A football update

Published 5:13 pm Monday, February 11, 2008

So I know it’s February and all, but these days college football never seems to never really have a true offseason.

Tyrone Willingham held a conference call today to talk about new tight ends/special coach (we think) Brian White. White, a former offensive coordinator at Wisconsin and Syracuse is expected to take that job, but could also be the running backs coach depending on Willingham’s next hire.

During the call, Willingham also dropped a hint that something extra is in the works for this year’s spring game. He was asked about the start of spring practice and the date of the spring game and said:

“There are still some things working forward with our spring practice. I’m not sure how to label it, but I think there is something nationally that we may be tying into that may not allow us completely to announce that decision yet.”

He was asked to clarify, but only added:

“I don’t know if I’m at liberty yet to throw that out there, but there are some things still being worked on that could change by a week or so, but most likely we’ll be starting that first week of April one way or the other.”

A school spokesman said that the Huskies are planning some sort of expanded weekend of activities around the spring game, but that details are still being worked out.

As for the coaching hire, here’s a partial transcript of what Willingham had to say:

“I’m excited, obviously as you would be, when you get a chance to add somebody of quality to your staff. Brian’s been coaching for quite some time, he’s got a wonderful history, some of that includes time being in the west, and he also has a marvelous academic record to accompany those years of coaching experience.”

“I first really became aware of him at Wisconsin and the work he was doing there, and of course we faced him this year at Syracuse. All along I’ve respected the work he’s done, the people that he’s been with and the person that he is. So I think we’ve added a quality guy that is also an outstanding coach to our system.”

On why he hasn’t announced which position White will coach:

“I just like to leave certain things open, because he is multitalented, and therefore if there is something I need to change based on the next person that I’m going to look at, then I want to have the flexibility to do that.”

Willingham did add that if things go according to plan that White will be the tight ends/special teams coach.

On why Willingham felt they needed a change at that position:

“There were some good things there, but I needed to feel a little bit better, see a little bit more progress, and hopefully this will allow us to do that.”

On why he plans to use White at tight ends/special teams:

“He felt comfortable at a lot of positions, but what my needs were, what I saw him as, I felt like it would be a better fit for us at tight ends and potentially special teams.

On the tight ends position with the addition to high school All-American Kavario Middleton:

“Hopefully Kavario and the existing tight ends that we have can see the opportunity and recognize the challenge and really step up to the plate and give us some great play and create some great opportunities for us. And if they can do that, then quite naturally it becomes a focus of our offense.”

Though it didn’t have to do with the hiring of White, Willingham was asked if any position changes have been made yet. There has been speculation that a player or players could switch positions, particularly to defensive line, where the Huskies will be inexperienced this season.

“We are still just starting all of our research right now, so there will be any identification of player changes right now will be focused just on doing our offseason research to make those decisions so that we can put them in place later, if there are any,” he said.