Category Archives: Huskies Football

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by | April 29, 2010 · 8:52 pm

How to Cheer for the Spring Game

For the past few years I’ve made the drive with my dad from Yakima to Seattle for the Husky spring football game.  This year I only have to take the ten minute drive across the bridge to get there.  While this is a change from recent years, I will still be going into the game with one question on my mind: How do I cheer for this game? 

Come about 6 o’clock tomorrow night, I imagine I’ll take my seat, save spots for my fellow good guys and a few friends, watch the game and just cheer along when everyone else does.  But I’ve found often times that I don’t want to do this.  Maybe it’s because I’m looking for things that other people aren’t looking for.  Maybe it’s because I’m a rebel (not really).  The truth is when 8,000-10,000 people get together to watch a team play against itself there is no set way of cheering.  I thought I’d throw out a few ideas I’ve had on how to cheer for the game tomorrow.  Some of these are pretty standard, some of these will get people to stare at you.  Here you go:

  • Cheer for big plays on offense and defense.  This is generally what happens.  It’s fine.  I don’t really have a lot of excitement towards this philosophy.  Even 3-year olds can shout exclamations after Jake Locker throws a touchdown.  It’s these other ideas that will set you apart.
  • Cheer every single time Jake Locker touches the ball.  I know this may sound dumb but think about it.  If anyone deserves to hear our shrieks it’s #10.  If there is a roar every time he takes a snap and drops back I think he’ll begin to feel the sense of appreciation we have for him sticking around for one more year.  Call it stupid, call it brilliant, I tend to think that Jake is deserving of this treatment.
  • Cheer every time Senio Kelemente knocks a defensive lineman to the ground.  People will look at you but you’ll get the last laugh when Senio is named to the all pac-10 team this year or next year.  Trust me on this one.
  • Cheer for good plays by the defense.  Usually the focus is on the offense during these games because people like to see points scored.  I get that.  But, we know the offense is good; we don’t need to worry about the offense.  The defense is another story so support them.  Most people whine and moan about an incomplete pass at these games but realize that it takes a good play on one side to make a bad play on the other.  This idea is the one I feel strongest about if that means anything.
  • Cheer for the punter, Will Mahen.  Punters are incredibly lame and they probably know this, therefore they may need a self-esteem boost. 

If you have anymore ideas post them in the comments!  I’ll be back tomorrow with a preview of the game and players to watch.  Thanks for reading!

Andrew

Note:  I didn’t attend practice today because it was only an hour long and mainly just special teams stuff.  If you’re looking for a practice report check out Condotta’s blog.

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by | April 27, 2010 · 11:19 pm

Huskies Practice Report – 4/27

It was a cold and windy day through most of practice today.  They must have been the winds of change, as Mark Emmert announced his resignation today (sorry I couldn’t help but put a terrible ‘winds of change’ line in).  The sun did end up poking through towards the end and gave me hope that the spring game on Friday won’t be absolutely freezing.  The team was in shorts, shoulder pads, and helmets today.  This was the shortest practice of the spring and there isn’t a ton to report.  Thursday will be another short one as they prepare for the Spring game on Friday night. 

There are no new injuries to report.  Sadly, it looks as if Jesse Callier will be out for the game on Friday.  I did see him do some running today which is a good sign but there is no reason to rush him back.  Even with the injury, Callier had a great spring and has set himself up to be in the rotation next year. 

Jermaine Kearse gave everyone a scare while going up for a deep ball from Locker and coming down grasping his ankle.  I thought that he broke his ankle but after laying on the ground for a minute he got up and walked off.  Turns out he just tweaked his ankle. 

As I mentioned, there isn’t a lot to report from this practice.  Jake was good.  Kearse was good.  Johnson was good (unlike his cross-town rival, Rob).  The defense did do a better job against the run today but struggled a little more against the pass.  Izbicki made a great, diving catch and impressed me all day.  Middleton got yelled at all day.  Backup defensive ends, De’Shon Matthews and Peter Follmer, made back-to-back sacks in the scrimmage portion.  They’ve each grown this spring.

A few more notes about practice and the resignation of Mark Emmert after the jump. Continue reading →

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by | April 26, 2010 · 10:10 am

Huskies to Play a Thursday Night Game

The Husky football team is on the verge of playing its spring football game this Friday night and this apparently won’t be the last time they on a weekday this year.  The school has announced that they are moving their final home game, against UCLA, to Thursday, November 18th.  The game will be televised nationally on ESPN.  This game has several implications:  It will be senior night (Jake Locker’s last home game), Rick Neuheisel’s return to Husky Stadium, and a possible bowl game on the line (we can hope).

I’m excited about this.  I see the downsides to it and I tend to be more of a traditionalist in that I like my football on Saturday, but there are some real positives to this.  Some of those are:

  • The program is on the up-swing and the more attention we get the better. 
  • If the team had some success throughout the season that means Jake Locker’s Heisman campaign is probably in full force.  With this game on national TV, everyone will get a chance to see what Jake can do.  This should only help his Heisman chances (unless he has a bad game).
  • The atmosphere should be fun.  Any game that’s on national TV usually has a little different atmosphere which adds to the excitement.  The crowd should be fired and that does help the team.
  • ESPN helps with recruiting.  Players want to play on the biggest stage and ESPN is that right now (as much as I don’t really think it should be).

I’m looking forward to this.  What do you think?

Andrew

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by | April 24, 2010 · 6:58 pm

Saturday Recap (Huskies and Mariners)

I didn’t make it to the scrimmage at Husky Stadium today and I didn’t feel like devoting a full post to the Mariners loss so I’ll just combine the two keep things brief. 

First, the Huskies.  It should come as no surprise that the freshman running back, Deontae Cooper, was the star of the day.  He has been the Huskies best running back the entire spring (Chris Polk is sitting out with a shoulder injury).  Today he rushed 114 yards and 2 touchdowns on 12 carries.  The backup running back job won’t be decided until the start of the season but Cooper has the early edge in my opinion.  His style is similar to Polk’s in that he’s a downhill runner. 

Locker had a decent day in ugly conditions.  The backups appeared to struggle but sometimes stats don’t tell the whole story. 

Jesse Callier, Nate Fellner, and Alameda Ta’amu sat out today.  Unfortunately, Callier may be out for the rest of the spring.  He also has impressed this spring.

Now, for the Mariners.  I was okay with last nights loss because they really didn’t deserve to win that game.  Today was a little different.  I don’t get to up and down with my emotions throughout a baseball season but today would have been a nice game to have.  The M’s fought back and, to their credit, got 2 runs off a pretty good pitcher, Jenks, in the 9th.  Then, Aardsma came in and showed why some people don’t want him to be our closer.  I think he threw more fastballs down the middle than Fister threw all game.  Granted, Aardsma throws harder than Fister but he doesn’t get a ton of movement and was facing major league hitters.  Just because you throw hard doesn’t mean you don’t have to locate your fastball.  He didn’t and he got beat.  I think he’ll be okay going forward and I’m not jumping ship yet but he scares me and will continue to scare me no matter how many saves he gets.

Hero:  Doug Fister.  Yep, he was fantastic again.  He needs to be in the rotation.  Right now he looks like Greg Maddux.  Seriously.  He’s throwing his fastball a ton and why not?  He’s putting his fastball exactly where he wants it and is getting some good left to right action on it.  Right now that’s a well above average pitch. 

Goat:  David Aardsma.  Read the paragraph above.  He was pretty awful.

  • After I called for Wak to move Lopez out of the clean-up spot the other night he’s done some good things.  I’m still not crazy about him there but at least he’s had a few decent at-bats.
  • The play where Byrnes kept the ball in the ball park caused a mix of emotions.  On one hand I’m thinking, dang it Byrnes , why didn’t you just catch it.  On the other hand, that was an incredible play just to reach the ball.  He was high on that fence and did save a run.  All in all, it was a good play but really weird.
  • I hope Milton Bradley comes back soon.
  • I saw Byrnes drop more F-bombs today than I’ve said in my life.  He’s annoying but at least he cares.  He did get screwed in the 9th inning when he beat out the throw to first but was called out.  That really wasn’t very close.
  • Don’t get too down about this.  There is another game tomorrow.  And Cliff Lee has a rehab start in Tacoma! Take the good with the bad, things are still looking up in Mariner country.
  • Casey Kotchman keeps hitting the ball hard.  That double in the 9th was smoked.

That’s it for today!  Thanks for reading.

Andrew

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by | April 22, 2010 · 6:29 pm

Huskies Practice Report – 4/22/2010

With a 4,000 word paper looming and little to report, this report will be very brief but I have a few notes. 

  • The team was in shells today (helmets, shoulder pads, and shorts).  There was still plenty of hitting.  In fact, Nate Fellner got in trouble for hitting too hard at one point.  After laying out Deontae Cooper in pass protection Nick Holt pulled him aside and told him that wasn’t quite necessary.  That guy can really hit and I’d be surprised if he wasn’t the starting free safety next year at this point.
  • The quarterbacks all seemed a little off through the first part of practice.  Even Jake was struggling at first but they all seemed to get going after a while.  They each had their moments.  Nick Montana has said to have a little bit of a weaker arm and I could see that a little bit today.  It’s nothing a little time in the weight room couldn’t fix.
  • To end the practice the starters went up against each other in a 2 minute drill, followed by the backups.  Then, they each had an overtime session.  The first team offense moved the ball down the field with ease but then was held up at the 10 yard line.  They did score in overtime.  The second team offense was stopped both times.
  • One of the plays of the day was made by Anthony Boyles in that 2 minute drill with the starters.  Jermaine Kearse had appeared to find a hole in the zone that was in the corner of the end zone.  Boyles raced back and jumped as high as he could to knock the ball away at the last second.  When Boyles is out there playing and not thinking it’s easy to see why he was rated so highly coming out of high school.  He is a great athlete.
  • James Johnson continues to come on strong to end this spring.  He’s had a very good last few practices.
  • Jesse Callier was out today and had brace going up one of his legs.  I don’t know how serious it is but hopefully he’s back by the spring game.
  • I imagine the Dawgs will do a good share of scrimmaging on Saturday.  Practice starts at 11 so come out and enjoy.

That’s all for today!  Thanks for reading!

Andrew

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by | April 20, 2010 · 10:10 pm

Huskies Practice Report – 4/20/2010

I wasn’t able to make it to the Huskies practice today but here’s a link to Condotta’s report.  It sounds like they really mixed up the starters with the backups to promote competition. I’ll be back out there Thursday with a report.  They changed the time of Saturday’s practice to 11 am.  It will most likely be a scrimmage.  Hope to see you there!

Andrew

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by | April 17, 2010 · 5:11 pm

Huskies Practice Report – 4/17/2010

The Huskies completed their 3rd week of practices this afternoon.  There was a little rain as the practice began but then the sun poked through the clouds, Nirvana and Jimi Hendrix came through the speakers, and I became very thankful that I live in Seattle.  There were about a thousand people at the practice including quite a few high school and junior college coaches who were attending the UW coaches clinic.  I spotted Paul Wulff trying watching the coaches, trying to figure out how to coach his own players (that was a joke and completely false).

To tell you the truth, there wasn’t a lot to report today.  During the team drills there was a lot of work on special teams.  Most of the practice was pretty typical and then there was about a half an hour scrimmage at the end.  The offense dominated early in the practice and then the defense had the upper hand in the scrimmage portion. 

Nick Holt was even more animated than usual today.  At one point he made the entire second string defense do up-downs after a 10 yard play by the offense.  The coaching staff has to be in such great shape because they sprint everywhere.  They really set the tone for this team.

The defense used a few different looks today.  Alvin Logan rushed off the edge quite a bit in the scrimmage and was quite effective in doing so.  He might be playing defensive end on 3rd downs this season.  They rotated linebackers a lot more today than they usually do.  I imagine they are just finding who is best where and when.  They also went to a 3-4 at times today, it seemed to work pretty well.

At this point in spring everyone seems to be settling in on where they should be in the depth chart.  Sure, every once in a while someone will bust out with a great practice but it’s usually the same suspects every practice now.  It’s nice to see that consistency because I don’t know if there were players who would consistently have good practices on the Huskies a few years ago.

With that said here are my players of the day:

  • Jermaine Kearse was great today.  He scored 6 touchdowns in a row during drills.  I think he ended up with about 10 on the day.  The Huskies don’t have a corner who can defend him and I don’t know if anyone in the Pac-10 does. 
  • James Johnson also made some very good catches.  He got called for two offensive pass interference penalties but one of them was extremely questionable.  In the offenses only touchdown drive in the scrimmage, Johnson came up big several times.  He is pretty physical and looks bigger than he did last Fall.
  • Chris Robinson is a red-shirt defensive tackle who has played well all spring.  He continued to do so today, getting into the backfield and making some tackles.  I think him and Tyrone Duncan may have played themselves into the rotation for next season. 
  • Demetrius Bronson had a few very physical runs today.  He may not carry the ball very often because he is switching between fullback and running back right now but, I think Bronson would be very good at the goal line as long as he takes care of his fumbling problems.  With that being said, Polk and Cooper are/will be very good at the goal line also. 
  • The freshman running backs were good.  I’m going to stop putting this in the practice reports and you can all assume that they were good.  I can’t wait for my fellow good guys to see them in action and then say how excited they are about them.  If they play like they’re capable of on April 30th people will be buzzing about Jesse Callier and Deontae Cooper through the whole summer.  

Other guys were good too but you already knew that because their names are Jake Locker, Mason Foster, and Cort Dennison.

Two more weeks of practice to go.  I like what I’ve seen overall but I’ll save that for another post.  Now, it’s time to watch the Mariners and Justin Verlander (if the Mariners get shut down tonight, which is entirely possible, take a minute to enjoy how good Verlander is.  He is the Tiger’s Felix.  Should be fun to watch regardless of what happens).  Thanks for reading!

Andrew

Andrew

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by | April 15, 2010 · 7:54 pm

Huskies Practice Report – 4/15/2010

We passed the halfway point of spring practice today.  It was the Dawgs’ eighth practice of the year and they have fifteen total (including the spring game).  Today the team was in shorts, shoulder pads, and helmets; apparently taking it easy before the usual Saturday scrimmage.  It was an absolutely beautiful day in Seattle today and I might have come away with a sunburn, which is just fine by me.  Before heading down to the stadium I bought some iced tea and two Choco Tacos (Choco Tacos are the most under-rated snack/dessert of all time.  Seriously, I could eat 5 without any problem.  They are perfect for a warm day like this was.  Choco Tacos are one of those small things that you have to cherish.  Like the movie Zombieland has taught us, it’s the little things in life that make it grand and Choco Tacos are the grandest of the little things.  Go buy one.).  It felt like Summer and it was glorious.

There were no new injuries today.  Jordan Polk is still struggling with a hamstring injury and he played sparingly.  Cody Bruns and D’Andre Goodwin are also out so the depth at receiver isn’t very strong right now.

During drills today I tried to watch the offensive and defensive line more so that I’d have something different to report.  I don’t know a ton about the lines but I came away with a few observations.

  • Senio Kelemente is going to be really good.  He could become a pretty good NFL prospect by this time next year.  It’s clear he’s the best on the line for a number of reasons but when he does get beat by a defensive lineman (this hardly happens) the defensive players celebrate a little bit more.  Talia beat him once in a one-on-one drill today and then they went up against each other the very next play.  Talia got knocked down twice and never did get to the target.  Don’t mess with Senio!
  • Skyler Fancher still appears a step slow and rusty.  He is coming off an injury so I imagine that he’s still getting going but if he looks like this in the Fall I’m not sure how much he’ll play with the return of Cody Habben and incoming freshman.
  • Mykena Ikehara is pretty impressive.  He still looks a little small but he also looks like UW’s second best offensive lineman.  He can play either guard or center, right now they have him at center.
  • De’Shon Matthews was impressive today.  He beat Fancher around the edge 3 different times.  I’ve said this before but I don’t know why he was playing defensive tackle before.  I know there wasn’t much depth when Ty moved him but if he had stuck at DE I get the feeling that he really could have been something special.
  • Talia Critchon is still a little small but his speed is impressive.  If he puts a little more weight on I think he could be pretty successful next year.
  • After watching closer today, I’m a little more worried about Cameron Elisara’s speed at DE.  I don’t know if he can beat people around the edge but time will tell.

As for the rest of the team, it was the usual suspects who put up good performances.  Both of the freshman running backs put up some really solid, long runs.  It is worth coming out to a practice just to watch these two.  They will make you excited about the future of Husky football. 

The defense had it’s way most of the day.  I don’t recall a touchdown today in the team session.  The linebackers and secondary continue to impress.  If anyones trying to lock up their starting job by fall camp it’s Nate Fellner.  He continues to make good plays and more importantly doesn’t make any bad ones.  Will Shamburger also made some really good hits from the safety position today.  All of a sudden depth at safety looks to be a really strong point for this Husky team. 

Just a few more thoughts after the jump. Continue reading →

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