Crimson Flag Still Proudly Waves

Nothing like a Saturday morning and seeing old Crimson waving in the Gameday breeze! See it right next to Lee Corso? Hats off to Will Walker, by the way. He’s been capturing the flag shots on Gameday and posting the pics forever, and even from Florida he never relents. Keep it up Will.

A few Gameday ramblings in bullet-point style…….

• The weather looks like it is going to be an issue today, as the forecast is now calling for showers early, then turning to a steady rain. Will that hurt our aerial hopes? I kind of doubt it. Brink has thrown in bad weather before, so I don’t think it will matter that much. Maybe the rain will just give the Beavs’ another reason to not want to be there today?
• I have a feeling that Brandon Gibson is going to have a really big game today. I know we get criticized for not stretching the field much, but Gibson is our home-run guy. Did you know he’s got 14 catches of 20 or more yards? With the secondary thinner than normal for the OSU D in the first half, I would keep my eye on Gibson.
• Collins is going to give it a go after all, but there’s no telling if he’ll have much of an impact. Turns out he only practiced on Thursday and was limited at best, and hasn’t done much running or anything on that sore ankle. Thankfully it’s not a high ankle sprain, but he’s going to be slowed down today. Might be a chance for Woodard or the big JC guy, Frischknecht, to step up?
• Getting up on OSU early is important today, but espeically when you look at how OSU’s season has gone. They have outscored their opponents by an amazing 92-9 in the first quarter of games this year (!). But with OSU’s outstanding O-line and running game, if they get up by a couple of scores early, we’re in REAL TROUBLE today.
• Don’t forget, OSU is a different team on the road, just 1-4 this year. Their lone win was impressive, at #2 Cal to start their tailspin of a season, but otherwise they’ve struggled. This will be Moevao’s first ever road start, and even at home he was less-than-stellar against one of the worst defenses in the country. He’s a tough SOB though. Check out his “decleater” on UW defensive end Greyson Gunheim last week:

• Meanwhile, Dennis Dixon’s career is over, but it wasn’t exactly on that play vs. Arizona. I was shocked to see that he actually tore his ACL back on 11/3, but tried to play on it? That’s pretty amazing if you ask me. The Ducks were dominating and he even ripped a 39-yd TD run early in that AZ game. That’s what Heisman candidate QB’s do when the season is on the line (no, that’s NOT a shot at Brink!). We might have made fun of the Ducks and Dixon, but that’s some serious guts if you ask me.
• It sounds like Locker is out for UW today. Again, to even risk him right now, in what is guaranteed to be ANOTHER losing season for UW? It would be 100% insane to let that kid play today, period, end of story, no matter what he says. Now next week, that’s a different deal and I’m actually expecting him to at the very least share time at QB with Bonnell, if not play the whole game.
• Speaking of UW – they’ve now gone 5 straight seasons without a bowl. Our drought sucks, but hey, at least we’ve gone to and won a few bowls this decade. UW won the 2000 Rose Bowl, but their last bowl appearance was a loss to Purdue in the 2002 Sun Bowl, and it’s been home for the holidays ever since. I have a feeling that Willingham is coaching these last three games like his job is on the line. Our friend John over at UW Football Blog noticed that UW has “delayed” their stadium expansion plan, which was due this week. Might they be delaying things so they could replace the head coach and maybe even the A.D.? Interesting goings-on over there.
• Back to what we really care about. The overriding theme today is that it’s Senior day, and there’s a lot of emotion for many of these guys. Personally I feel for this group. They’ve been through a lot, including the heightened expectations after the best run in school history. The pressure to win in Pullman was probably never higher than it’s been the last few years, and sometimes that’s easy to overlook. But maybe most of all, this group was never going to live up to those that came before them, and maybe the criticisms have been generally unfair? I know this ain’t intramural flag football, this is a BCS conference team and it’s a cutthroat league, but sometimes I know it’s easy to get carried away by over-analyzing every flippin’ thing these guys do on a weekly basis. So to the 20 Seniors who will play their last game in Martin Stadium, we salute you:

Romeen Abdollmohammadi, Husain Abdullah, Chris Baltzer, Christian Bass, Alex Brink, Lance Broadus, Michael Bumpus, Bobby Byrd, Jed Collins, Charles Dillon, Aaron Johnson, Ryan Kensok, Loren Langley, Kevin McCall, Matt Mullennix