"Smoke and mirrors, that's all I ever see anymore," mumbled the shift captain, the heavy black bags under his eyes and creases on his forehead giving lie to his insistence that he needed no break. "I'll kill the first sonofabitch who mouths off to me before I've had my coffee and Dots." 

• Now that Bishop Sankey is officially a Tennessee Titan, he is getting some premature love as an offensive rookie of the year candidate. David Climer of The Tennesseean says that if the Titans go running-back-by-committee, he expects Sankey to quickly become the committee's chairman. 
  <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>.<a href="https://twitter.com/BishopSankey">@BishopSankey</a> just signed his new contract! <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TitanUp&amp;src=hash">#TitanUp</a> <a href="http://t.co/2oSEYS4XgG">pic.twitter.com/2oSEYS4XgG</a></p>&mdash; Tennessee Titans (@TennesseeTitans) <a href="https://twitter.com/TennesseeTitans/statuses/478993756486909952">June 17, 2014</a></blockquote><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
  
• The Seahawks released Keith Price on Monday to make room for a few other prospects, including former Washington running back Demitrius Bronson. It was always going to be a long shot for Keith to make the Hawks' 53-man roster, and for now, he'll have to turn his sights elsewhere. After having what most observers regarded as a surprisingly strong mini-camp with the Hawks, it wouldn't be at all surprising to see Price land in camp with another one of the various teams that showed interest in him as an undrafted free agent. Best of luck, KP. You deserve it.
  
  
• Unsurprisingly, Steve Sarkisian and Mike Leach were the state's most highly-paid employees last year, pulling in $2.6 million and $2.3 million, respectively. The only other public employee to earn more than $1 million was UW men's basketball coach Lorenzo Romar, who took home about $1.9 million for his labors.
  
  
• SB Nation's indispensable Bill Connelly (@SBN_BillC) is well into his 2014 countdown of all 128 FBS football teams. So far, he's covered UW opponents Georgia State, Hawaii, and Illinois. Also of interest for Washington fans (well, for me, anyway) are his Boise State and BYU previews.
  
  
• College football players could make five- or six-figure salaries, while men's basketball players could pull in more than $1 million, if the NCAA were to adopt this proposal to pay athletes in accordance with television revenues. [Spoiler alert: It won't. But it's a fun idea to debate, nonetheless.]
  
  
• ESPN examines which schools qualify as "[Position] U" since 2000. As you might expect, Washington doesn't sniff the top 10 for any of these thanks to the Great Malaise of 2004 to 2008, but several Pac-12 schools make appearances, including some that caught me off guard—honestly, I'd forgotten how stacked Oregon State was at receiver in the early 2000s.
  
  
• Over at Pacific Takes, Dawg Pound alumnus Jack Follman singles out Dwayne Washington as being "on the edge" of becoming one of the conference's top-12 running backs.
  
  

Question of the Day

Washington fans have referred to their school as "Tight End U" for quite some time based off of the success of players such as Aaron Pierce, Mark Bruener, Ernie Conwell, Cam Cleeland, Jeremy Brigham, Jerramy Stevens and most recently Austin Seferian-Jenkins. Use your imagination and think about the state of Washington football in 2024: Do you most want to see Washington become known for producing quality players at quarterback? Offensive line? Cornerback? Another position? At which position do you think this is most likely to happen?