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Finally! This first-week bye thing is a pain in the ass. Thankfully we don't have to wait until Saturday. Tonight's game on ESPN will answer the questions for everybody, especially the Husky fans - what does new coach Rick Neuheisel have up his sleeve?

Let's start with what we know. The Dawgs return a formidable defense, shored up by Issa and Tuaiea, last year's Pac-10 sack leaders. Also returning are Pharms, Hairston, and hopefully a 100% Lester "the Molesta" Towns. I can be a homer with the best of them, but in all honesty, nobody's running anywhere against these guys. What about the secondary? That's not so good. The Huskies return pretty much the same ineffective guys from last year, they're just a little older and wiser. Akbar stepped up as a true freshman last year, he's at SS. Jermain Smith is back at CB from injury. Our other starter dropped out. The other starting CB is still a mystery, and all of our remaining CB's are under 6'1", most of them under 5'11". Ouch. My best guess is, look for Ricky to a lot of blitzing to offset the QB. This opens the possibility for a lot of man-coverage in the secondary, and the possibility for some big plays for BYU.

Offense is a deeper mystery. We know Marques Tuiososopo is starting at QB. Anybody who watched him last year know he's "da man." He's very agile, and was a blue-chip recruit from an option offense in high school (my wife's high school actually, as if you cared.). Ricky has jumped true freshman Cody Pickett above J.K. Scott for 2nd, not surprising since Neuheisel really likes the pocket-type QB's. At any rate, both are excellent QB's and are highly rated. No lack of depth at QB for Washington, as usual.

What about the line? Last year against good defenses they were miserable. They were unable to open holes, leaving the poor inexperienced running backs to earn names like Willy "one-yard" Hurst. It was brutal. The only notable returner is OG Chad Ward. The rest of the spots were shuffled quite a bit in the off-season, and many defensive players were put on the offensive line.

I suspect we'll see some very creative play-calling from the new coaching staff. They'll have to if we want any sort of running game to open up. Willie Hurst starts at TB again, followed by Braxton Cleman (my personal favorite from last year.). Paul Arnold, the #1 recruit, should not be seeing much PT this year. We hope to not need him that much yet. The receiving corps is good. Chris Juergens "lotion" & Dane Looker have the hands and speed. Gerald Harris is a good 3rd option. Can the line give Tui enough time to find them? Will we have a running game at all? From the past we know Neuheisel is not a big fan of the running game. Since we all know the UW fans love the running game, perhaps Rick Neuheisel's honeymoon here will be a brief one, especially if he ignores the run.

What about kicking? I prefer not to talk about that one. I'll just close my eyes and cross my fingers.

Overall, I expect the Dawgs to have a relatively poor year. The coaching staff is nearly 100% new, the playbook is new, and it'll take some getting used to. "Relatively poor" in my book means a .500 season.

BYU has a formidable team, least year featuring a great defense and a running game of all things. Feterick is a good QB. Unfortunately, their runningbacks have evaporated. Jenkins was booted due to violations of the school's Honor Code, which I can assume to mean he had a beer or two and got caught. Good for UW, bad for Jenkins, who had NFL draft potential. That means back to BYU basics, throwing the ball a hell of a lot. That's bad for the UW, who's known weakness is of course the secondary. The Cougar defense is good to average, but young. They're anchored by Morris, possibly the best defensive player in the West. As if the UW running game had trouble enough. Look for UW to pass the ball against the less-powerful BYU secondary, possibly mixing in some option.

It all comes down to the Neuheisel mystery. In honesty, I have no idea what he's going to do. A vanilla prediction would say UW will blitz a lot, going for broke against the young OL of BYU. On offense they will pass a lot, mixing in some trick running plays and draws. Maybe some option plays to confuse the BYU defense, who knows? The key to the game will be the pass rush of the UW defense. If the Dawgs can pressure Fetterick it'll work. Can they pressure for 4 quarters? We don't know how well conditioned the players are. Traditionally, the first game of the season is pretty sloppy, so turnovers can and do happen.

My prediction is, UW's defense will stop BYU early but tire, with BYU surging late in the game with at least 17 points for a total of 27. Ricky's unpredictable offense will yield at least 31 out of these guys, with Tui running for around 80 yards on scrambles alone. BYU also has a grudge factor, having lost 3 in a row to the Huskies, it could make them angry. Overall I'll stand by my the Dawgs, 31-27. Since I don't know anything about Neuheisel's plan, this could be the most worthless analysis ever. Guess we'll find out in a few hours.

Mostly I'm excited to see what Neuheisel can accomplish, especially with a team that's really not very deep. The only thing I'm sure of is that there will be some surprises on the field.

The Huskies lost their first game in a shootout, giving up 500 yards to BYU.

My big observations are:

1. Tackling still sucks. The shoulder tackles really pissed me off last year. I thought it would be the first thing the new coaches address. Wrong-o, apparently the Huskies were taking notes from the Arizona School of Bad Tackles.

2. Our defensive line looked weak against a relatively young BYU O-line. This does not bode well for our Dawgs when they face a real offensive line. ASU, Arizona and UCLA are going to kill us if this keeps up. What happend to the sack pac?

3. Marques spent a lot of time looking for open guys and not looking for the run. By the 2nd half he improved tremendously, using some of those excellent scamper moves that remind me of Mark Brunell. The receivers was excellent, and once Tui got comfortable he was hitting them right on the numbers. I'm very encouraged by Tui's play, he's got a ton of talent.

4. The offensive playcalling has improved 100% from last year. No more run-up-the-middle-twice-triple-reverse-to-make-up-for-it bullshit plays.

5. Our secondary still blows. No matter who the new coaches are, these are still the same players who gave up 500 yards to Oregon State last year. If our secondary gets injured this year we're doomed. Akbar's our only good backfield guy. I was encouraged by Jermain Smith.

6. The Dawgs have heart. The most troubling thing about the Lamo era was the players didn't have the Husky fight. Looks like it's back, maybe it's the gold helmets. Personally, I think it's the coach. I liked being able to read his lips as he screamed at the refs on that roughing call in the end zone.

This is going to be a long year. I'm hoping for 6 wins.