In the absence of much out there on the Huskies today with a bye week and all, maybe the most interesting thing I found is a mention of former UW coach Tyrone Willingham as a possible candidate to be the next coach San Jose State.

Dick Tomey resigned as coach there a couple of days ago. Willingham has been living in the Palo Alto area since leaving Seattle after being fired by UW a year ago. He reportedly attended at least one San Jose State practice early in the season, and stated in one of the few (only?) interviews he has done since that he would wait until after this season to see what jobs opened and then pursue some. If he did get the job, he could just keep the team's current linebackers coach, one Kent Baer.

UW has often played San Jose State through the years but far as I can tell, there are no games scheduled between the two in the future. And Mark Purdry writes that whoever gets the job won't have an easy time.

--- I wrote a notebook for today's paper looking at some of UW's special teams woes Saturday in Corvallis and the decision to use MLB Donald Butler as a lead blocker on the kickoff return team.

--- Bud Withers offered this Pac-10 notebook for today's paper examining Stanford's ascension.

--- The LA Times looks at why USC has fallen this season. Some of you have asked if there is being much made of the loss of Steve Sarkisian and Nick Holt, and a few other staffers, to UW. I haven't seen much of that. Mostly, seems like people are looking primarily at the loss of eight defensive starters from last season and inability to replace them with the same caliber of talent, and the loss of QB Mark Sanchez. Because USC has done it so often there was an assumption the Trojans could just reload from what were heavy losses from last year. But obviously USC wasn't able to do that. And it's frankly a lot easier to quantify the impact of the loss of the players than of assistant coaches. The Times story, however, does make note of the stability of the rest of the coaches in the conference as a reason that programs like Oregon State and Arizona have made vast improvement in recent seasons.

--- Speaking of former area coaches, UTEP AD Bob Stull announced Tuesday that former WSU coach Mike Price will be back in El Paso next year despite now being assured a fourth-straight losing season. That's good news for the team's assistant head coach, Jeff Woodruff, a former UW assistant and the son-in-law of Don James. Stull is himself a former longtime
UW assistant and administrator.

--- The Oregonian has lots of Pac-10 links, as well as trying to make the case that WSU could beat Oregon State this weekend --- I'd guess stranger things have happened but at the moment, can't think of one. One worth highlighting is this story detailing the history of Jim Harbaugh and Pete Carroll.

I'll have some more answers later as well as notes from practice tonight.