Happy Monday Cougs, and a happy back-to-school Monday for you in Pullman! The football team was back at it on Sunday night, and while things were closed off from the sweaty masses to observe, there are some decent reports of what went down. So let’s get to it….
Christian Caple caught all of the action at the Spokesman, and weighs in with this blog post. And from Caple’s report, it wasn’t exactly the best practice of fall camp, including a stretch where Leach stopped the action and got the players to perform 40 up-downs in the heat:
“… If you didn’t learn effort from this practice, you practice it again the next one. … We will have great effort. We may not be good at anything else, but we will be good at great effort.”
Still sounds like they are in the midst of the dog days of August? With school starting today you can imagine they may not have been mentally “there” last night. But once again it’s clear that a lack of effort is simply not going to be tolerated under Leach, and if you don’t bring it each and every day, this coaching staff will make sure that everyone understands that lack of energy and focus is not going to be tolerated.
One little nugget that Caple adds towards the end concerns the QB position. While Leach still hasn’t flat-out announced anything, it was said that starting this week we would see more of whom he projects as starters to get more reps with the first units. And connecting the dots a little here, but Jeff Tuel took the majority of the reps with the 1’s last night….so there you go.
That said, is anyone really surprised that it looks like Tuel will be the starter? Personally I have felt all along that I would be shocked if Tuel isn’t under center in the opener at BYU (or at least in the QB position in the shotgun?). I just believe that when all the cards are on the table here, that Tuel is the best choice to get things started in this new era in Pullman. Halliday might have the stronger arm or maybe even a higher ceiling as a pure passer when it’s all said and done, but having the senior QB element to kick off the Leach era is a good place to start. And if things go south quickly, they can always turn to Halliday and get something out of him, given that he’s got some seasons of eligibility still ahead of him.
Moving on, Howie Stalwick has this report, touching on several things going on right now. It’s worth a look, so check it out here, including updates on ticket sales (still 5,000 seats left vs. EWU) and the possibility of Gabe Marks becoming a starter.
Cougfan has this story (it’s premium), but has a look at Day 16 of fall camp. While injuries are not discussed, of course, newcomer Ray Ford was spotted with a cast on his right hand. Not good news if you had him in the defensive back rotation in what, 10 days!? Players have obviously played with casts before, but we’ll see what happens.
Finally, and probably against our better judgement? We ran a new podcast last night, season 1 episode 4 of the WSU Football Blogfather show. It was just Sutra, Lucas Coug and myself, and well…..let’s just say it probably wasn’t our best show ever. 
But the show must go on! You can check it out here if you’d like. Enjoy….?
That’s it for now. Enjoy your day and GO COUGS!
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