While I was on vacation this week I had to laugh while both Seattle newspapers defended WSU coach Paul Wulff despite the fact that he landed his former school on probation after failing to report numerous violations during his tenure as head coach. They also overlooked a couple of secondary recruiting violations that happened recently at WSU. Washington on the other hand lands on the front page for renting a fog machine and the more serious problems at WSU get shoved under the rug?
Posters who wrote into the Seattle PI were told there wasn't enough room in the paper to investigate or continue discussion on the subject.
No room? Are they trying to save some tree's during the last month of their existence in print?
The Seattle Times even had the audacity to run a poll asking readers who they thought was the worst offender...Paul Wulff, Rick Neuheisel, or Steve Sarkisian?
You rent a fog machine and have a bump while recruiting which happens all the time at all schools and equate that to what happened under Wulff at Eastern? How does Sarkisian get lumped into all this?
Give me a break!
Wulff didn't impress me at all by taking little responsibility and blaming most of the problems on the administration at Eastern Washington. Wulff get his hand slapped by having to sit out three days of practice this fall while Eastern gets a playoff ban and even worse could lose top some of their top players to other schools.
If Steve Sarkisian arrived at UW with similar baggage it would be beaten to death in the media for months. You have to wonder when the Seattle newspapers will stop persecuting the UW football program while continuing to give WSU and other schools a pass.
What happened at Eastern Washington was major and the NCAA agrees. Comparing Sarkisian to Wulff is an intentional low blow.
UW basketball team in first place
It was a great week if you were a Husky fan. First of all the Huskies are two games up on UCLA in the basketball standings after sweeping the Oregon schools. The Huskies travel to LA later this week and if they can gain at least a split they will be the odds on favorite to win the regular season conference crown. The Huskies will be very tough to beat at home.
How does that translate on the national scene?
Washington isn't getting any national respect at this point. They don't have that marquee player that shakes the roof even though I would put Brockman, Pondexter, Dentmon, Thomas, and the depth behind them up against almost anyone in the country at this point. This is a team that plays well together and teams that play well together tend to go deep in March.
All that matters in NCAA basketball is getting into the tournament and getting a good seed. The bracketologists predict the Huskies will be a 3-5 seed which puts them in a great position to make a decent run in the tournament. If UW continues to take care of business they will get the attention they deserve.
Dan Cozzetto Returns
Expect Dan Cozzetto to be officially named OL coach and running game coordinator sometime on Monday. Cozzetto brings 29 years of experience and a no nonsense attitude to a unit that really needs to make progress if the Huskies expect to improve in 2009.
I don't know what to think of the hire since the players hated him during his one year stop under Keith Gilbertson at UW. If I was a current Husky offensive linemen I would be shaking in my cleats because this guy is going to come in and demand improvement without showing any sort of mercy to these guys.
Juan Garcia told Kim Grinolds at Dawgman that those guys are going to die...they are just going to die. He also thinks that Cozzetto will make the returning players better in the long run even if they won't enjoy the experience.