And away we go. ...

Q: What is the announcing team for Saturday's game?

A: The ESPN crew is Mark Jones and former Notre Dame coach Bob Davie. There will be no sideline reporter. Also, Sports USA Radio will do the game nationally, as well, with Dan Fouts and Gary Barnett.

Q: Is Steve Sarkisian related related in any way to Cher of "Sonny & Cher". Cher was born a "Sarkisian."

A: Yeah, it would have been fun if he was. But that was actually one of the first questions some of us asked him last December and he is not related to Cher. But they could have had some fun advertising campaigns featuring Sark and Sonny Sixkiller, maybe, if he had been.

Q: Isn't LSU located in the Central time zone and not Eastern? Seems like lots of people are thinking maybe UW will have an edge due to the time difference.

A: Yes, Louisiana is in the Central time zone so just two hours difference. So Saturday's game will be a 9:30 p.m. local start for the Tigers. I understand why UW fans are looking for any edge they think the Huskies will have, so maybe finishing the game at 1 a.m. of whatever for the Tigers would give UW a slight edge. But I don't see it as significant in any way. Last I checked, most college-age kids still have lots of energy on Saturday nights at 1 a.m.

Q: Is former Husky Dane Looker still in the NFL? And any other updates on UW alums in the NFL?

A: Okay, so I asked this one myself. And the answer is that yes, Looker is still in the NFL. I missed this whenever it happened recently, but Looker is now on the roster of the Detroit Lions after having not been re-signed by the Rams earlier this year. He caught one pass for 11 yards in Detroit's win over the Colts. There are some other UW ties with that team as former Husky offensive coordinator Scott Linehan is the OC for the Lions --- he was an assistant at UW when Looker played there --- and Tim Lappano is tight ends coach. Also yesterday, Isaiah Stanback, in a tough battle to make the Dallas roster again this season, had one catch for one yard for the Cowboys and three kickoff returns for 62 yards; Louis Rankin had four yards on one carry and Greyson Gunheim one tackle in Oakland's 45-7 loss to the Saints;and Dashon Goldson had three tackles and Damon Huard was 2-4 for 25 yards for the 49ers in their 20-13 win over the Cowboys.

Q: Are you going to put a "Spell Check" feature on this site? Not so much for us everyday posters - we've become acclimated to it --- but for the occasional reader who drops in and is left thinking we are all backwood idiots!

A: Two things --- One, I don't have anything to do with how the blogs are run technically so I can't do anything about it, but I will pass that on; Two, I hope first we can get spell check in the blog former I use so I don't come off looking like a backwood idiot as often as I sometimes do myself. Believe it or not, we don't have spell check on our formats, so especially for the running blogs and things like that, it gets a little dicey at times. But things continually evolve so maybe someday.

All for now.