Having finally gotten a chance to introduce you today to UW's five new assistant coaches, the Seattle Times is asking the question of which one will make the biggest impact.

Vote below:

The final entry in our videos of the new UW assistant coaches is offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Eric Kiesau, who was hired from Cal to replace Doug Nussmeier, who left for Alabama.

Below is some video, and below that some of the key quotes transcribed:

On his offensive philosophy being similar to Steve Sarkisian's and what his role is now: "What I need to do right now and what I am doing is we started talking ball yesterday. I'm just sitting in the room and I'm trying to learn their terminology, learn how they communicate and how they do things offensively. If I try to come in and say 'this is what I want to do' that's not going to work. I need to listen and learn the system and then 'how can I tweak that? How can I help out? This is what we did' and see if he likes it. So I need to be patient at the beginning and understand how they do things here before I start making tweaks and changes.''

On what UW has on offense helping entice him to join the Huskies: "Absolutely, especially when you watch a quarterback like Keith Price and how well he throws the football and you look at your tight end in Austin (Seferian-Jenkins) and your receivers outside. Yeah, you look at that. When you start looking at a job you start looking at a roster and looking at the guys. ... you look at four of the five offensive linemen coming back, there were a lot of positive things about this offense, and then you look at how Sark calls a game and how he likes to take chances. He will let it rip and I like that about him. You have to have a little edge to (you). So a lot of those were things I was looking forward to being a part of.''

On how he fits in as an offensive coordinator with a head coach who calls the plays: "I think obviously we will be working together in the preparation of the game plan throughout the week and I will kind of be the eyes in the sky for him when he is down the field, so there will be some verbal communication about what I am seeing and what he needs to see on how he calls the plays. But he is very good at it. If there was one negative, me not calling the plays, I don't want that to deter me from being part of something special. I have no ego in this deal. Yes, I want to call the plays, I love calling the plays. Calling plays on gamedays is an adrenaline I wish everybody could feel at some point. But I'm not going to let that hinder my decision if that's the only thing that is a negative of the job, I can get over that. He does a great job, he knows what he is doing and if at some point he wants to let that go I will be right there in the back seat waiting for it and if it happens that will be great.''

On how long the decision took: "My whole transaction took about 18 hours. And I'm talking about sleeping time, as well, which I didn't sleep at all that night. It was a very, very quick transition. ... I got the call Sunday night and talked to Sark about midnight. I was back east doing a home visit with (Cal) coach (Jeff) Tedford , ironically, and got the call about midnight. We talked to about 2:30, Sark was all fired up and said 'coach, I'm going to offer you the job right now --- do you want it?' I said 'coach, I haven't even talked to my wife yet.' I was in a plane all day long flying from California to Maryland, so while all this stuff was going on on the ground, I was on a flight and now I land and I get the message, Sark and I talked, we hit it off for a couple of hours and it was great, and I go 'Sark, I need to talk to my wife. She doesn't even know what's going on.' And he goes 'okay, call your wife right now.' And I said 'Sark, it's three o'clock in the morning?' He said 'let's get it done.' I talked to her, it was great, slept on it, didn't sleep a minute, woke up in the morning and it was a done deal.''

New Washington defensive backs coach Keith Heyward was also among those speaking to the media for the first time today since being hired at UW last month.

Heyward said of his decision to leave Oregon State to come to UW that it "just came down to I have been at Oregon State for a long time and in order to grow as a coach and become a better coach you have to have new ideas and be around new people. That's what it came down to and then making sure it was the right fit for me professionally. It was very tough --- coach (Mike) Riley and coach (Mark) Banker and all the coaches I have worked with there they are all family to me and I still respect them in every day and it was a great place a great community, that's my alma mater. So that was tough.''

Heyward was recruited to OSU by Riley as a player and returned there as a coach and said telling Riley he was leaving "was hard. I couldn't sleep and it was hard, just the whole thing was tough. But in life sometimes you've got to make tough decisions and do things that aren't easy.''

You can see that and more in the video below:

Here's some video of some of the media session today for new UW linebackers coach Peter Sirmon. He talks about the decision to come to UW from Tennessee, how close he was to becoming a Husky as a player out of Walla Walla High, and his quick rise up the coaching ranks after leaving the NFL:

Among the five new UW assistant coaches to meet the media for the first time today was defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox, who was hired by Washington on Jan. 2 to replace Nick Holt, who had been fired on Dec. 31.

Wilcox talked today about the process of his hiring at UW from Tennessee, where he had been the D-coordinator for the past two years; his defensive philosophy, and a little bit more. Below is some video, and after the video are some transcribed quotes:

On his defensive philosophy: "We want to make sure that we are giving our guys the best chance and whether that's helping some positions more than others, kind of depends on who you've got. You always have to have a foundation of what you believe in in terms of stopping the run and playing enough guys in a run front that if people want to line up and hammer it you can stop them and you've got to be able to pressure the quarterback in pass downs whether that's rushing four or getting after it fire zones or some man blitzes. So there are a certain amount of things you believe in, but I believe you've got to be able to adjust to your personnel a little bit or you are just setting yourself up for failure.''

As noted earlier, today was the first chance local media had to speak with UW's five new assistant football coaches.

As might be expected, defensive line coach and defensive run game coordinator Tosh Lupoi was a highly-sought subject, talking for the first time about his move from Cal and quick transition to UW.

Below is some video of Lupoi's session with the media, and following that are some transcribed quotes:

On the quick transition from recruiting for Cal to recruiting for UW: "It was one of the toughest decisions I've ever gone through. It was a process that kind of felt like I was set where I was going to be there at Cal and when Justin (Wilcox) came over here and Pete (Peter Sirmon) I was the last one to the process to say no to this opportunity and kind of do some thorough homework for a couple of weeks of what this opportunity really was all about and what it meant and kind of got to a point to where it felt it was right and something you couldn't say no to from what this place and coach (Steve) Sark (Sarkisian) represents and to be a part of this and that resulted in immediate competition of trying to go about it the right way and begin competing at the place I was just at so it was difficult. But I thought coach Sark had tremendous advice in that process and truthfully a lot of the individuals that were being recruited from the other place, he approached it of going about it the right way and at times backing off of certain guys where he had already established relationships with the young men that we were recruiting there and then I could kind of get in there and intermingle within the staff and doing it the right way and not making it about me but making it about Washington and all the things that this place has to offer. I thought that was great advice on his part.''

The media availability for Washington's five new assistant coaches has concluded. I have some video of each of the assistants and will pass that on.

Also, I have the video below of UW coach Steve Sarkisian's introduction of the new assistants.

As for a couple of other notes:

--- The school announced that spring practice will start on April 2 and the spring game will be held April 28. However, times and locations are yet to be announced (with Husky Stadium undergoing renovation, some scrimmages could be held off-campus).

--- And Sarkisian said that WR Kevin Smith suffered an ACL tear prior to the Alamo Bowl. He said there's no set timetable on a return other than the usual 9-month recovery process for an ACL.

Here's the video of Sarkisian:

Washington's five new assistants have been kept out of the media's eye since being hired last month, in part so they could devote their time to recruiting.

That ends today as all will be made available to the media later this morning. The school is also expected to then announce dates for spring football. So check back later for coverage of all of that.

In the meantime, a few links. ...

--- A draft analyst for WalterFootball.com has Desmond Trufant going fifth overall in 2013 draft.

--- The Seattle Weekly writes about the preponderance of young athletes named Shaquille --- such as UW's Shaq Thompson --- , and why you may not see as many in the future.

--- Rivals.com has released its first Top 100 list for the Class of 2013. There's also this story that goes with it. Only one Washington player on the list --- QB Max Browne of Skyline at No. 8.

--- NorthwestPrepReport.com lists the top QBs in the state for the Class of 2013.

--- ESPN.com's Ted Miller notes that only Oregon and Colorado, among Pac-12 schools, didn't have any changes to their coaching staff this off-season. That news comes in the wake of USC losing another assistant, the third of the off-season.

--- A Football Outsiders metric indicates Stanford and UCLA are loading up on talent in the conference.

--- This isn't necessarily sports related, but it shows the type of money Stanford has as the school just announced it has raised $6.2 billion over the last five years.