Afternoon Update
Published 9:00 pm Sunday, September 24, 2006
Not much news from Tyrone Willingham, though it’s amazing what winning will do. Willingham was in as good a mood as he’s been in in awhile – which doesn’t mean he answered questions any better, just that he did it with a smile.
No injury news from the UCLA game, though Willingham said he expects linebacker E.J. Savannah to miss about two weeks and doesn’t expect any injured player (like Robert Lewis) to return this week. Lewis has a broken foot and has missed the last three games, if you Seahawk fans want to take anything from that with regard to Shaun Alexander.
Willingham said it was a near certainty that none of the true freshmen who had yet to play yet would play this year, “unless something drastic” happens. That means Jake Locker, Cameron Elisara and the rest would have a fifth year. The only two freshmen who have played are fullback Paul Homer and linebacker Donald Butler.
Willingham said he thought Dashon Goldson – who played 12 plays on Saturday – is about ready to get back to full competition after being limited by his high ankle sprain all season. That would be great news to the thin, struggling secondary. But Willingham said it was “debatable” if Jordan Murchison (knee) is healthy enough to play right now.
Expect us to have news about roster additions sometime Tuesday, as Willingham said he expects to add a few names to the roster. But don’t get too excited. Those names are likely to be guys who are injured and out for the year like Ryan Perkins and Josh Okoebor. As for Ashlee Palmer and Aaron Mason, expect news about them on Wednesday, the first day of classes at the UW, and don’t expect the news to be good.
Willingham named Chris Stevens (special teams), Roy Lewis (defense) and Sonny Shackelford (offense) as the team’s Players of the Week. The choice of Stevens was a bit of a surprise as Sean Douglas was the Pac-10’s Special Teams Player of the Week. Douglas was probably hurt by dropping a snap that led to good UCLA field position.
A lot of the talk Monday was centered around Washington’s running game, which we’ll write about later, but the players say they aren’t worried that they will get it going again (what did you expect them to say) but Willingham said he is “very” concerned about it.
That’s all for today. We’ll have the Pac-10 Coaches teleconference tomorrow morning followed by meetings with the offensive players and coaches in the afternoon.
