Kevin Smith, WR

Kevin Smith is a four star WR prospect who has verbaled to UW. He has some great physical tools, but is still pretty raw. As you can see in the highlight video, he has pretty good speed, great balance, does a great job going up to get jump balls on fade routes into the endzone, and has good body awareness.

Once again, he looks like somebody who might be able to contribute on special teams, as well as maybe some time at a slot WR. He was offered scholarships to UCLA, Arizona, and Colorado, but Chose UW after watching them destroy WSU 30-0.

Here are his highlights from his senior season.

Kona Schwenke still deciding

It appears that he is being patient, and will most likely wait until LOI day to make his commitment known. Here's a highlight video from ESPN. We'd love to have you in purple and gold Kona!

UPDATE:

It now appears that Kona Schwenke did not take his scheduled trip to UW after visiting Notre Dame. This is understandable seeing that making two cross country trips in two days if pretty difficult.I'm still holding out hope though that Haouli Jamora has convinced him to come to UW. I guess we'll just have to wait till signing day to see what's going to happen.

Kona Schwenke coming to UW?

In a surprise move that has surprised a lot of people, BYU has pulled their scholarship offer to 4-star verbal commit Kona Schwenke. This comes after BYU laid down an the ultimatum that he would lose his scholarship offer if he chose to pursue trips to both ND and UW.

Total Blue Sports reporter Brandon Gurney, has written an article detailing how all of this went down.

Cougar fans, are already in full meltdown mode.

If Schwenke indeed chooses UW, it will be quite the recruiting coup for Coach Sark, who has detailed the teams need to be deeper on both the offensive and defensive lines.

I'll keep tabs on this story, and may be posting more about Kona Schwenke if it appears that he is going to sign with UW.

Deontae Cooper

Washington RB commit Deontae Cooper has already enrolled at UW, after graduating early from Citrus Hill. He could very well be the gem of this years class. His bio on his scout page says that he owns the California state record for carries in a game when he had 59 carries for 412 yards and four touchdowns against Great Oak in September of 2009. As a junior, Deontae Cooper stood atop the state leaderboard in rushing yards with 2,953 yards and finished second in touchdowns with 47. Ran for 1,212 yards and 18 touchdowns during his 2007 sophomore season, helping lead Perris (Calif.) Citrus Hill to the CIF-SS title.

My thoughts:

Upon looking at the film available on Deontae Cooper, you can see that he has good field awareness. He is patient enough to let plays develop and follows his blockers very well, waiting for either a cutback lane or a gap to explode through. He knows how to make tacklers miss without having to expend a lot of energy and he has a nice burst which gets him into the secondary quickly.

While the transition from high school to college is a very large adjustment, the fact that he has enrolled early will help him tremendously. As you can see in his Go Huskies exclusive, he is pretty slender. Having the opportunity to participate with the strength and conditioning program at UW will help him bulk up over the next nine months. He is listed at 195 lbs, but looks more like 180. I would expect to see him at about 195 by the time the season starts though, which is a good weight for him at this point.

While he is an impact player, unless he can break into the special teams unit as a returner, I would guess that the best course of action for him would be to redshirt his freshman year, seeing as we already have Chris Polk entrenched in the starting role at RB. That being said, Deontae Cooper has a very high upside, and could eventually surpass all of Polk's accomplishments as a RB.

Have a look at the next great UW RB in his highlight video.





Go Huskies exclusive

Donald Butler is movin on up (the draft boards)

According to Ed Thompson, the Scout.com senior NFL analyst, one of the surprises of the senior bowl has been our very own Donald Butler.

"There was no doubt that Butler was a capable and reliable college linebacker, but compared to the rest of the list, he was considered by some to be "just a guy" who would be a late-rounder or undrafted. But after watching him in action this week, our eyes were opened by his focus, intensity, tackling technique and good instincts. He's easily in the top half of this year's group of Senior Bowl linebackers."

Here's to hoping he finishes out the week on a high note with a great performance in the Senior Bowl, and the moves on to a successful NFL career.

This will bring a smile to your face

Let the Heisman hype begin!

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Te'o-Nesheim to play in East-West Shrine game today

If you want to catch the Huskies all-time sacks leader one last time before he heads off to the NFL draft, tune in to ESPN2 at 12:00.

Word on the street is that he's had a good week of practice and has likely upped his draft status. Thanks for everything Daniel, you'll be missed!

Mason Foster's late interception against Arizona makes Yahoo's top ten plays of the year

10. Mason Foster's Immaculate Interception. Trailing Arizona 33-21 with three minutes to play, Washington's Jake Locker hit Kavario Middleton on a touchdown pass to pull the Huskies within five, setting up a chance for a two-minute drill to win if the Washington defense could get 'Zona off the field for the first time in the second half. Thanks to Delashaun Dean's big toe, they did a little better than that:

Hauoli Jamora

A couple years down the road, and we could very well be talking about the possiblity of Daniel Te'o Nesheim's career sack record being broken. By who? Hauoli Jamora. I've done some digging around on this recruit to find some information for the fans out there, hopefully this will satisfy you!

From an observer at the All-Poly Camp:
"Jamora is going to make fans happy at either DE or DT, no fat on the kid now and he's approaching 240 lbs at about 6-0 or 6-1 (he's not 6-2). He has a high motor and plays mean, definitely has that "poly switch". He also dominated in the one-on-ones we saw"

ESPN also wrote an article detailing three standout defensive lineman from the annual Game Plan Football Academy, which is a four-day event where high school prospects can come and receive instruction from college coaches during a padded camp.

This is what they said:
"It didn't take long to see there was a lot of defensive line talent at the Game Plan Football Academy. Three defensive linemen stood out against the offensive line in the one-on-one competition, and in both the base blocking and pass-protection drills it was these three who dominated the opposition and refused to be blocked:
Hauoli Jamora, DE, (Kahuku, HI)

Jamora was extremely impressive in his overall performance. He was consistently quick out of his stance and immediately struck a jarring blow with his hands into the frame of the blocker. He played with great leverage and was able to press every opposing lineman into the backfield on run blocks, extending his arms and churning his legs while maintaining inside pad control.

The 6-foot-3, 230-pounder was equally successful during pass-rush competition. He did a good job of mixing up his techniques and counters by using the short swim and power rip moves, among others, to make penetration and defeat the man across from him. It's not surprising that this guy is coming on strong on the recruiting front and already has been offered by BYU and Wyoming.

Jamora can develop into a very solid player once he adds some bulk. We look forward to further evaluating him, but based off his performance at the camp he is certainly a serious sleeper at the end position in the 2010 class."

Jamora had committed early to BYU (How many players are they going to lose to us?) following the lead of his teammate Kona Schwenke, but this was before any camps and before he had started to garner the attention he is now receiving. He wisely chose to reopen his commitment and Sark and his crew did a great job landing him.

Here's a Highlight video, sorry about the quality, but it's the only one I could get my hands on:


Original Video- More videos at TinyPic

Shiloah Te'o to transfer to UW

News is coming out that former BYU Safety Shiloah Te'o is going to enroll at the University of Washington in March. This is a really good get for the Huskies. He was on the 2-deep roster for BYU as a true freshman and sophomore, lettering both years. He will redshirt next season, and then have two years of eligibility.

Before heading to BYU, he was A 2007 Honolulu Star-Bulletin and Honolulu Advertiser First-Team All-State selection as both a junior and senior. He was also named the Oahu Interscholastic Association Red East Division Defensive Player of the Year and ranked as the 4th best prospect in the state of Hawaii by Rivals.com.

Here is a highlight video



He was kicked off of the BYU football team after being arrested for a DUI.

A lot of BYU fans and insiders were dismayed at his loss, because he was seen to be a great athlete who had the ability to cover a lot of ground in the secondary, and who played with a real mean streak.

Before his sophomore season he took the time to head to a specialty training center to prepare him to be a better athlete, here are the results:



All in all, we should be pretty happy with this get. Our defensive backfield has been the subject of a lot of criticism, hopefully this is a step in the right direction.

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Welcome to Go Purple Be Gold! This is your one stop shop for all your Husky football needs, with links to latest from Husky recruiting, Husky blogs, Coach Sark's twitter, and our very own Husky Sports Message board. Feel free to leave comments or email suggestions to gopurplebegold@gmail.com. Enjoy!