Huskies are ‘OK’ on first day

Published 9:53 pm Sunday, August 5, 2007

SEATTLE-OK, but not great.

That was Washington coach Tyrone Willingham’s assessment of his football team’s first day of practice.

With 26 days remaining until their opener at Syracuse, the Huskies took the field at Husky Stadium on a sunny Sunday afternoon to open practice for the fall season. And while his team showed the typical first-day rust, Willingham seemed pleased overall with the day.

“I was generally pleased with the overall attitude,” he said. “I believe from our first day that our minds are in the right place. For the most part, we were still very rusty. We didn’t throw and catch very well, but we hustled. Defensively we still have to learn some lessons, but for a first day, I told our team, I thought it was Ok. Not great, but OK.”

Neither of the top-two quarterbacks, Jake Locker and Carl Bonnell, was overly impressive throwing the ball, but Willingham didn’t seem discouraged.

“I loved what I saw from them,” he said. “But we didn’t throw it and catch it as well as they would like to so there’s no question that we didn’t throw it and catch it as well as I would have liked to. They both had some good ones, they both had some bad ones.”

Prior to the practice, the team went through conditioning tests. While he had not yet looked at the results of the tests, Willingham seemed happy with the overall showing by his team, and mentioned Locker, Bonnell, running back Louis Rankin, and defensive end Caesar Rayford as some of the players who impressed him.

“I thought the team ran as well as any of the teams I have had here,” said Willingham, who is in his third year at Washington. “I think overall it was a good start for our guys.”

Willingham also seemed pleased with the efforts of his new freshmen.

“What you’re looking for out of your freshmen is that they’re not slowing your team down on day one,” he said. “That’s number one. They’re getting their first dose of it, but you can’t afford to let your team fall backwards because they can’t step up to the pace, and for the most part they did a good job. No question they blew some things, but guess what, so did the veterans.”

One of the surprises of the practice was the offensive line unit that practiced with the first team. The group of Cody Habben, Ryan Tolar, Juan Garcia, Matt Sedillo, and Chad Macklin wasn’t what was expected. Garcia and Macklin are returning starters from last year’s team, but so is Ben Ossai, who wasn’t with the first team Sunday. Sedillo starting at guard was the biggest surprise in the group.

Willingham was vague when explaining the first-team line.

“There were some things that were not completed prior to coming into camp, so we made some adjustment and we’ll stick with those adjustments until some things are rectified,” said Willingham, who noted that no one’s eligibility was an issue. “At the appropriate time I’ll talk about those things.”

There was also a bit of a surprise at linebacker, as Chris Stevens was playing with the first team ahead of expected starter E.J. Savannah. Willingham gave basically the same explanation for that switch as he did when talking about the line, adding, “I think you can say we’re serious about what we’re doing.”