Something to Smile About

      The Mariners season this year has gone from okay to bad to very bad then extremely worse. However on September 24 the die heart Mariners fans who are still falling this team got something to smile about. 

       Ichiro who is in his 10th year in the Majors got his 200th hit of the season which makes him the second player to have 200 hits in his first 10 seasons in the bigs. Ichiro's second hit of the day in the fifth inning against Blue Jays starter Shawn Hill with Josh Wilson at first with one out. 

      This is a big consolation prize for Mariners fans who thought they had a team that could contend for its only their fourth AL West title in there 33 years of playing baseball. Although I will say the Mariners have had bad luck. Mark Lowe injured then traded in the Cliff Lee deal in early July. 

      Although when the season comes to an end on the first Sunday in October the 2010 season of the Mariners will go in the books as underachievers for the most part but this event will for sure go down as the Mariners Top 20 greatest moments in team history. 

Were Not there Yet

       On Saturday the Huskies were defeated by Nebraska 56-21 in which they did not play there best football at all. Washington who had high hopes for this season are now 1-2 and will have to have to play above 500. football in with a tough Pac 10 schedule.

      This was also a bad loss for fifth year senior QB Jake Locker. This loss combined with his atrocious stats has for sure put him a bad spot if he wants to win the Heisman Trophy come December. His 4 for 20 for 71 yards 1 TD an 2 INT is defiantly a Nightmare for any Collete QB.

      This is just one of those examples that UW is not ready to play with the big teams like Nebraska. Its one thing to be beat 56-21 on the road to Nebraska, its another to get humiliated like that in your stadium which is one of the loudest stadiums in the nation.

     Whatever, it was on Saturday it just went wrong. However, I don't think all of UW's mistakes would of equaled 35 points so lets give Nebraska some credit to go in to Husky Stadium and win. They said the crowd noise wasn't going to be a factor and it wasn't.

      The bright side is we do have a very young team. Playing this type of completion will help us two-three years down the road.

       The Huskies schedule also works out perfectly. The Huskies will have a a bye week before they start preparing the the Trojans. USC is 3-0 however, they have had a schedule that I believe Washington could run the table with.

       Last time I asked you to ask your self a few questions. We got some of those questions answered in a negative way today.  However,  I think we just have to be patient, Washington will be back at the top one day we just don't know exactly when.      

Nebraska Washington preview

       The Washington Huskies will play another program building game today when the Nebraska Cornhuskers march in to rainy Washington looking to get their first road win of the season.

        Last week there were a lot of great historical games. There was Ohio St. versus Miami, Michigan and ND and lastly the Penn St. travelled to Alabama.

        Today there is a game similar when 8th ranked Nebraska takes on Washington which should be a game filled with emotion. These two teams were rivals in the 90's as they played four times with the teams each winning twice. In addition the loudest crowed ever recorded for a college football game was between these two rich programs as in 1992 Washington defeated the Cornhuskers 29-14.

      Forget about the meetings in the 90's. It is a new era in Huskies football as Coach Sark is trying to get this team back to the top as that's where it was in the early 90's.

     The New era also brings some confusion with the UW program. With the Pac-10 moving to 12 teams next year and Jake Locker won't be with us next year is the future now?

      Before you answer that ask your self a few questions:

• How comfortable will I feel with Montana at QB next year?
• What is my timeline for this team to get back to the Rose Bowl?
• Is this team ready for the big stage week in and week out?

     The bottom line is there are more questions then answers about this Husky team right now and after the game we might have some of those questions answered.

      To the game though Washington has a chance to win this game if they make very few mistakes. This includes penalties, and turnovers. If Washington can win those two categories Washington should have a chance to upset one of College Football elite teams.

      Also Nebraska is starting a Freshman QB with Taylor Martinez. He is making his first road start of his collegiate career and the Huskies fans will try to make it worse for him as the fans will be as loud as possible.  Martinez is also a runner like Locker is so you gotta be ready for those misdirections and option plays sort of like what they do at Oregon.

     In the end though I think Nebraska has more play makers on the field and that will be the difference and Nebraska will win the game my prediction is  26-17 thou Washington will play really hard.

     The game will kickoff at 12:30pm and is a ABC telecast.

A Win is a Win

       The Huskies evened up their record at 1-1 with a 41-20 win over Syracuse Today. Washington did not play their best at all but they didn't need to as Syracuse showed the college football landscape that there a basketball school and not a football school.

       The important thing is they got the win and at the end of the day the only stat that matters is who has more points at the end of the game.

      UW started the game the same way they finished last game. On Syracuse's first possession Washington roughed the Syracuse kicker Rob Long which led to a new set of downs and ultimately Syracuse going up 7-0.

      Syracuse added a Field Goal before Washington started to get their legs moving. After some turnovers from the Orange, UW found themselves up 13-10 at half.

     In the third quarter Washington took 20 seconds to pad that lead to 20-10 and after Kearse's 28 yard catch to make it 27-10 UW was on their way to a 41-20 victory. However this was a sloppy game for the Dawgs and if they want to upset Nebraska next week they can't fall behind 10-0 like they did today and for sure no roughing the kicker calls because the good teams will finish us in the first half and we will be in a hole to deep to climb out of.

   So it should be a intriguing week at practice as Nebraska will come in to town on Saturday. Nebraska took care of Idaho today 38-17 and look like a team on a mission to win the Big 12 in their final year before moving to the Big Ten.

    Next weeks game will be a challenge for the Huskies but it won't be impossible and after the game we will know exactly how this team plays versus teams that think they can win the BCS National Title game in early January. The game will Kickoff at 12:30 and can be seen on ABC.

Huskies versus Syracuse preview

         The Huskies look to even the record at 1-1 when the take on the Orangemen tomorrow at Husky Stadium. The Orangemen are undefeated on the year but UW wants to change that come Saturday September 11th.

        September 11th in most Americans minds is a very sad day. Now nine years ago 19 hijackers took control of four air crafts heading towards the west coast. Three out of the four planes reached their target but the last plane crashed in a open field near the White House. Our thoughts and prayers are still with the families who lost loved ones.

       However for three hours tomorrow we will put those thoughts aside so the Syracuse Orangemen can take on the Washington Huskies. In their last meeting The Huskies rolled over Syracuse winning 42-12 to open up the season and followed that with a beat down of Boise State.

        The Syracuse game was a beginning of a new era for the Huskies. Red shirt Freshman Jake Locker made his college football debut. Although its an era that hasn't turned out to be what husky fans have wanted, still no bowl game since 2002 and If Locker has wants to make it to a bowl game in his career at UW he must have ambitions of winning the game tomorrow as a loss might have an 0-4 start staring at them.

         The odds say Washington should win as they are 35-14 since 1975 at home after losing on the road and Syracuse the last time they started 2-0 was 1999. The spread is 12.5 and I look will look for 34-21 dawgs win.

        The Kickoff is set for 4pm and will be aired on FSN NW.

Unforced Errors Cost Huskies Win in Provo

     The Huskies had a great chance to get there first win on the road since 2007. However the Huskies found away to lose yet again.

     The Huskies got off to a great start in the game forced a 3 and out and then scored a touchdown on their first drive. However the tide slowly changed and BYU was taking over the game slowly but surely.

     First it was the bad snap on the punt, secondly the roughing the kicker call and many times in the game Jake Locker missed open receivers that would of given the Dawgs a first down and at least would of gotten them out of the horrific field position.

    Although the game was lost with Coach Sark's play calling as too many times he made questionable calls on third and fourth down. On his defense he looks like the best coach ever if the Huskies execute so you Husky fans out there lets still Bark For Sark for the next little while and see how his recruits do in the next couple years.

    True Freshmen Jake Heaps had a decent game who last fall chose BYU over UW. Also BYU had bounces going their way yesterday and sometimes its just not your day.
  
    When UW had a 7-0 lead it looked good but 13 straight points by the Cougars gave them a 13-7 lead although Jake Lockers TD run gave UW a 14-13 advantage. Nick Folk's career long 53 yard FG gave Washington a 17-13 lead at halftime. Things were looking really good for UW at half BYU didn't go away and unforced errors along with the Cougars outscoring the dawgs 10-0 and fourth down gambles by Coach Sark gave BYU a 23-17 win.

     Keep your heads high Husky fans its a long season and next week we have the Syracuse Orangemen out of the Big East. They defeated Akron today 29-6 but they are for sure weaker then BYU. The game kickoff is at 4pm and is on FSN NW.