Happy Friday

“It’s Friday, you ain’t got no job, and you ain’t got $#!+ to do.” ~Chris Tucker, Friday

Happy Friday Cougar Nation!

Can you believe one week from tonight will be the eve of Cougar Football 2010?

Words cannot describe how excited I am to see the 2010 Cougs take the field.

It’s time to wash away 2008 and 2009.

It’s time to forget about 3-22.

Forget about the 100 + sacks our OLine has given up.

It’s time to show people what Cougar Football is all about!

Continue reading for lots more…

First of all, our own Longball was at the Coug scrimmage last night, and yes, we’ll have his recap later today (including pictures!).  So check back later today for his usual strong takes on what he saw last night. 

Now, some house keeping items to get us started.

Congratulations to reader Michael Preston for winning our Best Cougar Football Saturday Story Contest.  Michael had the “PA fill-in guy” story, and it was excellent.  The Blue Ribbon preview book is in the mail, and we hope you enjoy it.  Thank you to all who entered!

Meanwhile, in case you missed it, yesterday we launched a Yahoo College Pick ‘Em League.  If it is a little unclear, well, the concept is simple.  Each week you will select who you think will win that weekend’s Pac 10 contests, as well as a few other games around the country.  But that’s not all.  You will actually weight each game with “confidence” points, which means the game you have the most confidence on determining the winner you allot the most points, and the game you are least confident in you allot one point.  And, for that week, each number is only allowed to be used once.  Make sense?

We will align our weekly picks from our Football Friday post into this pool and we will see how each reader stacks up over the course of the end of the season.  Prizes are awarded to the top 3 finishers, which include a WSU Football Blog T-shirt, a beer mug or a coffee mug.  And wow, you must REALLY want a t-shirt…..at press time, we already have a pool of 40 readers!  It should be a lot of fun.  And don’t worry, it’s not too late, and you have until the middle of next week to sign up.  The more the merrier, so join us!  Here’s how:

NOTE – THIS INFORMATION IS FOR A SECOND GROUP!  Our first group filled up, as Yahoo places a limit at 50 members.  So, this is for the second group.  Please know that even though you will be in the second group, you will still be included in the overall standings with group #1.  It may not look like it from the Yahoo website, but we will keep a tally and make sure both groups are counted equally.

Here is the second group information:

1)  Go here, to the Yahoo Sports Fantasy College Football Pick ’em.
2)  Click Join a Group.
3)  Enter the following information: 

Group: 16079
Password: wazzufbblog

If you already joined group #1, here’s the login information:

Group: 14767
Password: gocougs

On another note, a new regular feature will be making it’s debut next week for the 2010 season.  Make sure to check the blog every Tuesday morning to check out my weekly picks against the spread (ATS).  I have renewed my Sportsbook account and will have some fun with that over here at the blog!

Moving on to Cougar news…

The final scrimmage of camp is in the books, and there’s some good recaps out there.  Grippi here, Joe Nickell at the official WSU site has the stats here.  Overall?  Eh, it sounded OK.  Grippi’s recap said the best thing to take was that aside from the fact the there weren’t any major injuries, the intensity was great from the first play.  But there were a lot of missing starters, including the entire defensive front four, so how much can you glean from a scrimmage like this?  Probably not a lot.

Meanwhile, former WSU head coach and current color commentator Jim Walden did his weekly show with Ian Furness at KJR on Tuesday.  You can find it Podcasted here.  Jim talks a lot about how the improvement will be noticed greatly in our Special Teams coverage units among other areas.  Walden is never one to mince his words, and he appears thoroughly impressed with the talent Coach Wulff and Co. have brought to Pullman!  He also makes a bold prediction about the OLine.  But overall, Walden focused on Wulff doubters, and that again, we have to be patient.

“Paul Wulff has been singled out, and I’m miffed as to fan impatience with Paul Wulff when we know good things happen to those who wait.  Dick Bennett and Donnie Marbut had awful records their first two seasons in Pullman.  Look at how that has turned out.”

Speaking of Ian Furness, former Coug safety and current Minnesota Vikings special teams standout Eric Frampton joined the show yesterday.  Frampton dishes on the return of Favre, the Cougs, and his pre-season game with the Seahawks this weekend.

Vince Grippi continues his Coug previews, taking a look at the Cougar secondary.  Here is a nice quote from Coach Chris Ball, who has coached all over the country at the likes of Pitt, Alabama, and of course a few stops in Pullman.  I would imagine he knows a bit about good-looking secondaries.

“You know, they’re young but they’ve played a lot of snaps.  It’s a solid group.  They’re young but they’ve played. We’re sort of young and old, so we’ve got a good combination.”

Some bad news for our Cougs came in the loss of JuCo DT transfer Al Lapuhao, and we touched on that briefly yesterday.  But wait, there was more – projected starting free safety LeAndre Daniels has a neck fracture.  According to Joe Nickell at the official site:

“People shouldn’t jump to conclusions on his status. They’re still doing imaging and other tests.  Right now, we’ll have to wait and see what the doctors determine.”

Grippi had more about Daniels in his scrimmage recap, where it has been revealed that there is, in fact, a fracture of some kind in the neck area.  They still have to wait until all the tests are done, but it doesn’t sound like he’ll be back anytime soon?  Best of luck to a fast recovery LeAndre.  Losing him could be an awfully tough loss considering he was going to start next weekend.

Moving on, MaxPreps released the list of Top 10 football players in the history of the state of Washington.  To say the Cougs are well represented is an understatement!

Next, would you like a chance to meet the Cougs?  You can do so this weekend at Martin Stadium, and the first 300 fans will get a t-shirt!  If you get a chance to do so, please report back to us about it.  And feel free to share any photos you take at the event, and we’ll be happy to post them in the photo gallery!

In some non-football news, here is an awesome video my buddy “Grimmace” put together.  It’s a collection of songs you hear at Martin Stadium, mixed with some awesome audio clips from some great plays in program history:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsOEm7DKav0&w=400&h=258]

He just added it to You Tube after having it as an audio only file since last September.  He also shot the majority of those pictures in the video.  Grimmace will have a second installment ready here in another few weeks and I will share it with you then!

That’s all I have for you today Cougar fans!  Have a great weekend, and don’t forget to check back in with me for my picks against the spread on Tuesday.