Dawgman.com is reporting what we reported here last week was a strong possibility --- DL Johnny Tivao of Cerritos College will not make it in to school. Tivao was one of six JC players UW signed last February and gained some attention for his size --- UW officially listed him at 5-10, 349. That size naturally excited fans, but I'm not sure it was a slam dunk he was going to make a huge immediate impact on the team --- it had sounded as if he might need some significant conditioning to get into a regular playing mode.
However, any loss is a loss in depth, especially on the defensive line --- and coaches have held out the option of possibly switching another DL to the OL, as they did last spring with Senio Kelemete. The loss of Tivao could be a factor in their ultimate decision on that.
Tivao's loss leaves UW with seven players listed as defensive tackles --- Tyrone Duncan, Cameron Elisara, Craig Noble, Alameda Ta'amu, Nick Wood, Semisi Tokolahi and Chris Robinson, the latter two being true freshmen.
Of what I know of the other five JCs, three --- Dorson Boyce, Dominique Gaisie and Will Mahan --- are either in or expected to make it in with little trouble (Boyce is already in); and two --- S David Batts and OL Daniel Mafoe --- still have some work to do but still have a chance to get in.
The recent losses of Tivao and RBs Brandon Johnson and David Freeman leave the Huskies with 83 scholarship players, assuming I've counted everyone correnctly. Here's the last scholarship tracker I compiled.
Other than continuing to watch the rest of UW's JC situation, however, the remainer of UW's roster is expected to be stable heading into fall camp with all 13 incoming freshmen having gained admittance and no more attrition of the current roster expected before fall camp.
Going strictly by these numbers, UW would have 14 open scholarshiops for the Class of 2010. But conventional wisdom is that the Huskies will sign quite a ffew more than that, expecting some other attrition before the 2010 season (and one scholarship could also open if Jake Locker signs a baseball contract making him a football walk-on, as is expected to happen before mid-August). It wouldn't really take much out of the ordinary to turn 15 open spots now to 20 or so by a year from now.
