Jimmy Lake is playing up Pac-12 title stakes this weekend

In almost every way, Jimmy Lake is an extension of the things Chris Petersen is known for as a head coach. He's tough, he's honest, he's as much about excellence off the field as on it, and he's certainly not going to give anything away to his opponent.But Lake was not in a shy mood Monday when asked about possibly playing up the stakes for this weekend's UW-Oregon game in Eugene, with the winner headed to the Pac-12 Championship game. It's a question Petersen would have likely bobbed and weaved around to the press, talking more about the process and doing things right to achieve the ideal outcome.Lake is all about the process too, but in his words, he doesn't have to remind anyone in the football offices about what comes with a UW win this weekend. So they might as well embrace it."We're always telling the truth to our guys and those guys know I'm always going to hit them right between the eyes with constructive criticism or the truth about something positive," he said when talking with the media during his usual Monday press conference. "This is positive. Yes, we are definitely playing that up. We know what's at stake here and that's the beautiful thing about all the hard work that our team has put in this year and all the ups and downs and rollercoasters of emotions...we're playing football, we're not playing football, we're doing this, we're doing that. And now, here we are. We're in position. We control our own destiny. We take care of business, we are right where we want to be for our goal, which is to win the Pac-12 Championship. That's known throughout this whole building and I don't think I have to remind anybody about that."Lake also talked about what he saw when he watched the tape of their 31-26 defeat to Stanford, their first loss of the season. It was a game marred by another slow start and an inability to get off the field for the Washington defense. Lake talked about those things, as well as the emergence of some young receivers and also how quarterback Dylan Morris is starting to show his leadership chops.