Veteran's Day links while remembering the veteran I knew best, my father, who served in Europe in World War II. ...

---- For my main story today, I looked at the issue of head coaches also calling their own plays as UW's Steve Sarkisian is doing. I asked all 10 Pac-10 coaches about it on the conference call yesterday, and as the story notes, half don't do it at all while half take at least some part in it on a regular basis.

Of those who don't, some never have, such as WSU's Paul Wulff, who said he never called the plays during his years at Eastern Washington, either.

A couple others who don't used to, notably Jeff Tedford and Mike Riley. All mentioned the time demands and how being a head coach pulls you a lot of different directions. Tedford also mentioned simply being freer on game days to oversee other head-coach duties --- working with the officials, for instance --- when not calling plays.

But Sarkisian worked for years for one head coach who has done it, USC's Pete Carroll, who calls that team's defensive plays.

Said Carroll: "It's challenging and you have to just set up a structure accordingly. I can't do as many things as some head coaches do and I can't do as many things as some defensive coordinators do. But we've found a way to work with it and we've been doing it a long time and this is our format.''

The biggest time issue is putting it all together during the week. Sarkisian says that's not a problem as he gets so much input from his staff, including offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier and run game coordinator Dan Cozzetto.

Interesting to note that eight of the 10 Pac-10 head coaches right now have offensive backgrounds --- all but Carroll and Arizona's Mike Stoops.

Also interesting to note that the other first-year head coach in the league, Oregon's Chip Kelly, is also calling all the plays. Kelly said it's "a little bit'' of a time challenge but that "like any good offensive system, we have a lot of input during the week of what we are going to do so we are prepared when we go into the games of what we are going to call.''

As mentioned in the story, Sarkisian said he hasn't felt any extra time demands this year trying to handle both duties and thinks it has gone "extremely well.''

IN OTHER NEWS. ...

--- Nick Daschel of Buster Sports looks at Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Year candidates and calls Oregon State's Jacquizz Rodgers the favorite with Stanford's Toby Gerhart, OSU's Sean Canfield, Arizona's Nick Foles and Oregon's Jeremiah Masoli and LaMichael James next in line. He consigns UW's Jake Locker to the "long shot'' category. Certainly, not where Locker would have been a month ago.

--- Ken Goe writes that Oregon State may be catching Washington "at just the right time'' and also includes his usual daily links.

--- Paul Buker of The Oregonian notes that both coaches think the UW-OSU game will go down to the wite.

--- The weekly story on how the opponent is preparing for Locker.

--- The Corvallis Gazette-Times notes what a heated rivalry this has turned into through the years and also includes some quotes from former Husky Reggie Davis who is now the running backs coach for the Beavers. Davis is best remembered for this play.

--- More OSU notes.

All for now.