SEATTLE — Today may be a respite for the University of Washington football players, who don’t have to practice, but not for their coaches.
Showered, shined and packed, head coach Steve Sarkisian met with reporters briefly Thursday morning before heading out on a two-day recruiting scramble. His nine assistants, the maximum allowed by the NCAA during this recruiting period, will be gallivanting about, too.
Sarkisian said he will be in Southern California and that members of his staff will be up and down the West Coast, in Arizona and down to Texas trying to secure new commitments and maintain prior ones.
The departure and time off for players marks the end of the bye week. Saturday, the Huskies will be back to practice in preparation for next Thursday’s game against No. 9-ranked Stanford at 6 p.m. at CenturyLink Field.
“I thought we got some good early game plan stuff for Stanford,” Sarkisian said of this week. “We addressed some issues that needed to be addressed. We did some good situational work, especially today.”
To wrap the week, kicker Travis Coons was put into an end-game situation to close Thursday’s practice. His 42-yard field goal was good, the Huskies celebrated, and now they get a break.
Extra points
Transfer cornerback Travell Dixon was in pads and participated in seven-on-seven drills on Thursday. … Sarkisian said the team’s health has improved. “We got guys back, and we didn’t lose any more.”… Sarkisian on the offensive line: “I’ll feel better probably into next week. The challenge is going from (facing) a 4-3 team to a 3-4 team. It took a few days for us to get back to the fundamentals of playing that style of defense, the two-gapping defense, the zone blitz out of that…. Sarkisian said LSU is much different offensively than Stanford. He said LSU is more traditional, and Stanford believes in playing its big guys in “jumbo” sets or splitting out tight ends as wide receivers. “The team speed LSU possessed was a bit different than probably anybody we’ll see here, maybe outside of Oregon and SC.”
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