It's a Football Saturday!

I've been negligent in my posting once again but after doing a quick update yesterday I made a list of all the things I need to post about. The two most time consuming things going on right now and therefore most appropriate to post about are college football and marathon training.

Since it's a football Saturday - I'll catch you up on the college football we've been enjoying. My last football post was our opening game against LSU. I blogged a lot last season about coach Willingham and the need to fire him which occurred before the end of the last season. Steve Sarkisian the offensive coordinator for USC was hired and what a difference good coaching can make. Last year the UW Huskies went 0-12 - it was a painful season and Kent witnessed 10 of 12 losses in person. It's a new year in Husky nation! Here's a rundown of our season to date:

LSU - Opening game of the 2009 season. Number 11 in the country, LSU was heavily favored and there were tons of LSU fans in town for the game. You could not go anywhere in Seattle the days leading up to the game without running into tons of LSU fans. The Dawgs lost the game 31-23 but not before demonstrating great improvement to a home crowd over the previous year. Despite the loss it was a great game - where the Huskies actually going to do something this year?

Idaho - Second game of the season and the Dawgs are expected to win. My nephew got married on this weekend over in Lake Chelan so Kent and I drove the three hour drive to Lake Chelan for the rehearsal dinner on Friday and then turned around and got up early Saturday morning and drove back to Seattle for the game and then back to Lake Chelan for the evening wedding! It was a lot of driving but it was worth it to see the Dawgs break a 15 game losing streak dating back to Nov. 17, 2007! Huskies win 42-23! There is hope at Montlake! Turns out the Vandals are a pretty good team and as of this writing has gone on to win 5 games. Only loss this season was against the Huskies.

USC - Best game I've ever attended! Huskies take on number 3 in the nation USC in front of a home crowd hungry for a big upset! Since our new coach was the former offensive coordinator for USC we wore buttons thanking USC for the coach! The Dawgs manage a huge upset and win 16-13! First time I've seen the field at Husky Stadium rushed by the hometown crowd! Unbelievable game and a huge win for a team that went winless the previous season. For one short week UW is ranked in the top 25 teams in the nation! (Kiss of death, which frankly seemed a bit premature, but it was still fun!)

Stanford - Away game - hopes high, only to lose big in Palo Alto. Dawgs lose against Stanford 14-34. Turns out that Stanford has a pretty good team this year and currently has a 4-2 record. Ironically the last time the Huskies won an away game was in 2007 at Stanford - Kent and I were at this game along with our friend Bill. I hope they break the away game losing streak today!

Notre dame - Okay, I'm not usually bitter about a loss for long but I still have not put away the bitter bag over our loss to Notre dame 30-37 in OT. We travel to two away games each year and this year Notre dame was one of the away games we attended. What a great experience despite the loss! We met our friend Bill in Chicago and drove to South Bend for the game. Great campus and the locals were especially nice. Kent has a former coworker attending graduate school there right now who met up with us and gave us a quick tour of campus so the entire experience was a lot of fun! So why am I bitter? Bad officiating! The UW officially challenged a couple of the calls and it was determined that had the correct calls been made the Huskies would have won the game! It would have been so sweet - the Huskies and Notre dame have played eight times and the Huskies have never won against them - this was our year and it was stolen right out from under us! Jake Locker was pissed!

Arizona - Huskies win a miracle game in the 4th quarter at Husky Stadium. They played well in the first half of the game and actually went into half ahead. The third quarter the Huskies pretty much fell apart and it looked like we were going to lose this one and that our chances of going to a bowl game were all but lost. Washington's Mason Foster made the miracle play and intercepted a deflected pass off the foot of an Arizona player and ran it back for a touchdown with 2:37 left. The Huskies rallied with two touchdowns in the final three minutes to stun the Wildcats 36-33! College football is never over until the clock runs out!

So here we are half was through the season and we are playing 500 ball with real chance of pulling together enough wins to make it into a bowl game! The remaining games are all Pac-10 conference games so they are pretty critical games from this point forward. The Dawgs play Arizona State tonight in Tempe so we will be watching that game later tonight. This is a huge game!

It's good to get caught up on my football blogging. I'll post an update following tonight's game.

Later -

Jim