New UW defensive coordinator/assistant head coach Nick Holt naturally gets most of the attention in my Wednesday story and in several blog posts below. But today also provided a chance to hear from Steve Sarkisian again for the first time in a couple of week.

Here's some of what he had to say:

On recruiting:
"This is a big recruiting week for us. We’re still in the contact period so we’re doing a lot of home visits, we’re flying around the West Coast. We’ve got coaches all over the place. Starting next week, it’s a dead period because of the (football coaches) convention, so we’ll be in the office trying to kind of get our bearings a little bit, getting guys feet on the ground here. Some guys will be going to Nashville. (He's unsure if he is going.)

"Then after that week it’s a big push. It’s a big push on the recruiting front. Starting the 16th we’ve got three straight big recruiting weekends. Obviously, we’re going to be out on the road those final two weeks, in homes trying to solidify some commitments, then we’ve got to close hard for the fourth of February.

"It’s a big time right now, we’re trying to hire really good coaches, obviously some of these coaching hires will have quite a bit of impact on recruiting. Not only on the front of how we recruit, but also in the response that we get from the kids. So I think this is a tremendous hire for us getting Nick today at this stage of the recruiting game."

On Holt's additional duties as assistant head coach:
"A lot, really. The first thing you have to remember is that he's going to speak to half of our football team every day, and I'm not going to be in that room. We're going to be at team meetings, and we're going to split up offense/defense, and he's going to be talking to 50 guys every day and spreading the word of what we're about and what we're going to become.

"The second thing is I'm going to use his voice for our football team. As you guys heard, you could feel his intensity, and I think it's important for our entire football team to feel him.

"And thirdly, he's tremendous with boosters, alumni, the fans, everyone's going to feel Nick Holt. He's got a great presence, and I'm really going to rely on his opinions on a lot of things."

On his early interactions with his players:
"We had a great team meeting yesterday. We kind of gave them the lay of the land and our overall philosophy of things and how we’re going to do things in strength and conditioning and in the classroom and what their expectations should be. I think they’re really motivated right now, I think there’s a buzz on our football team about where we’re headed. But they also understand we’ve got a lot of work to do. It’s going to take a lot of time and effort and diligence on their part. But they understand. They’re excited, they know what this place can be, they feel the energy. They’re feeling hopefully myself and the other assistants and who we are and what we represent."

On the Huskies forming a new identity:
"Well, it starts with me. I can’t try to be Pete Carroll, I have to be Steve Sarkisian. I have to take some things that we did at SC and incorporate them with the things that I like, but we can’t try to be USC North, and we’re not going to be. We’re going to be the University of Washington, I’m going to be Steve Sarkisian, Nick is going to be Nick Holt. We’re going to be who we are, but there are definitely some things that we will try to incorporate that I think can be successful for us."

On his final game as a Trojan in the Rose Bowl last week:
"I knew going in that it was my last game, and I really tried to embrace the whole leading up to the game and the ball game. After the game it was a great moment for me knowing it was the last game at SC and winning another Rose Bowl – our third straight, and all of the confetti and all the things that go on in that environment is something special. Sometimes when you’ve gone to four in a row you can take it for granted. I was fortunate to know it was my last game there so I really wanted to embrace it. And I thought to myself walking into the tunnel off the field, Some day I’ll be back. We’ll be back here. Sooner than later. That’s the mindset we’re going to have. We’re going to get back to that game. We’re going to get the University of Washington back to that game."

I'm taking a break from typing all those Nick Holt exclamation points to pass along a few quick items from today's meeting with basketball coach Lorenzo Romar and a few of the Huskies.

1.) Freshman guard Elston Turner (ankle) won't play Thursday against Stanford and isn't likely to play Saturday against California, but he is expected back for the Oregon trip next week.

2.) Romar and freshman Darnell Gant seem willing to put the incident with WSU senior Caleb Forrest (see blog post below) behind them without making it a bigger deal that it already has become. Gant said he thinks it will all be mostly forgotten by the time the Cougars come to Hec Ed in March.

3. ) Forward Jon Brockman says his own ankle sprain is getting better, but still isn't 100 percent.

4.) UW still hasn't been able to fill its date lost when Lehigh couldn't make it to Seattle due to late-December snows. However, it now appears that if a make-up game is arranged, Lehigh probably won't be the opponent.

5.) UW football coach Steve Sarkisian met with the basketball team this week. Brockman says he was impressed.

After a few minutes of Nick Holt's introductory press conference, new head coach Steve Sarkisian offered up the comment, "Any question why I wanted him?"

Everyone in the room understood what he meant. (And here's TNT columnist John McGrath's take.)

Nick Holt is a high-energy coach, every bit as different from Ed Donatell as Sarkisian is from Ty Willingham.

Other than that general impression, there wasn't much real news out of this press conference, other than the eye-popping dollars involved outlined in the post below.

Holt said that he will run a defensive system very similar to what he ran at USC. He also plans to practice the same way -- which means hitting and tackling at every practice.

Holt called USC coach Pete Carroll his No. 1 mentor. He said it was difficult to leave. But he is excited about returning to the Northwest and facing the challenge of reestablishing UW as a football power. He once again used the term "sleeping giant."

I'll be back with more details and a few direct quotes later.

Look at the bottom right in the clip above, and you will see WSU senior Caleb Forrest take a swing at UW freshman Darnell Gant.

WSU coach Tony Bennett said today that Forrest "just lost his head" and tht he had been spoken to. But apparently no other discipline is forthcoming.

"There was some back and forth going between Caleb and Gant and then Caleb lost his composure. And then Caleb apologized immediately after to Gant and to Coach Romar after the game. Caleb is a good kid, and he just lost his head. I've dealt with that with Caleb. I think there was a double-technical assessed. Like I said there was some jawing going on and some things before that. He just lost his head. I've dealt with it Caleb and he certainly apologized to Coach Romar and the player."

UW has released the highlights of the contract that made Nick Holt a Husky:

- 3 years
- 600K in the first year, 650K in the second and third years
- 200K retention bonus (payable to him up front, but would have to be returned all or in part, on a sliding scale, if he were to leave before the end of the contract)

So, in all, 3 years for a total of $2.1 million.