Island Hopping Monday

The Cougs have a proud tradition of Samoan players that includes a certain QB dubbed the “Throwin Samoan” who when he got drafted in 1979 handed off the QB duties to a guy whose real name was… Samoa Samoa. That tradition was revived this weekend as Mike Leach morphed from pirate into Captain Cook, raiding the tiny Polynesian island for what we Coug fans hope turns out to be recruiting gold (or perhaps more appropriately, recruiting bread fruit). Defensive end Destiny Vaeao and defensive tackle Robert Barber have committed to sign on with the Cougs this week.  Could these be the first couple drops from what many hope will become a Polynesian pipeline of amazing hair streaming into Pullman to play for the Cougs? Looks promising. Perhaps new defensive line coach Joe Salave may be the island connection he was advertised to be. Sutra has got to be pumped.

Vaeao comes with a glut of offers, though he hasn’t been rated by Scout yet, while Barber comes completely out of left field with very little to judge him by besides his size. Until we see him ourselves, we’ll just have to trust that Leach and staff have seen what they need to see offer him a nose tackle spot in our new 3-4 defense. Since all Samoans have what scientists call the football gene, I think we can rest assured these two will be making more than just the “All Hair Team”.

This is going to be a huge week for the Cougs and I expect Lucas and Huddy to chime in with their takes on how our class is shaping up as we approach signing day on Wednesday. For the sake of accuracy and in-depth analysis, they may even employ the Bridgeport Pumped-o-Meter ™ in their assessments. In the meantime enjoy the whirlwind of rumors, speculation, and tweetpocolypse that is going to take over our lives for a couple days.

Now I didn’t want to do it, but I’ve got to talk about hoops. Sorry, but it has to be done so do what’s right and…

I am going to start off by telling you all something you already know; Arizona State is a terrible basketball team. You will hear people make excuses about how hard it is to win on the road in the Pac-12, but the truth is that it is not hard to win at Arizona State. Everybody does it. Except, of course, us. The Cougs went on the road this weekend where they failed to even compete with an Arizona team that they really have no prayer of beating at on the road anyway, then parlayed that momentum into a mind boggling loss at gawd-awful Arizona State. As an eye witness to one of this seasons previous boondoggles, the loss at Utah, I am not surprised at all. Does anyone else get the sense that this team which is frighteningly short on accomplishments, actually got a little big headed after their recent home triumph over the Bay schools? Since the Cal and Stanford games were not on TV I can only conclude that what really happened is those two teams played awful and gifted us the wins. There is just no way the guys I saw in Salt Lake and then in Tempe yesterday can beat anyone with a pulse. No way.

Lucky for Amieable and I we live in town that offers an alternative basketball experience so we made our first trip “The Spectrum” for some USU Aggie basketball against WAC doormat San Jose State. The Aggies know just what to do with conference doormats… YOU BEAT THEM, duh. And when the Aggies won we got to witness the Winning Team Chant in all its glory:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JmoSD0zllQ&w=425&h=350]

Awwwww, that felt better.