Confessions Of a Washington Huskies Spring Practice Virgin

It was 45 degrees and cloudy, but I still thought it would be fun to go check out the first open spring practice for the University of Washington Huskies.

Now let me be frank in saying I grew up playing soccer and being in marching band. I have no idea what a football practice is supposed to look like—or feel like.

My football knowledge is limited to watching games on Saturdays and Sundays, reading way too much on the Internet, plus copious amounts of NCAA and Madden on my XBOX.

So for me, I was a true practice virgin, but the experience was an interesting one to say the least.

As I'm sure any of you who have a passing interest in Husky football or Pac-10 football has no doubt heard, Steve Sarkisian is opening up practices to the public after four years of closure and secrecy under Tyrone Willingham.

I would remiss if I didn't also mention that as a Husky fan myself, I've really bought into Sarkisian as a coach because of this openness.

The one thing I noticed was that the coaches seemed fired up, and the players were practicing with intensity the entire time I was there.

It's true that Nick Holt is a fiery personality, when I saw him get in the face of a couple players who weren't pulling their weight. I could hear Coach Sark yelling the entire time, above the rest of the noise at practice, even when I was watching drills on the other practice field from where he was.

There also were plenty of unsavory words thrown around in the course of practice, which ratcheted up the seriousness of what they were doing.

Now at this point in writing this, I feel mildly naive because I'm fairly certain it is this way for a lot of teams practicing right now, but it is all very novel to me, so I'm excited.

The speed of the practice is what stuck most in the mind, the players ran back and forth between the fields where they were doing most of their drills. An air horn would sound and the players would group up and move on to the next set of drills.

The players seem to buying into it enthusiastically, at one point as they were running by, I heard Kavario Middleton, the sophomore tight end, hollering as he ran. Demetrius Martin, the cornerbacks coach sprinted to the next field yelling after the players that the coaches better not beat them.

As the players stretched they chanted UW while clapping, and there seemed to be a lot of enthusiasm for what they were doing.

I really don't know any better or worse, but this really does not feel like what practice would be like under Coach Tyrone Willingham. My impression of him is from many pictures of him just standing there stoically with his arms crossed.

These coaches are incredibly hands on. I watched linebackers Coach Mike Cox really critiquing some of the players. Nick Holt was all over the place yelling—as I'm sure most imagine him doing.

A great example of this is when Middleton was talking in an interview later about how he wasn't running his routes quite right, but only in minor ways. He said Coach Sark took him aside and gave him one on one attention about what he was doing wrong. The biggest thing he said though was that he would have gotten away with that stuff under the old staff.

These coaches are really trying hard to instill in these players exactly what it means to be a good football player. 

Jake Locker looks to be back to his old self, but he admits that he isn't completely 100 percent, and that he has a tendency to throw high.

One would assume that he will be under center much more often under Sarkisian's pro-style offense. While Sarkisian has stated he wants to get as much of the playbook installed, he has stated that realistically it could be only 75 percent.

Locker seems to think though that it will start to come second nature to him by the end of the 15 practice spring. 

I unfortunately could only stay for half of the practice because of prior commitments, but I'll be attending more and I'll pass along everything I see.

It's good to have a little taste of college football back. GO DAWGS!