Husky Trails | What's Happening Now for the Washington Huskies?

(Photo by Jeff Golden/Getty Images)

I have to say, this is a pretty dull time to be a college football writer. I embarked on this project of "Husky Trails" to provide comprehensive insight into the happenings of Washington football, and it's been great so far.

This last week, however, has been a bit tricky in terms of the column (not to mention starting a new job on the side haha). Things have been pretty dead.

Basically, the coaches are all on furlough, since they can't really do a ton of recruiting or coaching. The players are in their summer conditioning programs and that's kind of what they are doing.

About the biggest news over the last week was the loss of wide receiver recruit Tevin Carter to Cal.

Carter, a speedy Southern California receiver prospect, committed early to the Dawgs since they were about the only ones that were coming in for him.

Within the last several weeks, after a stellar showing at one of the California track meets, he has been getting looks from his in-state schools. Thus the change, since he wants to play closer to home.

The only other news of note is that assistant strength coach Charr Gahagan has left to be the head strength coach at North Texas. This follows the North Texas strength coach moving on to Tennessee.

Gahagan was one of the strength guys that Sarkisian lured away from USC when he came up to UW.

So far through spring, the teams has gotten good reviews on their progress in strength and conditioning. The programs Gahagan and head strength coach Ivan Lewis have put together have worked.

The new strength and conditioning program may be the missing link, as well, to finally overcome that last hurdle towards progress. The Tyrone Willingham teams were at best short on endurance, and most of the time looked extremely sluggish. 

With both of these departures, it belies a potential problem that Sarkisian is going to have in the coming year.

First, that some of the recruits have committed early and the real challenge is not so much the initial commitment but rather keeping them on board.

Second, any success this staff has will mean that programs will start poaching the assistant coaches. What the Huskies need is not one good year, but sustained success, and that comes with a more or less solid core staff.

That being said, success does need to come.

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