Here are a few points to hit on from Monday's press conference and what to look for this week as the Washington Huskies prepare to travel to Baton Rouge to take on the LSU Tigers.
Injuries:
- Hau'oli Jamora reinjured his ACL and will be out for the rest of the season. He utilized his redshirt season last year, which counts, so it remains to be seen what will happen with this season. It looks like this year is going to count.
- Jesse Callier injured his ACL in Saturday's game against SDSU and will be out for the remainder of the season. He is likely to utilize a redshirt season.
- Ben Riva saw a specialist Monday afternoon for his broken arm suffered in Saturday's game. He will probably be out for a significant amount of time.
- Sarkisian said there are nine players on the current roster now that have had an ACL injury, including some that occurred prior to the players coming into the football program. They will continue researching to find out how to prevent these ACL injuries from occurring.
After reviewing the SDSU game, Sarkisian said that they missed some opportunities to really put the game away. "We almost lacked the killer instinct that was needed that night," Sarkisian said.
Sarkisian said that he was pleased with winning the turnover battle and with how the defense played. "I thought they showed the aggressiveness," Sarkisian said. "Obviously there's some things from alignment and assignment to get cleaned up there. I know we can tackle better than that. It will be a point of emphasis for us this week."
"It will be key for us to get acclimated the best we can while we're here in Seattle," Sarkisian said. That includes crowd noise simulation, hydration and, yes, a live tiger at what will now be known as Tiger Tuesday. (There was a live tiger brought in to Tuesday's practice to get the team hyped for the upcoming game).
With Callier out for the season, Bishop Sankey is listed as the starter on the depth chart. "We're going to find out more about Bishop Sankey in a hurry," Sarkisian said. "He got quite a few carries the other night and responded well." Sarkisian said he wished Sankey and blocked better and showed more patience, but he thinks that Saturday was a good learning experience for him, and Sarkisian said he has no doubt Sankey can do it. Erich Wilson II, Dezden Petty and Willis Wilson will all get more touches now.
What does it mean for the offensive line with Ben Riva out? James Atoe will most likely start at right guard. Erik Kohler and Mike Criste will both get looked at for right tackle. Sarkisian said there will also be opportunities for freshman Shane Brostek at right guard.
Of the freshmen that played (Jaydon Mickens, Kendyl Taylor, Erich Wilson II, Shaq Thompson, Ryan Masel, Korey Durkee and Pio Vatuvei), Sarkisian said, "all in all, nothing glaringly bad, maybe nothing glaringly great. I think we'll only see them get better as they move forward."
Sarkisian on the win against SDSU: "Winning is winning and that is ultimately why we do what we do
I felt like our guys walked out of there with kind of a bad taste in their mouths. They know that game could have went a lot better for us if we had taken advantage of a few more opportunities and done a few more things correctly, and that carried right over to (Monday) to our team meeting. This is a hungry group. They want to get things fixed, they want to put their best foot forward this Saturday night
I think in the past, we might have been as happy as all get out because we won (but not now)
we're happy that we won, but there's things that need to get corrected for us to continually get better."