Wednesday Dots: Player of the Week

If you didn’t remember, today is National Signing Day for football. Softball starts its season this weekend. And did you know that a former UW athlete will be competing in the Winter Olympics which start this weekend? Those and more for your Wednesday dots.

Football Dots

• Today is the first day of the regular signing period for high school recruits. Many recruits already signed during the Early Signing Period back in December, so there should not be much drama today. This article talks about why this day is no longer as important. There isn’t anyone that is expected to sign with UW today, but stranger things have happened.
• Yesterday UW got a commitment from Asa Thompson, a 2026 athlete from Eastside Catholic. It appears that he will be a walkon DB.

• UW isn’t scheduled to play Northwestern this year, but they will be making the trip in 2027. And that game should be at Northwestern’s new stadium, Ryan Field, which is set to open this year when Northwestern opens conference play against Penn State-which it upset last year.

• In other news that Husky fans hope will be relevant, the College Football Playoff has announced the dates and locations of the quarterfinals and semifinals for both the 2026-2027 playoffs and the 2027-2028 playoffs. One note on this year’s quarterfinals is that one game (the Fiesta Bowl) will be played on Wednesday, December 30, while the remaining 3 games will be on Friday, January 1, 2027. Normally the first quarterfinal game would be on Thursday, but they moved it a day early to avoid conflict with an NFL game.
• There was an informal poll on X (Twitter) recently asking people whether certain teams should be considered a ‘CFB Blue Blood’. According to the poll, UW is not considered a ‘Blue Blood’ by most of the people responding to the poll. Here are the other teams in the poll and whether they are a ‘Blue Blood’ (percentage of ‘Yes’ votes).
  • Tennessee: (32%)
  • Florida: (21%)
  • USC: (76%)
  • Oklahoma: (83%)
  • Clemson: (10%)
  • Nebraska: (67%)
  • Alabama: (93%)
  • Ohio State: (93%)
  • Auburn: (5%)
  • Penn State: (47%)
  • Notre Dame: (83%)
  • Texas: (70%)
  • LSU: (34%)
  • Miami: (35%)
  • Georgia: (43%)
  • Florida State: (27%)
  • Michigan: (82%)
  • Washington: (4%)

• Parker Fleming has an article on explosive plays in college football. (https://cfbgraphs.substack.com/p/footballnomics-whered-the-explosives) There is a lot of data in the article, but the main point of the article is that explosive plays, especially ones on 1st and 10, have dropped as defenses have gotten better.

Basketball Dots

• The UW Men’s Basketball team has struggled recently, but it has been against a very difficult schedule. They are 4-7 in conference play, but they’ve played the toughest conference schedule of any team in the country.

• In honor of World Cancer Day, the Huskies will be wearing pink for their game against Iowa tonight.

• Sayvia Sellers of the UW Women’s Basketball team has been named National Player of the Week.

Other UW Athletics Dots

• The UW Women’s Gymnastics team will be at the game tonight.

• UW has a video out with a behind-the-scenes look at the UW Men’s Soccer team’s road to the National Championship.

• UW Women’s Softball will be starting their season this weekend at the UTSA Invitational (San Antonio, Texas). UW will first face #9 Nebraska and UTSA on Friday. Then they take on #1 Texas on Saturday. They will play both Texas and Nebraska again on Sunday.

• Former Husky Anna Gibson will be part of the US Ski Mountaineering squad for the Winter Olympics.