Bonnell Says He’s OK
Published 9:00 pm Sunday, November 12, 2006
Carl Bonnell said he should be ready to practice and play this week, though he looked as beat up as I remember seeing him at the Monday media lunches. He said his biggest issue is getting the swelling down in his thigh. Tyrone Willingham said he thinks Bonnell should be ready to go, but Johnny DuRocher is a bigger question mark with a concussion. Willingham said if Washington were to practice Monday (it doesn’t practice until Tuesday), DuRocher would not be able to practice. If DuRocher is unavailable, Felix Sweetman would be the backup and beyond that, the Huskies would “get creative,” according to Willingham. That likely means Sonny Shackelford would be the third-stringer. He played some quarterback in high school.
I think even if Bonnell does go, the odds are he’ll get hurt at some point so we’ll probably see Sweetman. And frankly, that’s by far the most interesting thing about the game this week, so though I don’t want to see anything bad happen to Bonnell, who is a nice guy and while maybe fragile, at least fairly tough, I’d still like to see Sweetman get on the field.
No real news beyond that. Willingham spent some time talking about the whole junior-to-senior issue, but didn’t really say anything we didn’t already know. The players I talked to said they were surprised by the decision to not bring back Chris Hemphill but they said they didn’t think it played a role in their play against Stanford. I think it had to have been on their minds some, though I refuse to believe they would actually not play well on purpose as a protest.
Willingham touched on other topics, but nothing that was all that interesting to be honest. He said Johnie Kirton would continue to be a part of the running game. He said he has had some second thoughts now about cancelling the Hawaii game as it would have given them another week of practice.
Isaiah Stanback made his first appearance at the luncheon since getting hurt. He said he’s started to make some progress in his rehab in the last couple days that has him excited. He said he’s surprised the team has fallen apart without him but doesn’t believe that it’s simply because of him.
Several of us had a good conversation with athletic director Todd Turner. He talked a lot about what he hopes to do from a facilities standpoint and how important that is from a recruiting standpoint, pointing out over and over that there isn’t enough emphasis on the accomplishments of Husky athletics in the facilities as they are now. He has a meeting with some of the regents on Thursday to present his vision on what he would like to see happen, and he promised to meet with us in another week or two to go over specifics, which should be interesting. He also said he stands by Willingham’s decision in the junior-senior issue, though he did say that an argument could be made that the timing could have been better, but that Willingham’s heart is in the right place.
I won’t be at the basketball game tonight, so there won’t be a blog from it. I will be at the game tomorrow, as well as my usual football duties during the day. I’ll try to update you after we talk to Tim Lappano and any other offensive players who might happen by. He should have more information about the quarterback situation.
