Hemming, hawing, dancing around the ultimate decision

Like lopping off your toes because you can’t find shoes that fit, deciding on a starting quarterback at the University of Washington is messy business, as it seems to have been many places this fall.

A thorough operator such as new Huskies head coach Tyrone Willingham must avail himself of every possible resource for evaluation – starting with his own two eyes. Then it’s on to video, play charts, consultation with the position coach, a Ouija board, the I Ching, his teenage son’s Playstation2 NCAA College Football 2005 game and, in desperation, lurking at dawgman.com.

Ultimately, however, this was a job for U-Dub’s highest authority:

The compliance office.

Bwahahahahaha!

It seems the Huskies’ all-world rules ramrods had to declare transfer quarterback Johnny DuRocher ineligible for UW’s first three games because a full year hadn’t yet elapsed since he withdrew from the University of Oregon, thus giving the starting spot to junior Isaiah Stanback by default if not by deed.

The compliance office did decide, however, that it was OK for DuRocher to set up a March Madness office pool.

Holy Husky, how did Dana Richardson get back on the payroll? True, the compliance folks were preoccupied last spring chiseling egg from their chins at the Rick Neuheisel trial, but surely this damning detail could have been spotted before DuRocher was allotted a hunk of the practice repetitions this fall. It’s not as if Stanback couldn’t have used the extra work.

“I take all responsibility,” Willingham insisted.

Hey, Ty, we get it already. You’re the anti-Rick. Good costume.

On the plus side, at least the goof was caught before the Dawgs had to forfeit any … OK, OK, OK. Never could keep a straight face.

This latest locker room vaudeville from Montlake may be the perfect denouement to an August of intramural silliness on the college football front, whereby actually declaring a starting quarterback proved to be more distasteful to the average coach than faxing his scripted first 10 plays to the opening opponent.

At Washington State, coach Bill Doba at least tried to put a No. 1 forward from the beginning of camp – restoring Josh Swogger to the starting role he lost to a broken foot last October, though not without some equivocation. As such, Doba may as well have nominated Swogger for the cover of Sports Illustrated, because sophomore Alex Brink played his way past the incumbent in about 10 minutes.

Doba resisted making an announcement until last week, mostly because he’s an old softie who didn’t want to break the news to the runner-up.

“The two players handled it better than I have,” he allowed on Tuesday.

Across the state line at Idaho, coach Nick Holt has been presiding over a party game – part musical chairs, part charades – between last year’s starter, Michael Harrington, and junior college import Steven Wichman. All the “Who’s the starter?” questions were starting to get under Holt’s skin, to the point that our man on the beat was going to ask Tuesday if he’d just tell us instead who the backup was going to be. But the coach finally broke down and anointed Harrington the starter against Wazzu on Thursday night in Pullman.

It didn’t sound exactly permanent, however.

“Mike Harrington, we know he can get us into this play and that play, we know what we can expect,” Holt said. “He can get guys lined up right who might be misaligned. But the other guy can throw that rock in there when we need to get a first down.”

Apparently, neatness counts.

Then there was U-Dub, which not only had Stanback and DuRocher but also purported to be giving a shot to Carl Bonnell, whose leg injury took him out of the hunt, and Casey Paus, whose chances were dampened ever so slightly by being the worst quarterback in Division I-A a year ago. Tuesday’s revelation was just comic relief.

“It accelerated the announcement,” Willingham said, confirming the extended make-believe, “but not necessarily the decision.”

But frankly, indecision has been an epidemic. Montana, a I-AA cradle of top quarterbacks, can’t make up its mind this year between Jason Washington and Cole Bergquist. Oklahoma finally settled on career backup Paul Thompson as its starter, possibly because coach Bob Stoops was threatened by Rhett Bomar having too colorful a name. Tennessee just picked Erik Ainge over Rick Clausen.

It was to the point that you wonder if these coaches wouldn’t rather send two quarterbacks out for the first snap and slot one out for a lateral, not only to show their confidence that “either of these guys can win for us,” the generic caveat, but also to postpone the inevitable.

Somebody has to start. It’s in the rules.

This never prevents the occasional grumbling from the Big Whistle about how nobody ever argues the merits of the undecided situation at cornerback or right guard, but the fact is no talk-radio caller has ever phoned in to grouse that, “We’d have won if the right guard had played better.” No coach, either, for that matter.

Doba might be the first this year.

“Hey, we’re blessed to have two kids who have started at quarterback and proved they can win in the Pac-10,” he said. “Seldom does a guy go through the season without some sort of injury. Those quarterbacks, that’s a high risk position. Nobody says, ‘Kill the right guard’ – it’s ‘Get after the quarterback.’ Well, more important might be the guard and the center in front of him, because if they don’t do their jobs, he’s in trouble.”

Besides, who starts apparently only matters to people outside the program.

“Kids don’t care,” Doba maintained. “Whoever can take them down the field and score, and can help win ballgames, that’s who they’ll follow. In talking to one of our players, he told me, ‘Coach, this ain’t no church league.’ “

You don’t have to remind the Huskies. The rule book for church league isn’t nearly as thick as the NCAA’s.