Dot...Dot...Dawg (6/9)

• Adam Jude details the record eight Huskies taken in the Major League Baseball draft, as well as the other Pacific Northwest players who were selected by various MLB teams.
  
  
  
• Baseball coach Lindsey Meggs received a letter of intent from Toby Dunlap, a 6-6, 260 lb. reliever out of Orange (Calif.) Lutheran High School.
  
  
• Shaq Thompson and Danny Shelton have garnered some attention as preseason All-American from Phil Steele and SportingNews, respectively.
  
  
• Chris Petersen was a guest on Sports Radio KJR with Softy and Mike Holmgren for a segment that lasted about 20 minutes. The most interesting part came at about 13 minutes in, when he hinted that he'll reveal the nature of Cyler Miles' sanctions at next month's Pac-12 Media Day.
  
  
• In a sign of growing respect for Washington's football program, ESPN's Pac-12 Blog says that the key stretches of the football season for Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA and Washington State all include games against the Dawgs. Meanwhile, Washington's key stretch in the eyes of the blog includes the games against Arizona, Oregon State and Washington State. Personally, I would have said that the defining stretch is made up of Washington's first three Pac-12 games, with those coming against Stanford, California and Oregon. After all, those aren't just games against two of the Pac-12's most dominant programs for the last several seasons: they're also Chris Petersen's first games against Pac-12 North opponents. Coming out of that stretch with just one win against California and losses to the Cardinal and the Ducks would mean that Petersen would face a decidedly uphill battle in getting the fanbase to buy back into the idea that Washington is capable of escaping the conference's muddled middle in 2014.
  
  
• Bud Withers caught up with University of Washington president Michael Young to hear his thoughts about the future of the NCAA. Fox Sports calls one of his ideas—allowing a number of college football players to be given something akin to the NFL's franchise tag—"absurd," and frankly, I don't think I can bring myself to disagree with that characterization. If you want to franchise 'em, pay 'em. Simple as that.
  
  
• Washington has the nation's 27th most-lucrative athletic department, with revenues of slightly more than $85 million. Officially, UW trails only No. 9 Oregon ($115.2 million) and No. 20 California ($94.5 million) among Pac-12 schools; however, USC and Stanford aren't listed due to their statuses as private schools, and both almost assuredly eclipse UW's take.
  
  
• Stewart Mandel likes one of the teams in the Oregon-Stanford-UCLA trio to represent the Pac-12 in this year's inaugural College Football Playoff.

Question of the Day

Above, I relayed the ESPN Pac-12 Blog's key stretch for the football program in 2014, and gave my own thoughts on what Washington's defining stretch of games will be. What three-game series do you think will be Washington's most important in Chris Petersen's first season?