Seahawks linebacker Lofa Tatupu was at USC while new Huskies coach Steve Sarkisian was on the staff there.

Here are some of Tatupu's thoughts, by way of TNT Seahawks writer Frank Hughes:

How he saw him affect QB Matt Leinart's progress
They were real close. Same with all the other quarterbacks down there. He learned from (Norm) Chow. That's a great person to learn from, a quarterback guru. The things he's done have just been tremendous there. He's had some hands in who-knows-how-many Heisman Trophies. Hopefully, he'll go out and put together some more for himself.

On Sarkisian being a good fit for Jake Locker
I think it would be a great opportunity for him to work with Sark. It's just going to be exciting to see what's going to go on up there. He'll be up here, so I'll probably sit down with him once or twice, get in contact with him. He's a great coach. I'm just happy he finally got his opportunity.

Comparing Sarkisian to coach Pete Carroll
He's got the same kind of energy and enthusiasm and I think that's important. He'll bring that competitive edge and life, not just to the games but to practice, and I think that's as important, that preparation for the game. And he'll bring that edge to it. There are going to be some exciting things happening.

On the USC atmosphere of having people like Snoop Dog on the sidelines
It might be tough to get Snoop up to the Pac Northwest. But if anybody's got connections, I think he'll be able to pull it off. Is Pearl Jam still in the area?

On recruiting
That's really what Pete does better than anybody. He can out-recruit almost anyone. In college, they changed the rule where coaches can only make so many trips, or there's a certain amount of time when they can't go out, and he was pretty adament, he was not happy about that. That's what Pete does.

On telling players they should come to UW instead of USC
If I was the coach, and I'm sure this is what he'll be saying, you tell the players: 'You can go to SC, and you'll probably play your junior or senior year, or you can come here and play four years here. You don't have to sit behind a two-time, three-time All-American.'"

Here is our whole package of Sarkisian coverage from the Tuesday paper.
And here is some more of what new UW coach Steve Sarkisian said about the UW football program -- the one he inherits, and the one he hopes to build:

*His goal is to win games, qualify for bowls and eventually win championships.
Quote: “It's about time for us to get back to the Rose Bowl. It's about time for us to get back competing for conference championships; it's about time for us to get back competing for national championships, and that's what our goal is.”

*UW has the existing facilities to do that.
Quote: “These are winning facilities. From where I've been and what they had and what this place is and what we have here, the facilities are great. We'll go play.”

*He hasn’t decided if any of the current staff will be retained and said some members of the existing USC staff might follow him. He said he has the budget to assemble the kind of staff he wants.
Quote: “There are some guys that will join on board here very quickly. … We’re shooting to get the best coaching staff in America assembled here, and I don’t want to settle just to put a staff together as quickly as possible.”

*His top immediate priority is recruiting. He seems to especially value speed. He believes his Southern California connections will help him in that prime recruiting area. But he also said he wants to make sure the best in-state prospects stay home.
Quote: “This is too good of an institution, too good of a program for a kid to want to leave. There’s no question, we’re going to put a wall up around the state of Washington, around Seattle and the surrounding areas and these kids are not going to leave any more. We’re going to keep them here, and we need to do a good job when we get out of here of identifying the top talent on the West Coast and go after it and go get it.”

*Winning and losing are both habits, and he wants to rid the program of the latter and build the former. He said that when USC played UW this fall, he saw the Huskies as a team that expected to lose.
Quote: “There’s a lot of talent on this football team, we just need to change the way they think. Obviously, there’s going to be a lot of learning from everybody involved.”

*He will handle the play-calling and that he expects to run a pro-style offense similar to his USC offense.
Quote: “We’ll hire an offensive coordinator, but I’ll still call the plays. The offense will very similar (to USC), obviously we’ll play to the strengths of what we have, whether is offensive line, running back, quarterback, wide receiver.”

*He wants that offense to take advantage of Locker’s unique talents without turning him into a one-man show.
Quote: “He's a guy that obviously we can build our program around, but he is not going to be our program, we're not going to put it all on him. We're going to take our time and we're going to develop a football team around him that he is going to be a part of.”

*He has some ideas of what he wants in a defensive coordinator.
Quote: “I want us to play hard, I want us to play fast, I want us to play with great effort. Scheme-wise, I’ve got some really good guys in mind; it’s just a matter of working through logistics and finding a way to get them.”

*Someone on his staff will hold the title of quarterback coach, but Sarkisian also plans to be involved mentoring UW quarterbacks.
Quote: “We will have a quarterback coach title because it takes a lot of work to mentor a quarterback, takes a lot of off-season work, in-season work. So, we will have basically two of us heading this thing up. But I will work hand-in-hand closely with (Jake Locker and Ronnie Fouch) and the guys we bring in. They will play well.”

*His first message to the team was that everyone is beginning anew. (It was a message that Locker said excited a lot of players.)
Quote: “Whatever has gone on before I wasn't here, we're starting off on a brand new foot, with me, with the program. I think, for a lot of guys, it's a chance for a new beginning. … We're going to do this thing together, we're going to compete together, we're going to battle together and we're going to become a football team together and we're going to have fun doing it.”

*He wants his team energized.
Quote: “Emotion is a big part of college football, more so than in any other level of college football, in my opinion. They feed off of fans, they feed off of students, they feed off the emotions of the game and we need to be an emotional football team, an enthusiastic football team, one that loves playing with one another. I expect our sidelines to be electric, I expect them to be jumping up and down and cheering for one another and having fun with one another. That’s what college football is about.”

Washington defensive end Daniel Te’o-Nesheim was named today to the All-Pac-10 second team.

Four Huskies received honorable mention: linebacker Mason Foster, center Juan Garcia, receiver D’Andre Goodwin and safety Nate Williams.

Among the top honors, Oregon State tailback Jacquizz Rodgers was named player of the year and freshman of the year, USC linebacker Rey Maualuga was named defensive player of the year, and Mike Riley of Oregon State was named coach of the year.

The full list of honored players is available at the Pac-10 Website.

Jake Locker says he "really enjoyed" his first meeting with new UW coach Steve Sarkisian. Locker said that Sarkisain's history of working with quarterbacks like Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart is one of the things he's most excited about.

Locker sounded a little less enthusiastic about the USC-style pro offense -- Locker admitted that he likes to run and that an offense that lets a quarterback run is part of the reason he picked UW. However, he also said that he's open to whatever his new coach installs. And he allowed that the pro-style is the part of the game that he still most needs to develop.

He said Sarkisian's background of success at USC -- helps him and likely will help a lot of the Huskies -- buy in to whatever the new coach is selling.

He said the thing that may have been most exciting to the team was Sarkisian's promise start everyone with a clean slate, starting now. ... That and Sarkisian's energy -- the players seemed to like Sarkisian's heightened energy level.

Finally, Locker also said that his injured thumb is healing. Range of motion is now similar to that of his uninjured thumb. And three days ago he picked up a football for the first time. He hasn't thrown one yet, but he considers this a start.

So far so good.

Steve Sarkisian hasn't signed a recruit, called a play or won a game. But he made a good first impression here in his introductory press conference.

He seemed to be having fun. He answered questions. He didn't refer to himself in the third person.

What else?

He promised open practices ... open to fans as well as media.

He wore a purple and gold tie.

He didn't get 100 words into his opening statement before paying homage to Don James.

His goal is to win championships.

He said he has the facilities to do that.

He said he has the budget to assemble a staff to help him do that.

He said he wants to rebuild a recruiting wall around the state of Washington.

He said he has met with the team, but not yet with the existing staff, who are under contract until summer.

He said his top immediate priority is recruiting, then he will return his attention to USC during the holiday down period and thru the Rose Bowl, then he's back here for all Huskies all the time.

He said winning and losing are both habits, and he wants to rid the program of the latter and build the former.

He said the schedule -- which begins with LSU and continued with 12 games in 12 weeks -- is the schedule. (However, Scott Woodward implied it might be adjusted before fall.)

He said he will retain the play-calling and that he expects to run something very similar to his USC offense, regardless of Jake Locker or other personnel issues here.

He said he never assumes a player will redshirt, but he seemed cautious of bringing in juco players.

He stressed that emotion is a huge part of the game.

He said he defines success as winning games, getting to bowls, winning championships.

He said he will give someone the title of quarterback coach, but that he will also work closely with mentoring UW quarterbacks.

He agreed that Oregon, Oregon State and Cal have upgraded since UW's glory days of the '90s, but he still believes UW can compete on the level it once did.

Here we go.

I'm at the Don James Center at Husky Stadium where the Steve Sarkisian press conference will begin at 9:30.

The era is off to a great start by sportswriter standards: there's coffee and gingerbread cookies.

But if you can't get here, the event will be shown on Gohuskies.com, and I also hear that Channel 5 and 13 and FSN intend to show it, and that KRJ 950-AM radio will boradcast live. FSN also plans to repeat it at 12:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m

I'll be back with info after the event.

New UW coach Steve Sarkisian's introductory press conference is at 9:30 this morning and is open to the public. It will be held in the Don James Center, on the north side of Husky Stadium.

If you can't make it, it also will be streamed live -- and then as a video archive -- at the GoHuskies.com Website.

And, of course, I'll blog highlights here and write quite a bit for the Tuesday paper.