As noted earlier, today marks essentially the halfway point of Washington’s fall camp, practices 14 and 15 of 29 the team can hold before starting the season.

So it seemed like an ideal time to ask UW coach Steve Sarkisian for something of a progress report.

And in keeping with a camp in which optimisim has been the buzzword from the start, Sarkisian waxed enthusiastic about what he’s seen so far.

“I like where we’re at,” he said. “We talked about it last night as a football team. We kind of put the calendar out, with the X’s through the days. If you think about it, two weeks from today, about this time, we’ll be getting on a plane to fly to Provo. It comes quick, it happens fast. But I’ve been impressed with our football team, the way they’ve responded — offensively and defensively, we’re light years ahead of where we were last year at this time. I think that’s why, as I touched on, the special teams is so important to me as we head into this weekend and next week, that we really get that thing solidified.”

The latter comment was in relation to some earlier comments that he’d like to see the special teams show improvement in Saturday’s scrimmage, the second of the fall.

Hearing Sarkisian say that he thinks both the offense and defense are “light years” ahead of last season, however, obviously piqued our interest. Being optimistic about the offense is no surprise given all the obvious weapons returning.

But when people talk about the Huskies, they usually refer to the defense as a question mark.

Sarkisian, however, said he’s just as optimistic about the defense as the offense, saying of those who question how good the defense can be “yeah, well those people haven’t come to practice. Our defense has been getting after it pretty good. I like some of the guys that have emerged. I think the spine of our defense is really solid, with Alameda (Ta’amu) and Cameron (Elisara) inside, with Mason (Foster) and Cort (Dennison) inside (at linebacker) and Nate Williams (at safety) and (Will) Shamburger and (Nate) Fellner back there and the emergence of Sean Parker, I love our guys right down the middle. And our edge guys are performing. Tru’s being Tru (Desmond Trufant), Quinton Richardson has had a tremendous camp, Victor Aiyewa has started to kind of emerge as that (strongside) linebacker, and these young defensive end are playing. So I like where we’re at. They’re playing fast, they’re playing aggressive, and I think they’re really embodying the personality of Nick Holt and what he brings — the energy and aggression that he brings. And I think guys are playing better.”

You can watch Sarkisian’s meeting with the media below:

Sarkisian said one reason he thinks the team is light years ahead is because of the continuity of the coaching staff staying completely intact for year one to year two of his tenure here.

“I think what it’s done for me is it’s allowed me, our coaches feel so good with the schedule and our players, it’s allowed me to sit back and evaluate a little better and not get caught up in everything that’s happening that exact moment. To be able to see things and step away and assess what’s happening and kind of the mood of the team and things of that nature and be able to address them sooner rather than later so that things don’t linger. … We’re kind of a well-oiled machine right now. We know what we’re doing.”

He said keeping the staff intact was “huge on a lot of fronts. Obviously, it adds continuity. Recruiting. We have the same recruiting basis; you have the same coach going back to recruit the same area. Position groupings: the players know their coach, who they’re dealing with. But a lot of it for me is practice and preparing for practice. The coaches understand what I want to get accomplished every day, and they go out and kind of reiterate the message and spread the message throughout the football team. So I think that’s a big deal to me. There are a lot of great coaches in America, and a lot of them could come in and learn our scheme. But for our team, and the momentum that we carried last year into this year, having people on the same page I think is really important.”

As noted, the team will scrimmage tomorrow in a practice that begins at 3 p.m. (though remember that there will be a warmup period and all of that, as well, so the actual scrimmaging may be a little later).

Asked what he wants to see out of the scrimmage, he said: “I want our special teams to be better, now that we’re touching on it. I thought we were really sloppy with our technique, sloppy with our scheme and our effort wasn’t great on special teams. That’s really the first thing I was looking for. I want to continue to see our tempo on offense increase. I want to feel a sense of urgency out of those guys, that we’re playing fast, our personnel groupings and substitutions are going up to speed and sufficient. And then the third thing I’d like to see are kind of the dumb penalties, we like to refer to them as: false starts, lining up offsides, delay of games, things of that nature that really have nothing to do with your opponent, it’s all on you. So if we can do all three of those things, I think we’ll be all right.”

While Sarkisian said there would have been plenty of work on special teams this week, anyway, Tuesday’s scrimmage put a little heightened focus on that area — Friday’s morning practice was dominated by special teams work.

“This was already scheduled,” he said. “But I just think we should be better than we were, with the athletes that we have on our football team right now. They’re young, so we’ve got to teach them really well, so there’s been an emphasis on special teams. We’ve just got to get them playing at full speed and doing things the right way.”

Most of the key special teams jobs are pretty much set, however. Sarkisian said that Devin Aguilar and Johri Fogerson will be the main punt returners adding that “I’m anxious to watch Jesse Callier because I think he could add something there, as well.” As for kickoffs, he said “when we open the season Chris Polk is going to be back there for us. But you are going to see some guys through the year, see Trufant and Callier and Kevin Smith, so we’ve got some guys.”

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