Huskies trudge on

Published 11:08 pm Monday, October 6, 2008

SEATTLE — Now what?

That seems to be the question surrounding Washington football these days. The Huskies are 0-5 for the first time since 1969, have lost seven in a row — the longest streak in the nation — and a good percentage of the fan base is calling for the head coach’s job.

On Monday, embattled coach Tyrone Willingham held his weekly press conference, sounding more or less like his usual self despite the dark cloud hanging over the program.

“We enter another phase of our season, and that being the second bye week that we’re entering to,” he said. “Our focus as always will be one, to get healthy, two, to improve our football team and work on those areas that we think need a lot of improvement, and then make sure we have developed our younger players and keep them progressing and keep them coming forward.”

The goals Willingham stated for this bye week are almost identical to what he said last month following the Huskies’ loss to Oklahoma, but since then a lot has changed around the program. Following that game, the Huskies were 0-3, but there was a feeling that they could still turn things around as the schedule became more manageable. Now, however, the season seems lost after a home loss to Stanford and a blowout loss to Arizona.

But despite the team’s troubles, the Huskies have no choice but to push on and try to find answers during the bye week.

“It’s where it should be,” quarterback Ronnie Fouch said when asked about the team’s mood. “People should be upset about the loss, you know, but we’ve got to put it behind us and I think guys are, and we’re all looking forward to this bye week and people getting healthy and ready to beat Oregon State. We have a good offense and we have a good team and we all know what we can do, so we’re all excited to put this behind us and keep fighting for Oregon State.”

Fouch was the only player who could speak to the team’s mood, because no other players were available at Monday’s press conference. On most Mondays, half a dozen or more players show up to meet with the media. This time however, only Fouch and tight end Michael Gottlieb showed up, and Gottlieb had to leave for class before Willingham and Fouch had finished conducting interviews.

Following Saturday’s game, Willingham and players said that, despite the lopsided score, the Huskies didn’t give up. Arizona tailback Nic Grigsby, however, told Arizona reporters that he thought the UW defense had quit before halftime.

“I think our kids keep playing and kept trying,” Willingham said when asked about Grigsby’s comments. “We just were not successful, but I do not think our kids quit.”

The biggest goal of the bye week will be to get a number of injured players back on the field. Safety Nate Williams left Saturday’s game with back spasms while receiver D’Andre Goodwin, who suffered a rib injury the previous week, was on the field for only one play before leaving the game. The Huskies were also without safety Darin Harris (concussion) safety Johri Fogerson (ankle) and tailback David Freeman (ankle).

Willingham said he hopes to have all of them back with the exception, perhaps, of Harris.

Asked what his team needs this bye week, Willingham said, “Without question it needs success, a victory, a win, but also in that process, I think it needs a little health. We’re starting to get a little nicked up, a little banged up in a lot of areas, not just one. Prior to this week we were kind of thin at our safety position. Now it looks like receiver was one, running back was one, so those areas are starting to take a little hit right now, so we need one, to get healthy, and two, continue our progress to get better.”

Using freshmen: Willingham was asked again Monday about the decision to use freshmen Terrance Dailey and Cody Bruns despite the fact that the season was four games old. He again defended the decision.

“Anytime you play a freshman at any point other than the first ballgame it raises eyebrows somewhere, but I think if you’ll go back and look over my career and look over the time that I’ve been here, we’ve been very wise in how we’ve used and utilized our freshmen,” he said. “I think that was still consistent with the guys that we put in on Saturday. There were still, when they went in, eight games that we had remaining. We had injuries that affected their timing going in, I think the young man wanted to be involved and wanted to help our football team win.”

Willingham was asked if he had a number in mind heading into the season of how many freshmen to play.

“No, no,” he said. “I have one rule — to play the best players, and play them when they’re ready to play and ready to perform, and can help themselves and help the football team, but no, I don’t have a number. Because you really don’t now how your freshmen will respond. We said a couple of weeks back that one of the biggest concerns I always have is your first week of school, because now they’re inundated with a lot more information, so how they handle that, how they perform, you don’t know. It’s guess work to try to figure that out, so you have to watch them and see when they’re ready, and if they’re ready and they’re the better player at that time, you provide them an opportunity to get in the lineup and help the team.”

Players of the week: Freshman receiver Devin Aguilar, who had four catches for 35 yards, was named Washington’s offensive player of the week, while defensive end Daniel Te’o-Nesheim took home defense honors for his eight-tackle, three-sack game. Long snapper Danny Morovick earned special teams honors. De’Shon Matthews, Cody Bruns and Riley Gervais were the service teams players of the week.

Contact Herald Writer John Boyle at jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on University of Washington sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com /huskiesblog