Friday Wrap, Plus Your Comments Reviewed

Just eight days until kickoff?? Please tell me, where did this summer go? Unbelievable.

Some quick links to get your day started, and then it’s your turn. We’ll go over some of the top comments of the week.

Brandon Gibson is staring at his last season, and Howie Stalwick has a good, quick write-up of the senior star. I know it isn’t touched on a whole lot in this article, but there have been some loud-and-clear hints that this year, watch out for Gibson. Look for a lot of motion, look for him to get the ball on end-around handoffs, the whole deal. They are going to feature him in creative ways that we haven’t seen before, so, Gibson is a player to watch in the entire conference. I can’t wait until next to see what’s in store for 2008.

Maybe the top breakthrough performer for the 2008 defense? How about Kevin Kooyman? There’s been buzz about him that hasn’t let up, and now some reporters are starting to take notice. Our own Rooster had a personal encounter with him this spring and came away beyond impressed with the young guy. Ted Miller mentioned Kooyman a week or so ago on his blog, in that he’s a player he’s hearing a lot about when you hear about WSU, and now, the Bellingham Herald has a story about Kooyman. Brandon Gibson is on board that Kooyman is set to be that breakthrough guy at defensive end. While he hasn’t done a huge amount of stat-mongering yet, he did have 3.5 sacks last year in only two starts before injuries slowed him down. It sure would be nice to get some strong play on the other side of the line opposite Andy Mattingly. And if Mattingly does as well as many think he will, we could have one hell of a strong set of defensive ends! And I don’t just mean the starters either. Having Matt Mullennix back, as well as Mike Graise, with their experience, well, the ends could be the deepest unit on the defense this year.

Another day, more fantastic coverage out of Vince Grippi. This time he profiles the starting linebackers, and gives a thorough recap of Thursday’s action. Sounds like a pretty sloppy practice/scrimmage, and that we are looking like a M*A*S*H unit right now. Everyone is beat up in one for or another. I don’t want to have flashbacks to Bear Bryant’s hell-on-earth “Junction Boys” training camp where he damn near killed kids in an attempt to whip them in to shape, but it sounds like it has been a long, hot, tough month of August out on the Palouse.

Finally, time to look back at some of your comments of the week. Excellent feedback as usual, from all of you, but some warranted some extra-special attention.

First, the Uni Watch, Home Version, got a lot of excellent feedback.
anthony mcclanahan said…

Love the “Apple Cup” look too. That is the way to go forward PERIOD. The Crimson helmet has to go…it looks great sitting on the shelf but on the field with crimson pants we simply look like Arkansas…I seriously think that everytime I see us on the road.

Secondly and this goes to all uniforms for all team home and road. For god’s sake can we as a school define what color “Cougar Crimson” is going to be and stick to it. I would go so far as to have Sterk hire a “Quality Crimson Control” specialist who demands that all suppliers and licensees conform to one uniform color of Cougar Crimson.

Anyway…I say Cougar script helmets for all games (thankfully the grey logo helmets are retired…the logo just never “popped” on the silver helmets and it was a terrible look) Clean white jerseys with silver pants looks great on the road.

For the home look we COULD have the sweetest look ever. We have to go to a solid 2-color crimson/silver look. (Think Detroit Lions throwbacks with Crimson where the blue is)

1-Silver Cougar-script helmet
2-Crimson jersey with Silver, NOT WHITE numbers and maybe a small silver “Wazzu” or logo at the neck.
3-Solid Silver pants (crison logo okay)
4-Solid Crimson socks (all worn tucked into the pants
5-Black Shoes
6-NO WHITE Lettering or stripes anywhere on the uniform***
7-Only exception would be for an Crimson pants “All Crimson look” for MAXIMUM one game per year.

To picture this think almost of our practice uniforms…clean sharp.

All the best uniforms are TWO color designs that are clean and classy.
For Example
Michigan Home
Texas Road
Alabama Home
Penn State Home/Road
USC Home

We could look awesome at home and on the road and put the memories of the embarrassing/hideous 2-helmet Gesser-era bad stripey uniforms to bed forever. And by the way those “cougars” jerseys vs USC were the most Gawd-Awful ridiculous things I have ever seen. We should act lack a BCS team.

Michelle stopped by and “classed it up” around here, as usual.

My guess is when Nike “swooshes” (had to, sorry) in and designs our new unis, they will look nothing like we hope…

The Crimson helmets just don’t seem to go well with any color combo.

Millcreek, I agree. I love our cougarhead and I think we should wear that at home. I like the Jerome Harrison/Alex Brink look…but something about Gesser and Derting in all crimson gives me chills…Maybe it was how good we did those seasons.

And those special jerseys we brought out at the USC game were sick, like I wanted to vomit when I saw them. The only thing decent on them was the use of COUGARS.

Have a great Cougar day everyone

Woody weighed in on his take. Woody also has some sports apparel industry insight so his views are highly regarded.

As in previous posts here are my votes:

First Off Branding:
Uniforms and Logos should be about one thing and that is branding. They should be used to brand your program(s),school, even your “spirit/school pride” It is not just about money either. A singular/popular/recognizable brand identifies your program to Fans, Alums, Recruits, competitors, etc.
To have a dual look and change every year or so completely defeats that purpose. Your program is not then identifiable.
We already have one of the most recognizable logos in the country, we should be using that!

1. Helmets (home and away):
Silver with Cougar Logo.
I can live with the script, but the logo is what we should be using.

It really is no joke to say that the Cougar Logo is one of the most popular and recognizable college logos out there. (not just Cougs say that either) It is the one symbol that across the country people will and do look at and say that is the WSU Cougars.
To not use that logo with our main athletic program in my opinion would be crazy and not utilizing a huge moniker and already established asset.

2. Pants (home and away): The majority of the time silver! If you want to throw in a crimson pant here and there that is fine. But I would like to see the day when people are flipping the channel and see the silver pants and the silver helmet they know they are watching WSU.

3. Jerseys:
A. Home Crimson
B. White
Not much to add there.

4. Accents, Numbers and Lettering (oh my):
I am a traditionalists and would like to see as clean and concise as possible. But the fonts, and stripes and lettering on jerseys etc. changes with the trends. So, for a couple of years the stripes on the pants will be popular, and then maybe a cougar head on the pants will be cool after that.
As long as you have the foundation of the silver pants and helmets you can alter the accents with the times.

I am sure as time goes on we will have uber posts on the whole Nike situation, so I will hold off until then.

Go Cougs!

Woody

On the Gary Rogers – Alex Brink story that probably will always live in “what could have been” land…

’03 Couve Coug said:

It’s hard not to sit here and curse the former staff for not giving Rogers more time, especially if he struggles out of the gate. Rather than gnash my teeth over it, I’ll choose to chalk up any early season woes to trying to learn a new system. I’ll actually feel worse if Rogers comes out and sets the world on fire, because we will all have to wonder if Rogers could have helped things turn out differently the last couple of seasons. Then again, Brink put up huge numbers and was widely recognized as a team leader that had the respect of all of his teammates. Offense was rarely the problem the last couple of seasons compared to the lousy defenses and downright gawd-awful special teams, which Brink or Rogers could have done nothing about.

I guess that we can look back and be frustrated, or we can just be happy that we now have a coaching staff in place that doesn’t seem to feel the need to play favorites or continue starting a player because “he’s a senior, he’s put in the time.” I’m very happy to hear that Wulff and staff all say that the best players are going to play, regardless of age, experience, whatever. I’ll drink a frosty Busch Light to that! Here’s to better times ahead.

Finally, for a short trip down memory lane, “anonymous” chimed in for a reference towards Don SASSSAAA….

Palouse Posse:
DE: Dwayne Patterson
DT: Don Sasa
DT: Chad Eaton
DE: Dwayne Sanders
LB: Ron Childs
LB: Mark Fields
LB: Chris Hayes
CB: Torey Hunter
S: Jon Rushing
S: Singor Mobley
CB: Greg Burns
NB: Brian Walker

After UW’s lone touchdown drive during the 94 AC Sasa moved to DE (as one of the dwayne’s was out) with freshman Leon Bender at Tackle. The Huskies didn’t score again.

What a defense. As someone pointed out, reserve d-end Todd Shaw started that 94 Apple Cup as a senior, and on the first drive UW strolled right down the field. After that, Bender was inserted, and as the Times headline would say the following day, “COLD COUGAR REALITY CHILLS UW“.

There are other comments this week that were very good, but we can’t list them all. Excellent feedback, as usual. Without your comments, this blog would die a slow, painful death. And it seems the moron “troll” took the week off…but we know he’s out there flexing his internet muscles.

HAPPY FRIDAY, and as always, GO COUGS!