Willingham: It's just a game

His Washington Huskies face his former team on Saturday.
WIRE REPORTS
MIAMI -- Tyrone Willingham wants you to understand. It's nothing personal.
Right. And Puget Sound is merely a body of water.
Notre Dame is coming to Ty's town, and the Washington coach is excited -- big-name opponent, great opportunity for the Huskies on a national stage.
And that part about facing his former employer. . .
"It's always going to be written up with a lot of hype," Willingham said this week. "When everything is all said and done, the scoreboard is still going to say that it's the Huskies playing against the Irish. Nothing more."
Typical Willingham. Stoniest mask in football.
Willingham never gave outsiders a glimpse into his psyche during his three years under the Golden Dome, which ended 10 months ago with a stunningly quick hook.
So even as Saturday's date is circled on many a football calendar, Willingham remains detached.
"This football game's important," he said, "just as the last one was important."
Um, the last one was a 34-6 romp over Idaho.
Frankly, not even Willingham's athletic director is buying it. But Todd Turner does acknowledge it's not a bad strategy this week.
"He'd be less than human if it didn't have some emotional impact on him, but you'll never see it," Turner said. "He'll work really hard to stiff-arm everyone. He will downplay it, and I think that's a good move."
Poll voters snoozing
It took just three weeks for the nation's poll voters to be caught snoozing at the wheel. Or at least during the late-night highlights.
Didn't unbeaten Michigan State survive that overtime thriller Saturday at Notre Dame? And didn't the Irish slow Michigan to a crawl at Ann Arbor?
Now check this week's Associated Press rankings -- Michigan is 14th, Notre Dame 16th and Michigan State 17th.
Actually, it's a collective embarrassment because one voter rarely skews the rankings. Consider that Michigan got 93 more points than Notre Dame, and the Irish got 109 more than MSU.
Not to be outdone is the coaches' poll: Michigan ranks 13th, Notre Dame 18th and MSU 22nd.
FYI, the new Harris poll makes its first in-season appearance next week, giving the season a month to shake out to supposedly avoid such hijinks.
We'll see.
No more talking
Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis said he is done talking with officials before games to warn them of potential problems.
Weis said before the Michigan game, he warned the officials that he was concerned the Wolverines would shift and hike the ball before everyone was set.
"So sure enough, it was the first or second play of the game in the Michigan game, the one thing I talked to them about, they shifted to a four man side, two guys were still moving, the ball is snapped and they don't call a false start. I said, 'Look, there's one thing I asked you to look at, the one thing?"'
Weis was frustrated after the Michigan State game as well. He said he warned the officials that the Irish would shift from a normal formation to a four-open set. He said he asked the officials if the defense moves into the neutral zone during the shift and the Irish react, whether they would call a penalty.
"And they said 'Correct,"' he said. "We did it twice early in the game. You'll see it. We shift twice. They move into the neutral zone, we react and both penalties were called on us."
So Weis said he won't talk to the officials before the game.
"I did it twice, it didn't work, so I'm done talking to them," he said.