A Brief History of Nearly Everything (Said by Dawgs at Media Day)

In order to keep up with the Pac-12's Thursday and Friday Media Days, one would have to a) have Pac-12 Networks on their TV and b) set aside all day in order to watch it. The latter of course is purely hypothetical. I mean, in the words of our Supreme Leader Eugene Mirman, "Name one person who isn't home on a [Thursday] afternoon? You can't. It's impossible, because everyone is home."

But just in case you somehow managed to be away at, say, "work" (a likely story) and as such - get this - didn't devote your full Thursday and Friday to watching 20 year-olds talk about Pokemon Go and Pac-12 football, we have this:

The main thing being brought away is Chris Petersen throwing shade at the Husky hype, though he's been scoffing at it since the end of last season so that's hardly new and not worth wasting words on.

What I enjoyed hearing from him was about the players not buying into the hype. In his words, "Our players have been doing what they need to do...They get that they need to earn it. We want to earn it."

The hype cliche has, of course, been almost matched by the John Ross cliche wherein national media outlets are already praising him as the savior of the Washington receiving corps. While speaking with Mike Yam and Curtis Conway, Coach Pete acknowledged his explosiveness but similarly diffused the premature praise, instead focusing on the more (relatively) anonymous receivers and tight ends as well as the O-line, in that "if those unsung heroes do what they need to do, then we're talking."

Petersen also spoke about something else which, I admit, I had never really considered - and I expect I'm representative of many fans in this regard. The last two seasons (along with the upcoming one) have been deemed a "youth movement" so many times that, if the words "youth movement" were heroin, we would have overdosed long ago. Yet with all the exciting new recruits, people tend to forget about or completely discard the juniors and seniors who have yet to become stars - even more, people tend to forget that the upperclassmen who broke through as young players still can and must improve. This was stressed by Petersen that the improvement of the team from 2015 to 2016 will be toned by the upperclassmen. Let's not forget that Tani Tupou and Travis Feeney weren't exactly big deals coming into their senior seasons.

After Petersen, Nickel CB Kevin King and TE Darrell Daniels gave their thoughts.

King in particular had some words which validated the Built for Life program. On Petersen, he said, "Having a guy who can be a coach and a friend is great. It makes me wanna play for the benefit of him and the benefit of the team...I don't think a lot of programs around the country have that, ya know? Just [being able to] talk to their head coach about just life and things in general."

Daniels echoed Petersen's earlier thoughts on the "unsung heroes", saying that "Jake has a whole bunch of weapons he can throw to."

For Daniels and King, more important than anything they said was how they said it. My impression of both - especially of King - was that when they were asked a question you could see the gears turning. Their answers were articulate and funny and I feel that's indicative of this team's transformation from Sark to Pete. Seeing two players so cerebral? It bodes well.

As Petersen said, "We're now at the point where guys...get it. There's a time to work; there's a time to play. And I think you can do both."

Some final thoughts:

• Darrell Daniels' tooth gap is adorable and I love it. Hopefully he'll use it wisely, which means tricking the opponent into thinking he's just a big old innocent teddy bear and then, when they're least expecting it, crushing their souls with his concealed badassery. This was the preferred technique of Michael Strahan.
• Coach Pete also had some non-football thoughts wherein he admitted to having resting bitch face on the sideline. Technically what he actually said was "I wanna be the first to say that I have a really bad sideline face," but whatever. The Pac-12 Network's Mike Yam then offered to coach Petersen on that, and I want to be the first to say that I would absolutely watch a reality show about that process.