Beautiful Game Day

Published 9:00 pm Friday, November 17, 2006

We’re close to six hours away from kickoff and it’s a beautiful morning in the Palouse. Sunny and cool, it’s supposed to get up to the low 40s today, but will certainly cool off during the game. We arrived yesterday afternoon and the drive couldn’t have been much better. Plenty of snow in the pass but nothing on the highway.

Not much news to report as we head to kickoff. Washington arrived yesterday afternoon and toured Martin Stadium, but didn’t have an actual walk-through. Johnny DuRocher did not make the trip, meaning that Felix Sweetman is the backup and Sonny Shackelford is the third-string. I’d put the odds of Sweetman playing at about 90 percent, and the chances of Shackelford needing to take some snaps as pretty good as well. Washington State is going to come after Washington’s quarterbacks and there hasn’t been much to lead me to believe the Husky offensive line can keep WSU out of the backfield.

Saw Michael Braunstein in the hotel last night, and Chris Hemphill is here as well, so those guys will obviously play. There’s a chance Jason Wells could start at safety instead of Hemphill today, though with the way Hemphill has been playing, why would you leave him on the bench?

That’s about it for now. We’ll check in later, probably from Martin Stadium.