Happy Friday Cougs, as we wrap up another week here at the blog. But first, a question – anyone out there grab the Indiana Jones trilogy now out on Blu-Ray? I wasn’t sure we would get it, but I saw it at Costco the other night and just couldn’t resist. We fired up the home theater with Raiders of the Lost Ark, and watched the opening few scenes. And let me just say, WOW, what a difference! It is a little strange though, at least in the beginning jungle scenes and when Indy gets the idol. I remember hearing an interview with one of the producers of the movie, and he said that they were really going to “lighten” up the jungle scenes in the beginning and we would see details in the shadows we didn’t see before. Apparently back when they were making the film, it was very difficult to get all the high-level lighting equipment down into the jungle on location, so they’ve always felt it was too dark in the opening. But he wasn’t kidding! It looks really bright compared to the original, but it’s also a little strange looking at times. Almost like the contrast on the TV isn’t quite right, or that the colors are almost too warm? They have a whole disc of extras too, with tons of behind the scenes stuff and deleted scenes, etc. But I was shocked to see they added Jar-Jar Binks in the background when they opened the ark….
Anyway, I’m a HUGE Jones fan from back in the day and really love watching it in all it’s 1080p glory, and I would recommend checking it out for yourself (and how big of a fan am I? We named our dog Indy!).
So, kind of a slow Friday in the news department around the Coug-verse, as the team is set for the CU game tomorrow. But there a few things to get to, so let’s go…..
Caple’s latest practice report has some highlights from the backups scrimmaging, as is the norm on Thursdays under Mike Leach. As expected, Connor Halliday took the starter reps during the light practice, so there should be no surprise what we see on Saturday behind center.
Caple raises an interesting question though – Jeff Tuel has been moving around OK this week, but of course we don’t have anything official on his knee injury aside from Halliday letting it slip the other day that Tuel has a sprained/strained ligament in his knee. But what if Halliday goes down or has an epically horrible performance on Saturday, would Tuel be summoned from the bench to take over? Or would we see David Gilbertson instead? Tuel was suited up vs. UNLV, but was he ready to play if disaster struck with Halliday? If you recall, he nearly had his head taken off on the first play of the game, when that UNLV defensive player landed late on his neck/head area, taking off his helmet and giving Halliday a turf burn on his face in the process! I hope we don’t have to find out, let’s just leave it at that.
Caple’s other story is how WSU has now set up a huge home-and-home series with…..wait for it…..Wyoming. Great, I guess? The Cougs will host the Cowboys in 2015, and then return to Laramie in 2018.
Without looking at the future schedules, I guess this one is fine though. There might be a pull there for Mike Leach, returning to his old stomping grounds in Wyoming (that is, if he’s still the coach in 2018??). But hopefully they would line this game up with the second week of the season, you know, as that “B” non-conference opponent? Where you want to kick off the season against a “C” level team, follow that up with a “B”, and then finish the non-conference slate with an “A” grade team? I know that isn’t the case next year, I mean we open up AT FLIPPIN’ AUBURN from the SEC fergawdsakes(!), and we also host BYU. But whatever. Someday though I would love to see the non-conference schedule line up with the lightest team first in game one, then lead up to the toughest team in game three, getting you ready to go for the conference schedule.
Next from Cougfan, we find out just how bad it is at Colorado. And based on this free article? It’s REALLY bad in Boulder right now!
Moving on, Bill Moos had a chat at the Seattle Times the other day. It’s a good, quick read, with details about scheduling, Martin Stadium’s future, etc. Personally I can’t wait to see how things look with the next phase, where they 1) build the 79,000 square foot football facility into the west endzone area, 2) move the scoreboard to the east endzone, and 3) give us those crimson-flippin’-endzones – FINALLY!
But in all seriousness, the football operations building is just as important as the section they just completed. Money is great, cash is king, etc. But if we want to have any shot at running with the big dogs in recruiting, our facilities just have to be top-notch in order to truly compete at the highest levels. With Oregon’s riches already on display, and UW about to roll out their new palace next fall, this new structure just has to happen. And most of all, the west end zone structure will help complete the look of the stadium. As great as the new structure looks right now, it will look a lot better with the end zone section coming together.
Note – this is at least one mock-up that shows the west end zone structure. I thought I had seen a more recent version with more details, but I wasn’t able to find it. If anyone has updated pics, feel free to share!
Finally, want to catch up on what CU might look like on offense and defense this week? Look no further than Cougcenter’s Craig Powers, as he breaks down the O here and the D here in some impressive detail (and pay particular attention to the D breakdown, especially in the secondary, to get an idea of how things might go tomorrow??).
That’s it on a light Friday. Enjoy it, and of course, GO COUGS!
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