Brinkhater Diaries: So Favre Away

Brinkhater Diaries Vol 2 (2)

Hello Cougar Nation and Brinkhater Army. Hope you all are recovering from Saturday’s empty Qwest for the Holy Grail known as Victory…

As for me, well, after getting laid off from the WSU Football Blog this past June, I have been doing my best ever since simply trying to fill the void of not blogging anymore. For that reason, I must say that I was a little reluctant when I got a call on Saturday night from the folks at Bloguin asking me to do a guest column on the WSU Blog!

And so, like I told those Bloguin folks, getting a call from them made me feel a lot like my good friend and pseudo mentor, Brett Favre.

I mean, does their call mean that I am retired, kinda-sorta retired, kinda-sorta-not-really- semi-retired, or what??

In any case, the “Penguins” at Bloguin told me that they were calling because they had become quite concerned that the WSU Football Blog had become WAY TOO NICE and loving lately. And, given the current fortunes of our program, they told me that they were interested in reading some WSU Football commentary that had an edge to it (or did they mean, “ledge”–as in something we could all jump off of???????)..

Read on…

First of all, before I get into the crux of this post, I want you all to know that I know that many of you on this Blog don’t like Politics (at least not on sports blogs, anyway). But, in this case, unpacking the past and future directions of WSU Football is all about politics.

So, this doesn’t mean that I am going to get all Partisan on the backsides of the Brinkhater Army. Instead, my only intent here is to help you all (once again) situate our current dilemma in its proper context.

With that in mind, I humbly ask you all to imagine what the state of our current political discourse would be today had the stock market crashed 20 weeks after our current president took office, instead of the near 20 weeks that preceded his inauguration.

Now, if the events of past September had happened in May of this year instead of last fall, we can all be certain that the current president would immediately blame the sudden collapse of the economy/Wallstreet/Banking industry on his predecessor.

And, as he did that, there would be “reasonable” persons on both sides of the aisle that would agree with the President that the current collapse/crisis/malaise was, in fact, not of his own doing.

But, for many others, even those who knew there was a slide that was already underway previously, the extent of the collapse would seem to be too great to attribute to his predecessor alone.

As a consequence, every day that the jobless numbers came in, and in, and in, and in, and in, many would argue that the current course of action represented the wrong one—even if they knew that the past was also not to their liking and/or benefit.

Now, it is certainly possible under this scenario, that the current president could pull a rabbit out his hat and make things hunky dory in relatively short order. At the same time, it is also probable that if there was a mechanism for the public to kick his butt out of office before the end of his four year opportunity to turn things around, the populace and power brokers would find a way to do just that.

So, to bring this whole thing back to WSU FOOTBALL, just like it was “fortuitous” for our current president to have the roof collapse before he took office, it was equally horrible for our current coach, Paul Wulff, to have the roof collapse on him after Doba coached our boys to a seemingly awful (but now monumental) 5-7 campaign the previous year.

Therefore, while genius idiots like myself and SeanHawk were calling for Grandpa Doba’s head at the end of the Brink era, history appears to have taught us all a powerful lesson in hindsight:

WE MIGHT HAVE FIRED BILL DOBA ONE YEAR TOO EARLY!!!!

You see, Nation, Cal did not hire Jeff Tedford after Tom Holmoe had a respectful season. Instead, they fired him after a 1-10 season. And of course, the same was true with Willingham at Washington, Sarkisian following him at Washington, etc, etc, etc, etc.

So, rather than taking over a 2-11 program this year, Paul Wulff was instead handed a brand new stinking rats nest of a program for him to clean up—not following a year of disaster—but following three years of COMPETITIVE MEDIOCRITY.

As a consequence, not only did we (the fans and his BOSSES) ask Paul Wullf to clean up a mess that he did not make, we actually expected him to profit from it!!!!!!!!

Which leads me to point #2:

Athletic Director Sterk and President Floyd are the first and most culpable persons in this whole debacle.

Now, to be clear, I want to make sure that you know that I am NOT suggesting that Doba’s firing was unjustified or altogether unwise. But, what I AM saying is that part of being a competent Athletic Director is knowing the “ins and outs” of what is going on in the primary revenue creator of any major college athletic department: the football program.

So, if Sterk knew–as he should have–that Rome had already burnt down under Doba, then he should have come out and given Wulff a four year “free pass” to get things turned around. If he had, then we all would have known from ground zero that we should evaluate Wulff’s success not in weeks, months, or a season or two, but in four to five years.

But Sterk and Floyd didn’t state outright that our Football program was in as bad of shape as say our basketball team under Paul Graham. And, as a result, neither did Wulff.

Instead, Wulff–at the bequest of his superiors–has continued to make the cardinal sin of over-promising and under-delivering. And because he has done so, he and the rest of the admin has had to mount horrible damage control efforts each year as our teams have shown themselves to be completely unable to compete after they had been advertised previously as something else (Note to WSU Athletic Department: see how Steve Sarkisian gave NO mention to wins and losses before this season began? You think Mr. A.D.D.-Ego breath came up with that idea just by himself???)

So, instead of taking the Dick Bennett approach of lamenting the “years” it will take to rebuild the program, Wulff has continued to sing the “we’re going to sneak up and beat some teams that people think we shouldn’t beat” tune all the way to the firing lines. And that is horribly problematic, because whether you all want to hear it or not, here is the sad fact, Cougar Nation:

WE WILL NOT WIN ANOTHER GAME THIS YEAR.

And the reason for this painful truth is both plain and simple.

You see, in years past, WSU football teams could overcome having no defense because we had the possibility of putting 35 to 45 points on the board on virtually any opponent NOT named USC. So, it didn’t matter that it would take 3 seconds to see one of our defensive backs on the TV screen after one of the opponents WR’s caught the ball. Because, when we got the ball back, we all knew that we could take the pill right back at them–and score quickly!!

But, as we saw Saturday (as we saw in the last couple of the Brink years), we can’t do that anymore. Instead, our perfect drives now are a mix of sweeps, draws, possession passes and an occasional 35 yard fade/fly pattern. Those scoring drives last anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes. And so, they are not quick.

Now, to be fair, that style of offense is perfect for a serviceable defense and it is also a great style for building a team into a consistent contender. But, as we have seen, it is murder for a super slow outfit like ours. Because, not only are we certain to give up a lot of points with our current “talent,” we are also severely prone to give them up quickly as well.

For that reason, the only way that we could possibly win a game this year (and potentially next year as well) is if we were to get up 21-0 on some team and then hold on for dear life to win a 35-34 thriller. But, for that to happen, we’d have to win the turnover battle 5 or 6 to zip, and even then, we’d have to be perfect on offense and special teams.

And folks, that just isn’t going to happen this year. It’s not going to happen against a Pac-10 team. And, unfortunately, it’s not going to happen this week against SMU either.

So, with that all in mind, this is the week for both Sterk and President Floyd to decide Paul Wulff’s fate.

Now, just so you know, I am a believer that the program can survive and later thrive with Wulff. But, in order the program to be re-built by Wulff, the administration needs to act boldly and defiantly against outsiders after Saturday’s game; both Sterk AND FLOYD need to stand up and DECLARE that Wulff will finish ALL FIVE YEARS of his contract—including announcing that they have picked up the fifth year option on his contract.

Otherwise, it’s time to let Wulff go after we lose this Saturday. In his stead, Mr. Chris Ball should be given a near-season long opportunity to interview as interim coach, because that is the best chance we have of keeping our existing signees on board.

But, in fairness to Wulff and all of his on and off-field struggles, let’s not pretend anymore that this is about coaching. It’s about figuring out who can best stock a cupboard that is bare, beyond anything that any of us could have ever, ever imagined.

Damn you, Bill Doba.