Happy Friday Cougs, and as usual we hope all is well in your world as we ride into another weekend. Don't know about you but this week just flippin' FLEW by for yours truly! I cannot believe it's already Friday. Work is busy so that certainly has a lot to do with it, but wow does time fly by sometimes.
How about this year's schedule poster? I loved last year's, but I think this year they really hit a home run with the 2013 version. Mike Leach in the center, surrounded by players, with Martin Stadium rising in the background with a lush green football field-like color featured throughout. Very cool! And you know, the other night my wife and I were going through the calendar for this summer, and I realized something – that season opener on August 31st is going to get here fast! That's like what, 84 days away, something like that? Crazy.
So I think the "Morning Drip" has seen the end of it's (very) short-lived run. The name was, well, not great. But while we are happy to take suggestions, I have to admit I'm warming up to "Rise and Grind". There are many different ways one can take Rise and Grind, but here are some definitions per UrbanDictionary.com:
2 – In Life as defined by physics, a form of movement, in all things, that is of a constant, progressive state, that begins the moment one wakes and never ceases, even through rest.
K: "With the Olympics so close, it's time to Rise and Grind and begin another amazing day in pursuit of Gold!"
You get the idea. There is another definition for it that isn't exactly safe for work/family friendly, but I love the idea of just getting up and after it. It kind of fits what I do every weekday morning, where I am up at 5 AM and write, then roll into a morning workout to get things going before the workday at 8 AM. You rise, and you grind, period. So we'll roll with this for a while and see if it sticks.
On to today's links-and-such…
Teddy Miller's big-time ESPN blog came out with not one, but TWO "Three Headed Monster" blog posts for the Pac-12. Basically it's a look a the top three most productive, important offensive and defensive players on each Pac-12 team coming back for this year and attempts to rank them in some way. And not too surprisingly, the Cougs are trending towards the bottom of the three-headed variety on both offense and defense.
Scary.
The Cougs on the offensive rankings:
11. Washington State
QB Connor Halliday, RB Teondray Caldwell, WR Gabe Marks
The skinny: Halliday has yet to completely win over coach Mike Leach, as much of Leach's post-spring commentary was on how well redshirt freshman quarterback Austin Apodaca played. Caldwell is a quick scat back, but the Cougs had essentially zero running game last season. Marks might be poised for a breakout, and the Cougs are solid at receiver overall.
And, the Cougs on D, which was actually a little better:
10. Washington State
S Deone Bucannon, OLB Logan Mayes, LB Cyrus Coen
The skinny: Bucannon is an A-list guy, earning second-team All-Pac-12 honors in 2012. He led the Cougars in tackles and interceptions, so we included Coen, who was second with three picks. The gigantic void is the pass rush, which lost four-year sack leader Travis Long.
I think Miller does a great job, as always, and it's easy to rank the Cougs low in these things based on who or what is returning for this year. On O, Halliday led the team in TD passes but we know that it was a bumpy ride for him with the INT's and the lower completion percentage in an offensive scheme designed on the concept of completing a lot of passes. The wideouts are a deep group, even without Marquess Wilson and I know I'm just as encouraged as anyone else about the amount of quality targets the QB's will have this year. But it's hard to just pick out that ONE guy as the top WR in this group? Maybe Marks or Dominique Williams or Isiah Myers, someone like that will emerge as the one guy who truly changes the game, but for now it's hard to say. And the running game was a big, long YEEEESSSHHH last year. But if Caldwell can stay healthy and the O-line is just better across the board, there could be some promise there.
The loss of Travis Long on D could be rough, but as profiled the other day by the ESPN blog, Logan Mayes looks the part if he can be consistent. I really liked what we saw out of Cyrus Coen in spurts last year too, very encouraging as a lighter, quicker linebacker who can cover some space. And Deone Bucannon really rallied last year after a rough start to his season, and is a legit first-team all-conference candidate for 2013. So there you go!
Moving on, Cougfan has a write-up on a safety from northern CA who is high on WSU, as Drew Celis from Kentfield, CA has the Cougs in the lead for his services. Celis does have an offer from Boise State, but there are no other BCS offers on the table at this time other than WSU. Celis will be taking an unofficial visit next month so we'll see what happens there.
Also per Cougfan, the Cougs have offered a corner from De La Salle high school, Kevin Griffin. Griffin brings good size to the position at 6-1, 180, and while he is light on the offers at the moment things should pick up as he starts to hit the various camps for the summer.
Finally, it sounds like my so-called dream of CRIMSON ENDZONES in Martin Stadium will have to wait. Apparently per SelahCoug in comments the other day, Bill Moos has been telling people that the new turf will have to wait until the football OPS building is 100% complete, which won't be until 2014. The "skin" of the building should be in place by the home opener so it won't fully look like the construction zone that we see now, but, they are going to wait one more year before the new turf happens.
Meanwhile….avert your eyes for a moment….but our "friends" on Montlake? They started their FieldTurf install this week, and yep – PURPLE END ZONES:
Damn.
What's interesting now is how they don't just paint the endzone colors after the install, but they actually install it already painted and ready to go. It must make it last longer and give it a deeper, richer color from the get-go vs. a faded look after a little wear and tear, such as what we see on our practice fields?
I know it seems like a little, dumb thing in all of this, but I really think a deep crimson endzone color will really add to the look of the stadium. There is already a lot of gray with the new luxury seating and press box areas, we need some color to offset the look and feel! Oh well, one more year.
That's it for now. RISE AND GRIND, and of course, GO COUGS!
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