University of Washington QB (and NFL hot prospect) Jake Locker is going to play baseball this summer. But Michael David Smith of COLLEGE FOOTBALL TALK thinks the idea is a foul ball.

“And that, in a nutshell, is why (Ty) Willingham is a better person than he is a football coach. Willingham is a good guy who wants his players to be well-rounded people. That’s great. That’s one of the reasons I like Willingham.

“But make no mistake, many college football players spend their entire summers working out for football, studying film for football, honing their skills in football. Just because the NCAA limits the number of organized practices college athletes can participate in doesn’t mean the best quarterbacks aren’t practicing football during the summer.“

We’ve always thought that leaving Stanford for Notre Dame (and subsequently UW) was the worst possible career move for Coach Ty. We remember his Stanford Cardinal trouncing Pete Carroll’s Trojans in 2001 at the L.A. Coliseum, delivering, for our money, the worst collegiate beating ever endured by the USC coach.

Stanford was the perfect, politically-correct setting for Willingham. Much less pressure than a typical high profile college football troop. He could win his seven games every other year (Poinsettia Bowl!) and give the Menlo blue bloods something to spice up idle, after-class cocktail conversation.

But then he had to go and get all ambitious on us *sigh*.