Rick Rizzzzz: “AND THEY ALLLLL WILL SCORE! HOLY SMOKES!” I guess the picture would have been funnier if Beltre was wildly waving his arms, running down the line sending them home. Beltre, love the guy, and the Mariner stat nerds claim he’s been an MVP level 3rd baseman the last couple of months, but he must lead the league in the 100-yard stare.
If it wasn’t already over for the M’s, last night’s 2-TD loss would secure the white flag. No surprise they would batter Gil MESS, but geez man, ONE IP!?!?? That’s the suckiest performance in the history of sucking. I know there was shoddy defense behind him, but come on. Meanwhile Gil will parlay all this into 4 years, $40 million from some sucker who will point to his age and career numbers being better than AJ Burnett. Good luck with that! Hopefully the M’s are already ordering up the uni’s for Jason Schmidt and Matsusaka next year.
On to the real story – are you ready for some FOOTBALL, scrimmage-style!?!? Much like the NFL preseason, do scrimmages actually mean anything? As Doba said today, “we already know that Alex can play QB.” Ya think so?? 2800+ and 24 td’s last year might help clear that one up…..seriously though, while scrimmages are nice in regard to getting the youth and JC’s some simulated in-game action, they aren’t really anything to hang our hat on in what to expect this fall. I remember last year everyone raving about how great the defense looked, but we know how that worked out. It’s that golden rule, really, right now the D is just ahead of the O, not just here but everywhere, even the NFL. A timing offense like ours, especially, is going to be behind and out-of-synch. So it’s probably going to be pretty predictible about what we’ll actually hear post-scrimmage in the media.
Meanwhile, the Times has a story about little Loren Langley and how that kicking job isn’t exactly his on a silver platter. After a strong start, he did just go 14-for-22 last year and really slumped late, including that chippie miss in the AC and even getting yanked for the XP that gave the Cougs a 4-pt lead.
153 lbs though??? He’s going to get killed on kickoffs! Good God son, as soon as you kick the ball just run to the sidelines. Maybe nobody will notice if we somehow sneak Michael Willis onto the kickoff coverage team as soon as the ball is in the air??
Or, hey Michael, CAN YOU KICK!!?
Probably not. Anyway, we know little Loren wasn’t a star to begin with, and we know he doesn’t have much in regards to leg strength (never hit one over 50, career long was 48 that just snuck through.). You hope for the logical improvement that comes from experience, but if this team is indeed going to compete for an upper-division finish, they are going to need him to come through. 2003, even though Dunning missed a few at Notre Dame that would have won the game, he saved their bacon in other games and who knows if we would have been in the top-10 that year if we had a kicker go 14-22 instead.
Nice to read that super-frosh Andy Mattingly is showing as much promise as we hoped for when he signed with the Cougs. Overwhelmed, absolutely at this point and you can kind of see why it’s difficult for true frosh to play meaningful minutes, offense, defense or otherwise. Kind of says a lot for Greg Trent, averaging 10 tackles a start last year?
Jessen and Mattingly keep the Mead pipeline flowing – Jessen, Mattingly, Jason Hanson, backup kicker RobinWhorley….
Story links:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/cougars/281030_coug12.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2003193405_coug12.html
Finally, check out the new link on the right – Kissing Suzy Kolber. Funny stuff on things Patriots, Boston, and the sports world in general. Man there are some talented people in the blogosphere! I’m going to also update the links to some other Pac-10 bloggers. There’s some good stuff out there and it’ll be kind of cool to see some fan reactions throughout the season.
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