Sarkisian assesses some players, staff

Six practices down, Washington head coach Steve Sarkisian has had a chance to see what some of the players and new staff are bringing to the table.

One of the big question marks was how the new full-time coaches would fit in with the current staff.

"I thought it's been really good," Sarkisian said. "I like the way we've gelled together on the offensive staff. I think the additions of (tight ends coach) Jordan Paopao and (quarterbacks coach) Marques Tuiasosopo have been natural coming on as full time coaches."

Tuiasosopo has his hands full with five scholarship quarterbacks all there for spring practice, and all vying for spots.

Sarkisian has watched closely as Derrick Brown, Cyler Miles, Jeff Lindquist and Troy Williams battle it out with starting quarterback Keith Price, because although Price may be the starter, he's only the starter as of now.

After the final Saturday practice for the first half of spring ball, Sarkisian commented on two young quarterbacks in particular - Williams and Miles.

"I thought Troy Williams had two pretty good practices here the last two practices," Sarkisian said. "For a true freshman from day one and then working his way up to practices five and six, I thought he was impressive. I thought Cyler flashed at some times."

But for the entire quarterback group, the key is to finding consistency. It's something the young guys need to figure out, and it will take time.

"For all of them, like any young quarterback, is finding the consistency and doing things right consistently at a high level, and that's where those guys get themselves in trouble, so that's where we'll continue to work on," Sarkisian said.

Coming into spring practice, there were a few guys that Sarkisian was anxious to see come play.

However, he's been pleasantly surprised at the improvement.

Sarkisian said: "I think Dwayne Washington has been really impressive in running the football. He's been a really nice compliment to Bishop (Sankey) as well as to Erich Wilson. Thought all those backs have run the ball well. I think Marcus Peters is really showing the maturity that I was hoping that I'd see. He's been tremendous playing both corner and safety for us at times, which has been good. I've liked the improvement out of Jaydon Mickens and Kendyl Taylor. I thought they started a little slow early on in the first couple practices, and they've come back here in the second half in the last few and played their best football. I like what Ben Riva is bringing to the table. So, a lot of guys, and I feel bad that I'm leaving some out, but there's been some real quality improvement on both sides of the ball."

In spring practice, you can't ask for much more than improvement. So it would seem that Sarkisian has the Huskies right on track.

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