of leverage they had left evaporates.
• Mason Kelly has some excellent content on his site. Free to view his is "five story lines".
• Also from Kelly, a look at UW's continued pitch to bring Myles Jack back home ($).
• Noted in another link, but worth repeating, is some All-American recognition for a highly ranked UW PSA.
• On the Hoops front, Percy has the update on Lindy's prediction of UW to finish fifth in the Pac 12 this season. To drop from 1st to 5th seems like a huge decline for a team that is returning several seniors, but, somehow, it doesn't feel wrong. I hope I'm proven incorrect.
• From the Hoops Report - a ranking of UW as the #64 team in the nation. That would, of course, make them tourney bound.
• The Men's Golf team had a nice showing and featured some new names for us to get all crazy about.
• Finally, the Lady Dawgs - still #5 in the nation - scored a big W over the Cougs.