Touchdown Huskies

It is almost time. Game time. The 2012 College Football season kicks-off Saturday night at 1935 at Century Link field. I wish I could say Husky Stadium, but because of renovation construction we are borrowing the Seahawks house for our home games this year. If there are any WSU alums among the VBA you are probably wondering about tonight's contest between two Cougars, Wazzu and BYU. So am I.  It might be interesting. I hope the new coaching staff will instill a sense of swashbuckle that has long been missing from the Pirates of Pullman. The better the Cougs, the better the chance they might plunder and pillage one of the teams the Huskies need to top in the PAC12 North. So here is the first time in man-years I have said this: GO COUGS!

I might watch a few plays after the completion of the current video project, but there is only one team that I follow with unblinking devotion and one dimensional bias, as I have been doing since 1978. There have been some good times, some great games and some unforgettable moments along that stretch of Saturdays. From Joe Steele to Chris Polk, Warren Moon to Teeth Price, Dave Hoffman to Johnny Timu and The Dogfather to Sark, my heroes have always been Huskies. 

There is nothing like the energy and passion generated at College Football Game Days. Nothing. I enjoy watching the kids develop. I like the drama. I like the high probability that some of these kids will make alarming errors of omission and that and equal number will create highlights clips of artistic, graceful explosive power. It is war. The object is simple. There are lines drawn. There are colors. You have teammates, specialists and intel. You have an individual assignment within a larger team goal. Every skill you have ever been taught, been given at birth via DNA or learned in a playbook or on film, needs to be put into play, in real time, with fatigue and sometimes injury, in front of 60,000 people live and another million or so watching on TV. 

My favorite colors are purple and gold. We fight for that inch. Saturday we start a new era in the 100 plus year history of University of Washington football. I will be watching closely. The nuance in the trenches, the pro style offense, the tandem of slick tailbacks, the D-line play, the backers and the new talent in the secondary. I'll watch Tru & Tre lock the corners, Jessie and Bishop slip to the sidelines, Josh and Danny play a little smashmouth all as Sark negotiates the momentum, game clock and emotion. I can hear Bob Rondeau now:

TOUCHDOWN HUSKIES.