Maybe it’s the word I heard Huskies football coach Steve Sarkisian pronounce Thursday.
“Championship.”
Maybe it’s because of the summer of lousy baseball at Safeco Field, which followed a spring of lousy baseball and likely portends a September stretch of lousy baseball.
Or maybe – and this thought scares me – I’ve gotten too feeble to pounce upon the usual reasons for skepticism.
In any case, the Washington Huskies begin their training camp with a private practice Sunday, and I’m trying to remember when I’ve been more excited about the prospect of college football around here.
Ten years ago, when the 2000 team, given a No. 14 preseason ranking, ended up beating Purdue in the Rose Bowl? Perhaps, except the Mariners were locked in a thrilling playoff race that year, clinching a berth in the division series on the final day of the season.
College football wasn’t an afterthought in the summer of 2000, but neither was it the best thing about waking up.
Hopes for the Huskies were high in 1991 – they were riding the momentum of a Top 10 finish in the polls, sealed by a Rose Bowl victory over Iowa – but the consistent success of Don James’ program created a climate where anything short of a major bowl appearance would’ve been regarded as a disappointment.
The ’91 team ended up with a share of the national championship, capping a season that delivered everything but the sense the Huskies finally had escaped the wilderness.
Which might explain why my anticipation for college football is at a fever pitch. Not since 2003, when Keith Gilbertson’s team finished 6-6, has the UW managed to win as many games at it lost. Not since 2002, when Rick Neuheisel’s team finished 7-6, has the UW gone to a bowl game. And not since 2001 has Washington opened training camp with a two-game winning streak.
The Huskies’ 30-0 victory in the Apple Cup in November exacted some revenge on the helpless Cougars, and the 42-10 thumping of California in the season finale provided a glimpse of the possibilities that awaited them if quarterback Jake Locker shunned the NFL and returned as a fifth-year senior.
More tangible is the total-points stat from the last two games of 2009 – Huskies 72, Opponents 10 – that suggests the best has yet to come.
“Last year,” Sarkisian recalled Thursday, “it was compete, fight, scratch and claw. This year, it’s ‘let’s go play well and win a championship.”
Actually, last year wasn’t so much about competing, fighting, scratching and clawing as it was about, like, winning for the first time since Nov. 17, 2007.
The Week 2 conquest of Idaho snapped a 15-game losing streak, and found the players so overwhelmed by the sheer wonder of it all they gathered on the field for a rousing round of whatever lyrics they knew to the Husky fight song.
Now Sarkisian is talking in terms of a championship, and he should be commended for not delving into specifics. (A national championship? Get real. A conference championship? We’re getting warm. The mythical “Northwest Championship” once touted by Neuheisel? Why not?)
Whatever championship the head coach craves, it’s on the shoulders – not to mention the arm and, sometimes, the legs – of Locker. Sarkisian on Thursday envisioned the quarterback improving his pass-completion mark to at least 65 percent and improving his touchdown-interception ratio from 2-1 to 3-1.
If Locker manages to throw, say, 30 touchdowns versus 10 interceptions, he’ll be seen as a Heisman Trophy candidate. If he exceeds those numbers, he’ll emerge as a darkhorse contender for Time Magazine Man of the Year.
Fortunately for Locker, the offense is not strictly Locker. Sophomore running back Chris Polk, a game-breaking threat once regarded as too slight to carry the ball 20 times a game, is up to 216 pounds.
Receivers Jermaine Kearse and Devin Aguilar are all-conference talents, and Chris Izbicki apparently has stepped up to replace suspended-until-the-end-of-time tight end Kavario Middleton.
“I love him,” Sarkisian said of Izbicki.
As for the defense, the secondary (anchored by the elite cover-cornerback Desmond Trufant, a Wilson High graduate) and linebackers are strengths that’ll be needed, because the pass-rushing corps still yearns for a few good men. Or one.
But, hey, who else is perfect on the schedule?
The Huskies are on the road at BYU for the opener, and BYU is a quarterback factory. Problem is, the Cougars have four of them attempting to replace Max Hall.
As for Syracuse, well, it’s Syracuse: master sof the matchup zone in basketball, punching bags in football. Nebraska figures to be a load, but that’s a national TV game, in Husky Stadium.
About the conference showdowns? USC is in turmoil after the departure of coach Pete Carroll for the Seahawks. Oregon State will be challenged to replace standout quarterback Sean Canfield, and Stanford never will replace human steamroller Toby Gerhart.
Oregon returns virtually everybody but the player that mattered most: option-whiz quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, whose off-field conduct got him booted from school.
Six regular-season victories and an invitation to an obscure bowl game is the low bar. Eight victories and a better bowl game is within reason. Ten victories and the Rose Bowl is conceivable.
Please get here, September, and get here in a hurry. The coast is clear.
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