Well, that was fun. About as fun as Mr. Smithers in a strip club, feeling like “how soon can I get the hell out of here??“
So. How about that game yesterday huh? So much for Must Win Saturday? As in, they must win this game….or else we are in BIG TROUBLE? Sound familiar? I think that was the tone from all over the Cougar blogosphere, message boards, et al yesterday leading into this thing. But boy did they not show up early or what? Like it or not, it was 2008 all over again. Sure, the kids should be commended for not laying down when it was 35-0 with 10 minutes left in the 2nd quarter. They did make an effort to come back in the 2nd half, and when it was 35-20, hey, who knew what was going to happen at that point. But then Hawaii drove down the field and kicked a field goal, and that was it. But big pats on the back boys, for YOU DIDN’T QUIT like you did all of 2008! Woo-hoo.
Seriously, is that what we’re reduced to? Trying to find a positive, like golly-gee-shucks, they tried to come back? That’s fine…except it completely discounts the hailstorm of turnovers, busted coverages and just plain ass-kicking that happened in the first quarter and a half! This team needed to run out of the tunnel, game faces on and ready, and just play with their hair on fire in game that was seen as nearly even from all the oddsmakers. I mean this wasn’t Cal or Oregon or USC, even though it sure felt like it for those nightmarish 20 minutes of game time. This Hawaii team projected to be no better than a middle of the road WAC team, and these guys made them look all-universe, allowing them to pop the jerseys and clown on the sidelines as if they were running up the score on Portland State. I don’t want to rail on Hawaii, but let’s get real here and understand who, exactly, WSU was facing on the other side of the ball. This was a team that had some experience back on offense, but defensively had not much at all to be excited about. This looked like an opponent “ripe” for the picking.
But even with the turnovers and mistakes and all that, is there absolutely ZERO DOUBT which team looked BCS-worthy, and which team looked completely overmatched, in regards to talent and speed and even execution on both sides of the ball? I know this is just football, and it’s not life-and-death or anything close to it. There are other things happening in the world that matter a lot more than this. But as a Coug fan, I have to admit that I am embarrassed for the crimson-n-gray. Pure and simple. Last year we could at least lean on the crutch of “new coach, new schemes, injuries everywhere, blah blah blah”. This year was supposed to be different. Not that we expected to go to a bowl game or anything close to it. But we sure expected to be more competitive than this.
There’s more, if you care to continue….
The fire Wulff crowd has a lot of momentum all of a sudden. Names like Kevin Sumlin are being tossed about, and suddenly he’s Mr. Hot Coach after their stunner in Stillwater yesterday, topping a top-10 Okie State team in exciting fashion. But that ship has sailed, so it’s not even worth bringing up anymore. Meanwhile, Wulff is awfully steadfast in his position that things are getting better, but what else can he say right now? If he starts getting negative again, starts shoving his players or coaches off the curb and into the path of the oncoming bus, he will lose this team similar to how he lost them last year. And he hasn’t totally lost them……yet.
OR has he? How can anyone explain the flatline approach to the start of the game yesterday? What the hell happened? Was it the long bus ride? Did they expect to just show up, go through the motions, and win against a WAC team? Where was the hunger, the desperation from a program that so badly needs to feel good about itself? Did you know that the 600+ yards surrendered yesterday, that was more than any team they played last year? It was the most since USC hung 700+ on the Cougs in ’05 against Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush and those rockstars. This was HAWAII folks.
I know people are going to bring out the “when Price was here” or “when Doba coached” talk, and that’s fine. But there is one huge difference between then and now – SPEED. For all the hype about the weight gain and nutrition and all that stuff, Wulff and the rest have seemed to overlook something very important. Speed, and lack of it, makes this job feel impossible. Lack of speed, on both sides of the ball, has become painfully obvious in these first two games. It just isn’t there, period. But what is the answer? We have talked about this before, with the Erickson/Price approach of recruiting speed on defense and going with the smaller, faster player and moving them up a slot instead of the traditional, big, plodder types. But speed isn’t on the roster right now. If it is, wouldn’t it be out there, playing? Much is being made about how many guys from last year’s recruiting class are redshirting right now. But are these redshirts all 4.4 guys who can fly around and hit people and cause havoc? For Wulff’s sake, they better be.
Further, what about the guys in uniform right now? Can you teach speed? Coach it up somehow? Maybe hire a speed coach or go to a speed camp, learn proper technique that they teach track guys? Maybe shave a couple of 10th’s of their 40-time, but does that matter when everyone is running a 4.9 40 anyway? Is it possible to take a big, strong guy and make him run faster? Is Wulff recruiting the right kind of player? Much is made of Wulff’s in-state recruiting ties, how so many high school coaches like him, etc. But does it matter in THIS state? Is there enough speed in Washington to compete at the PAC-10 level? Or better yet, the WAC level!?
For all of Mike Price’s foibles and follies and Poop Island stuff, the further away we get from the Price era, the more clear something important becomes – the guy just had a knack for finding talent, period. I still to this day have no idea how he was able to get the kind of players he did to come to Pullman. Ask yourself how in the world did he get the number one pick in the NFL draft to sign with him with Bledsoe? How did he get the #2 pick and 3rd-place Heisman runnerup in Leaf? Think about all that fantastic talent on the ’94 defense, or the top-to-bottom talent on that ’97 or ’02 PAC-10 title teams, even the ’03 Holiday Bowl champion team that took it to #5 Texas on that glorious 2003 December evening on ESPN? Where and how did he find those guys? And looking at what we have now, not only are we light years from that level, but doesn’t it feel beyond unrealistic to think that Wulff will unearth gems like Price found in those days?
Maybe we’re just at a startling revelation right now. Mike Price was a little kooky, and overall a better-than-.500 coach who took us to unprecedented heights along with some awful lows. But he was very, very, VERY special in his abilities to build a program in Pullman. It cannot be denied now. I admit that I was against the return of Mike Price when it was brought up after Doba was fired in ’07. In fact I was strongly against the idea, and wanted a young, up-and-comer like Wulff. I thought Price’s time had past, and he was just looking for a golden parachute situation where he could hang out at Coeur D’ Alene most of the time when he should be digging in and trying to build a winner in Pullman. But it’s clear now. The Doba era and now Wulff are showing the rest of the world just how hard it is to build and maintain something in Pullman, and Mike Price was something special. He had “IT”.
Quick links: Steve Kelley says Wulff is now on the hot-seat. Hard to quibble with any of what he says. Howie Stalwick talks of boos and fans bailing at halftime. Can you blame them? And I, too, shudder to think about what the attendance and atmosphere might be like in Martin Stadium next week. Is 20,000 fans a realistic number? Our buddy Jim Moore says it’s hard to feel good about much of anything right now.
That’s it for now. Enjoy the rest of the weekend, and as always, GO COUGS!
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