In the lead up to what’s been called the dawning of a new era, and amid the bright lights of Husky Stadium, the ESPN cameras and the packed house, the man most relieved to get things underway is probably the one on whom all of UW football’s fortunes ride.

“I’m pretty impatient. I’m a pretty impatient guy in general,” said head coach Steve Sarkisian, now nine months on the job. His task is to reinvent the culture within the program and restore the buzz around it.

If that seems like a lot for one guy to handle, it should be understood that Husky fans starving for wins expect no less. But if there was ever a pressure to succeed, he’d be the one applying it.

Along with impatience, restlessness is also in Sarkisian’s nature – in a good way.

“I keep looking for stuff to do,” he said earlier this week. “We keep watching film and I keep bugging [defensive coordinator] Nick [Holt] and [offensive coordinator] Doug [Nussmeier], ‘What about this, what about that?’

“I want to know what we’re going to do in short yardage on offense and defense, how we’re going attack them in the red zone, how we’re going to pressure them on third down.”

It’s a meticulous approach that Sarkisian says won’t change after this game, next week, or the week after that. And that’s a good thing, considering the mindset former mentor and USC head coach Pete Carroll said he’d take with him to Husky Stadium come Sept. 19.

“We’re coming after him, I want you to know that,” the Trojans head coach said.

After the abysmal 2008 season and current 14-game losing streak, Carroll’s team won’t be the only one. But the last thing Sarkisian wants to hear about is 0-12.

“We don’t talk about last season,” he said matter-of-factly at the start of fall camp.

Instead, Sarkisian says he’s urging members of his team not to dwell on the past, both in regards to last season and times of adversity on the field this time around.

One player that should benefit from that advice is quarterback Jake Locker, who couldn’t have foreseen his first two years as a starter at Washington going the way they did.

“Obviously what happened last year and in years past hasn’t been what anybody who’s my age or older had signed up for,” said Locker, who has two years of eligibility left. “There’s a new attitude and a new way we do things around here.”

Sarkisian is extending his policy toward players like linebacker E.J. Savannah, who had a falling out with former coach Tyrone Willingham and decided to quit the team before the start of last season. Now he’s being reinstated.

Also given a fresh start is tight end Chris Izbicki, who was charged with two alcohol-related misdemeanors last summer.

Sarkisian said he’s wiping the slate clean on up to a dozen players after the way they played last season, intensifying the competition for playing time.

As for himself, Sarkisian says he’ll be getting increasingly excited as kickoff time approaches. Part of that involves planning a pre-game speech for his players as they prepare to take on a visiting LSU team that no one thinks they have a shot at beating.

“Just as you’re a kid and you dream of things, as a coach you dream of that first time you’re in the locker room with your team,” he said. “You dream about that first pre-game speech, your best Jim Owens, or Don James, or Knute Rockne impression you can make.”

Reach reporter Maks Goldenshteyn at sports@dailyuw.com.