Monday Dots: One Man Can Make a lot of Waves

Happy Monday Dawg fans, and welcome to today’s Dots.

• The big news over the weekend was the hiring of Troy Dannen as UW Athletic Director. (Start date today, news conference tomorrow). Dannen has spent 8 years as the Director of Athletics at Tulane University, where by all accounts I’ve seen he’s done a great job. You may be impressed reading Dannen’s profile page on TulaneGreenWave.com. I know I was.
  Particularly this line: “And, in 2021-22 season, a national championship came to Uptown when the Sailing team won the title, in just the fifth year of the sport’s existence.” Proving that the real reason for Dannen’s hire is UW Rowing.
• Mike Vorel, Seattle Times: “Washington hires Tulane’s Troy Dannen as next athletic director”
• The Athletic: “Washington hires Tulane’s Troy Dannen as AD: What the veteran administrator brings to Huskies”
• GoHuskies.com: “University of Washington Appoints Troy Dannen As Director of Athletics”

• I feel some irony in hiring the AD that engineered Tulane’s historic win over USC in the Cotton Bowl. What with Jen Cohen making a lateral, in-conference move to USC.

Photo by Matthew Visinsky/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

• In other news, the Oregon Ducks are coming to Montlake this Saturday. I just know there are a handful of Duck fans somewhere still saying “Yeah but they’ve never scored 70 on us when we’re wearing our real colors.”

• LOL:

Also this weekend, the news came in confirming ESPN College Gameday will be on the UW campus for Oregon-Washington this Saturday, along with rumblings beginning last week that a wave of angry Cougs will descend on the College Gameday production at Red Square. If you’ve missed the broohaha this past week about the WSU/Gameday feud, get caught up here and here.

I’ve been asking myself since August 4th what the talking heads at ESPN are gonna do once they no longer have the Pac-12 to kick around. Well, we have our answer: they will continue to kick around what’s left of the Pac-12. They’ll milk every drop they can out of the ridiculous “Pac-12-sucks-and-isn’t-worthy-of-existing-let-alone-competing” narrative they’ve been pushing constantly for the past several years. Now... I believe that the party most responsible for the demise of the Pac-12 is the Pac-12 itself, but ESPN has played a huge part in poisoning the well of public perception.

And they got their wish. The Pac-12 is no more. But they just can’t let go of the buzz, the hot takes, and the malarkey they’ve come to peddle as a fundamental part of their brand. Judge me if you like, but I hope Red Square is full of football fans - regardless of the colors they wear - heckling the network shills manning the farce that Gameday has become. Come Saturday afternoon I’d like Gameday to pack up their production and leave town with egg on their face.

• Dan Raley says “Behind Johnson, UW Running Back Battle Keeps Things Interesting”
• Women’s soccer: “Huskies Top Wildcats 4-3 In Wild West Shootout”

• Softball outscored their opponents 27-1 across four games in the Husky Fall Classic, including a combined perfect game against University of British Columbia.

Go Dawgs, beat Oregon!!