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The Spring game awards
When will Neu let the cat out of the bag?
By: Richard Linde, 1 May 2002

The Washington Huskies played their spring football game last Saturday, and although I didn’t attend it, I was able to watch it on Fox Northwest, with Todd Pickett and Sonny Sixkiller reporting. In the game, the Purples downed the Whites, 27-17. During the game there were some bloopers, brilliant plays and some lackadaisical ones, all of which deserve an award of one kind or another.

• The Marcel Marceau Award: Manase Hopoi.
  
  Although he's playing defensive end, Hopoi did an impression of Junior Seau, erstwhile linebacker for USC. On each play, Hopoi is always somewhere in the opposition's backfield—a Seau trademark when he played for the Cardinal and Gold. Disruptive sorts! Both Seau and Hopoi are about the same size.




• The Jenny Craig award: Rich Alexis.
  
  Alexis has taken off ten pounds and looks much quicker and intuitive. Actually, who needs Jenny Craig when Bill Gillespie is just around the corner?




• The Jailbreak Award: The coaching staff.
  
  They let the return team put a strong rush on punter Derek McLaughlin. According to Neuheisel, the long snappers weren’t up to speed and some members of scout team who were on the punt team didn’t give McLaughlin adequate protection after a bad snap. The punt was blocked and McLaughlin bruised his kicking foot as a result of being bowled over.  After that, the Huskies went puntless for the rest of the game. The Huskies had five punts blocked last season.




• The Golden MIKE Award: Ben Mahdavi.
  
  Who better to win this award then Mahdavi who plays MIKE and calls the defensive sets. Although Ben didn't play, he was one of several Huskies that Sonny Sixkiller interviewed down on the sideline. In addition to Ben, Sixkiller interviewed Keith Gilbertson, Kevin Ware, Kai Ellis, Jafar Williams, Cody Pickett, and Taylor Barton. All of them were articulate and impressive, but Ben was best, as smooth and affable as ever. He said that his shoulder injury was minor, that he'd played all season with it and that he should be 100% in a couple of weeks.




• The Silas Marner Award: Rick Neuheisel.
  
  Over the past four recruiting seasons, Neuheisel has been hording players like Silas Marner horded gold. He’s got real depth in a number of critical areas, along with speed merchants who can take it to the house. Instead of reading George Eliot at night, Neu’s been perusing old player press guides, the pages so worn and thin that they crumble at his impassioned touch. One of the players in his booty is Chris Singleton, pictured above.




• The Fred Couples Award: John Anderson.
  
  At least for this game, kicking from the right hash mark (his old bugaboo last season) didn’t seem to faze him. He had the rhythm and nonchalance of a Fred Couples. On a cold day—weather wise—Anderson booted three field goals, one from 52 yards out.




• The Mulligan Award: John Anderson.
  
  After hooking the opening kickoff out of bounds, Anderson was allowed to kick it again. This time he booted it into the endzone.




• The Happy as a Clam Award: Taylor Barton.
  
  To start the third quarter, Barton led the Whites on a 79-yard, 14-play drive, culminated by Chris Singleton’s one-yard touchdown run. He also led the Purples on a touchdown drive. Barton looked faster and shiftier than he did last season and runs the option with acumen. Well coached, he makes up his mind quickly, having great instincts. If something should happen to Cody Pickett, Barton is the man.




• The Insouciant Award: Fullback Zach Tuiasosopo.
  
  

  Zach Tuiasosopo; photo courtesy of dawgman.com

  Carrying the ball like a loaf of bread, that is, insouciantly, Zach had it stripped away as he rumbled for yardage. I thought that was his forte—stripping the ball carrier—when he played linebacker last season. Shouldn’t he have known better than to carry it so sloppily?

  After the play, Neuheisel told him to treat the ball like gold, patted him on the anatomy and told him to get back in there.  




• The Cory Pavin Award. Zach Tuiasosopo.
  
  Squatting like pro-golfer Cory Pavin reading a putt, Zach zeroes in on the inside linebacker before the snap. Once the ball is snapped, he's gone, isolating on the inside linebacker for plays run up the gut. He looks to be a devastating blocker.




• The Rodney Dangerfield Award: The White team.
  
  After the White’s 79-yard touchdown drive in the third quarter, Sixkiller said that the Purples (number one defensive unit) might have been playing conservatively. The Whites got no respect.




• The never-satisfied Award: Linebacker Jafar Williams.
  
  He said it’s been too long since the Huskies have won a championship. That was way back in 2000, the season before last. I like his attitude.




• The "SIXty Minutes" Award: Sonny Sixkiller.
  
  This award goes to Sonny Sixkiller—at least according to Todd Pickett, who did the play-by-play for Fox—for supposedly getting the scoop from Kai Ellis. Ellis told him that he might be looking at a medical redshirt if he can’t get fully rehabbed during the summer. Of course, this is old news.




• The General Hospital Award: The injured.
  
  Those dinged up players who didn’t play in the game because of injury should get this award. When they come back in the fall, watch out.




• The Schroedinger’s Cat Award ("This unusual animal, so it is said, is simultaneously alive and dead"): Coach Rick Neuheisel.
  
  Wired for communication down on the field, Neuheisel was more than willing to field questions from Todd Pickett—up to a point. The coach seemed upbeat, wearing a quantum mechanic’s look, as if he knew something that Albert didn’t know. He’ll let Schroedinger’s cat out of the bag when he journeys to the Big House and messes with Lloyd Carr’s head—then we’ll know if the cat is alive or dead.