Sark's grade thus far: A+

Those Husky fans who demanded a seasoned, top-tier head coach with at least some salt in his beard assume the massive rebuilding project known as UW football got a big surprise when the man hired was probably trying to pass driver's ed in 1991 when UW last won a national championship.

Fans wanted a big name, and were left scratching their collective heads when coaches like Jim Mora, Mike Leach and Gary Pinkel were either not pursued aggressively enough or said, "No thanks."

Husky fans have always had a sense of entitlement. The national championship is recent enough that if you can recite the lyrics of "Ice Ice Baby," you can vividly recall the likes of Emtman, Brunell and Bailey dominate the national college football scene.

Most fans (young included) can clearly remember the 2000 season when a UW team rallied from the emotionally-devastating loss of Curtis Williams who was paralyzed on a helmet-to-helmet hit in rainy Palo Alto against Stanford, nearly lost the game, and then came back with less than a minute remaining to beat the Cardinal on a Tuiasosopo-to-Robbins pass in the back of the endzone, then went on to win the Pac-10, Rose Bowl, and finish #3 in the nation.

It hasn't exactly been that long ago that UW fans could plan on booking air and hotel to either Los Angeles or San Diego for the holidays, not that long ago when Planet USC took over the universe.

So when 34-year old Steve Sarkisian was hired, many UW fans felt like the program deserved a higher profile coach, somehow to reward them for 11-37 and no bowl games over the past four seasons. Not exactly a dream job for just about any established head coach, unless a "challenge" is what you're seeking.

Husky Football A.D.J. (After Don James) has been searching for another Dawgfather, a program-changer. The head coaching revolving door since James has consisted of two loyalty promotions (assistants Jim Lambright and Keith Gilbertson) and two (at the time) trendy picks in the briefly-successful-but-rules-compliance-nightmare Rick Neuheisel and altogether disastrous Willingham.

But if grades can be given out for effort alone thus far, Sarkisian gets a big fat A-plus.

Forget about prominence, Sarkisian is attempting to return the Dawgs to mediocrity, at least in the short term. And even in attempting that, he will have his hands full.

Nonetheless, "Coach Sark" as his blog is appropriately named, has done just about everything right considering what he inherited.

How has he done it?

• He made it clear from day one the barriers created with alumni, boosters, fans and the media Willingham worked so hard to enforce would be eliminated. He's opened practices, he's used technology to communicate - the aforementioned blog, use of Twitter and Facebook - to get Husky Fever approaching Tylenol time from fans trying to rally around a program that didn't even sniff winning last season.

• He convinced USC Defensive Coordinator Nick Holt, a Bill Goldberg lookalike and a guy I'm convinced could step into a college football game without a helmet and de-cleat the first person he sees, into leaving the comfort of working with perennial All-americans and NFL first rounders and taking on one of the nation's worst defenses statistically.
  

• He wasn't afraid to rescind Willingham's offers from high school seniors like Grant Cisneros, who had no other Division I offers and ultimately committed to Central Washington University, a statement that less-than-Pac-10-caliber talent was not acceptable, no matter how dire UW's situation.
  

• He had a giant "W" painted on one of the upper deck roofs at Husky Stadium, and "Go Dawgs" on the other so that blue chip recruits flying in from Southern California he's trying to steal from Pete Carroll can see the stadium on descent into Seattle.

• Perhaps more importantly, he's locked the border around Washington State thus far, receiving verbal commitments from three of the top four in-state recruits for 2010, and has the state's and quite possibly the nation's top recruit, Jake Heaps, jumping up and down with Jake Locker in the Dawg Pack at UW basketball games and standing in the cold rain observing spring football practices.
  

• He's reportedly in the process of working with Nike to redesign the uniforms to reflect a more classic look, bringing back the glory days of Husky football at least from an aesthetics standpoint.

In all, aside from a couple of minor recruiting violations (heaven forbid UW uses a fog machine again!) Sarkisian's missteps have been minimal, all coming from a 34-year old who has never head-coached a second of college football.

Compare that with public relations train wrecks like Lane Kiffin, another candidate UW fans clamored for, and it underscores how truly impressive Sarkisian's first few months on the job have been.

UW may win one, two, four games next season. But in the process of rebuilding a once-great program, Sarkisian understands the importance of controlling what he can control, and the fan support, talent, and ultimately wins will follow.