Dawgman Radio: A Washington Huskies athletics podcast

Technically, the Washington Huskies are going through their fall camp right now, but the reality is that camp won't really start until the pads start popping. And that won't be until this coming Tuesday. 

In the meantime, Washington Head Coach Jimmy Lake is making the rounds with the media, and he's also acting as one of the torch-bearers for the Pac-12 conference. He's doing his best to stick up for west coast football, but also understands that it's going to take a lot of winning, as well as winning some high-profile non-conference games, for the rest of the country to take note. 

During Wednesday's zoom call with the Pac-12 media, Lake argued the league's case for why they should be included in the College Football Playoff, and also argued his case for a 6-team playoff format, one that would ensure that all of the Power-5 conferences are represented. 

He was also asked about position battles at quarterback, offensive line, and inside linebacker, as well as how the freeze on eligibility will impact the staff's use of true freshmen this fall. 

The topic of 9 am starts was also discussed, as well as how the most recent 7-game Pac-12 schedule was figured out. 

The guys from Dawgman.com - Kim Grinolds, Chris Fetters, and Scott Eklund - discuss the Saturday morning breaking news; the Pac-12 has released their THIRD 2020 football schedule, and let's hope the third time is the charm.

The Washington Huskies open up their 2020 season at California on November 7th, followed by home games against Oregon State and Arizona. Then, as they do every two years, they make their Thanksgiving pilgrimage to Pullman to play Washington State in the Apple Cup.

That would normally serve as the end to the regular season, but no! In this delayed and shortened conference-only season, the Huskies then come back to Seattle to host Stanford before finishing up their 'regular season' in Eugene.

So could it be a Washington-Oregon finale to determine the North Division representative for the Pac-12 Championship game? It's a definite possibility.

What's even crazier is that, even if Washington doesn't make it to the Pac-12 title game, they'll still have a game the weekend of December 19. Who they'll play and where they play is obviously still to be determined, but they will have a game that weekend no matter what.

The Dawgman guys talk about the difficulty of the schedule, possible hiccups, heaping a little praise on the Pac-12 for how they came up with the schedule, and which fan base might feel the most aggrieved at how things were scheduled.

And lastly, Scott updates up on some Saturday recruiting news. There's always a recruiting update to share!

On Tuesday, Washington Head Coach Jimmy Lake answered the below questions from the media via a Zoom call, as well as gave some opinions on various position groups. He also talked about simplifying schemes, but still making it difficult for the opponent in order for his guys to play as fast as possible. He also talked about his job as being a different kind of problem-solver during this time, as well as how he's keeping the team accountable for their behavior out of the UW Football 'bubble'. He was asked about the possibility of Levi Onwuzurike and Joe Tryon returning, the importance of Elijah Molden returning for his senior year, the importance of daily Quidel antigen testing to help eliminate the need for postponing/canceling games, as well as offensive lineman Cole Norgaard's medical retirement.

Molden and senior TE Cade Otton also take questions from the media during this call.

The guys from Dawgman.com - Kim Grinolds, Chris Fetters, and Scott Eklund - spoke for the first time since practice started back up on Montlake. UW Football is back! Or at least back practicing, pending the release of this next iteration of the Pac-12 schedule. We'd be surprised if it isn't released sometime this week, but in the meantime, the Seattle media spoke with Jimmy Lake, Elijah Molden, and Cade Otton Tuesday afternoon, and the Dawgman guys talked about those conversations, as well as how they see certain position groups working themselves out in the next four to five weeks.

Then there was a big recruiting segment with Kim and Scott. Scott went up to the COVID 7's this past weekend at Tyee High School, where he got to see a load of in-state talent, including the newest 2022 commit, Chance Bogan. They also talked about the bumper crop of in-state linemen for the 2022 class, as well as Jimmy Lake's role as lead recruiter now that he's also the head coach of the Huskies, and what that means for the recruitment of the top 2021 in-state players like Emeka Egbuka and J.T. Tuimoloau.

Here's a great recent podcast with Scott and 247Sports National Recruiting Editor Brandon Huffman that will catch you up on all the latest having to do with UW recruiting and the top in-state prospects.

And finally, a shout-out to one of the all-time WR greats to ever play at UW, Jermaine Kearse, who called it a day after eight seasons as a professional. Congratulations to Jermaine!

Dawgman.com's Kim Grinolds talks to the Washington Athletic Director Jen Cohen shortly after the news broke that the Pac-12 had voted to bring back football. How did it happen? How is the Quidel daily antigen testing going to be implemented?

They talked about the difficulties faced by the department during the pandemic, including the furlough of staff and cutting back to keep the non-revenue sports afloat. They also talked about scheduling, when will Michigan come back to Seattle to make up the game that was supposed to be played on September 5, and more about what next week's schedule will look like. We do know this: there will be no bye before UW's game at Oregon, and there will be no fans at Autzen Stadium.

Cohen also talks about Chris Petersen, Jimmy Lake, and her hopes for expanding the college football playoff system in this wide-ranging, comprehensive 45-minute interview.

Washington fans got great news Thursday evening when it was announced that the Pac 12 had voted unanimously to start preparing for the 2020 football season which will begin on November 6th, so some normalcy is starting to return and we thought it was a great opportunity to catch up with 247's Brandon Huf fman and get an update on the recruiting front.

In the 50-plus minute podcast, Huffman and Dawgman's Scott Eklund talked about the two top players left on Washington's recruiting board for 2021 -- J.T. Tuimoloau and Emeka Egbuka -- while also looking ahead to 2022 and 2023 and seeing where things are headed in-state on the recruiting front.

From the lineman heavy 2022 class, Josh Conerly from Rainier Beach (Seattle), Malik Agbo from Todd Beamer (Federal Way), Dave Iuli from Puyallup. Graham Kapowsin's Vegao Ioane and O'Dea (Seattle) offenive lineman Mark Nabou, the Huskies have their choice of top prospects to recruit along the offensive front line and it will be interesting to see how many spots they actually have available in the class.

In 2023, Lincoln (Tacoma) athlete Jayden Wayne tops the list of in-state recruits, but there are a couple of really good defensive backs already on the radar as well.

To listen to what Huffman had to say on a number of recruiting subjects as they pertain to the Huskies and their efforts as well as a quick glance at the rest of the conference, click on the audio link below...

The news many had been anticipating and hoping to hear, that the Pac 12 would be joining the rest of the Power Five conferences in playing football this fall, came down around 4 p.m. this afternoon following the conference CEO group's unanimous vote to return to play starting on November 6th.

Washington head coach Jimmy Lake said on his coach's show Thursday night that he hoped for a November 7th start, but that his team would be ready to play whenever it was announced.

Husky Nation got good news almost immediately after the announcement when senior defensive back Elijah Molden posted his intention to return on Twitter while two other Husky defenders who were expected to be part of a resurgent Washington defense -- Joe Tryon and Levi Onwuzurike -- both decided to leave and prepare for the 2021 NFL Draft in the past couple of weeks.

The guys from Dawgman.com - Kim Grinolds, Chris Fetters, and Scott Eklund - got together and immediately gave their thoughts on the decision and talked about what challenges lie ahead over the next six weeks as the conference prepares to start the season.

Pac-12 Football is back! And the conference hosted a media webinar Thursday evening to talk about the details and take questions from reporters. Present for the media call was University of Oregon President and Chair of the Pac-12 CEO Group Michael Schill, Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott, Arizona State Vice President for University Athletics Ray Anderson, and Oregon State Senior Associate Athletics Director and Chair of the Pac-12 Student-Athlete Health & Well-Being Initiative Dr. Doug Aukerman.

The guys from Dawgman.com - Kim Grinolds, Chris Fetters, and Scott Eklund - work around the fires and the power outages to get you the latest news from around Montlake, including all the comings and goings in the NFL when talking about all the former Huskies playing pro ball.

They dig into all the players who were let go by NFL teams Friday and Saturday as the 53-man roster cut line took place this past weekend. And with 16-man practice squads now an NFL feature, eight of the 10 former Dawgs waived found themselves back on practice squads as of Tuesday morning. Veteran defensive back Sidney Jones was the latest one to be added, as he moved from Philadelphia to Jacksonville.

There was also the news that the three juniors that decided to forego their final years of eligibility at UW to turn pro - Hunter Bryant (Detroit), Jacob Eason (Indianapolis), and Salvon Ahmed (Miami) all found homes in the NFL, justifying their decisions.

Moving back closer to home, the guys talk about Washington's latest verbal commitment - 2022 TE Chance Bogan. Bogan is a UW legacy, as his father Curtis played at Washington. With two years to go before the coaches get to use Bogan, there's plenty of speculation as to how he'll be used. 

Scott also provides an update on how the Huskies will finish up their 2021 recruiting now that DB Vincent Nunley has made his decision to become a Dawg. How many more players will UW take? How much room do they have left?

Here is the audio from the Pac-12 Media Thursday Webinar with Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott, Quidel President & CEO Doug Bryant, Oregon State Senior Associate Athletics Director Dr. Doug Aukerman and Washington Section Head for Sports Medicine Dr. Kim Harmon. It addresses the conference's groundbreaking testing research initiative with Quidel Corp. when it comes to rapid testing for COVID-19 and how it could be a 'game changer' to help bring Pac-12 sports back as soon as possible.