Hello Followers. Hope you’re having a great week.
Today we were expecting a visit from the mighty Khan. But, as fate would have it, it appears that the end of the semester is a bit too busy for the nerds who sit on the other side of the desk.
So, today, we’ll head once again into what is now the fifth part of a 16 week series where we take all pseudo-relevant news and happenings, mash it all together, and…
(Read On)
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Followers, when the off-season hits, it’s like a ten ton anvil hitting you in the face.
And let me tell you, the weight of that anvil is about 1000% greater when your chief job is to write about news and happenings reported by others. So, when there’s virtually no news out there to color and/or spin, well, it can make for some tough sledding on the ole WSU Football Blog.
As a consequence, one of the things I always try to do in the offseason is to figure out how in the world I can start to talk about the potential fortunes of this year’s team, without really writing about what I think will be the fortunes of this year’s team. After all, that stuff is part and parcel of the July repertoire.
But, alas, yesterday’s thread on this site gave a rare opening into an important debate in the Coug Blog-O-Sphere. And, if you missed it, this debate included a couple of important questions:
- Did Paul Wulff leave the cupboard bare for Leach and company?
- What should be a reasonable expectation for Cougar wins and losses this year?
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Followers, those of you who have been around this site for a long, long time (meaning that I am calling on the one of four people that are not myself, SeanHawk, or Longball) know that I have long been a huge fan of Kyle Sherwood, aka “Big Wood.” You see, even though Big Wood frequents the home of our almost BFFs at Cougcenter, he ascended into his “Almost Famous” status
when he started a blog called the “Witches of Eastman” during the height of the Tony Bennett era. And, as I’ve said on this site many, many, many times, if Big Wood were to ever write with any type of regularity, WOE would be hands down the best Cougar Sports site on the internets. Period.
So, based on all that, when I created the Sutra twitter account, BigWood was a dude that I wanted to follow. So I did. And here is what he had to say when Mike Leach was hired on November 30, 2011:
“$2.5M isn’t a bowl game every few years. $2.5M is Get to the F-ing Rose Bowl money. Love it love it love it.”
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So, as we look forward to the 2012 season, I wholeheartedly think that we should not bat an eyelash toward expecting this team to start to make the move toward competing for championships. The question, of course, is to figure out what that “move” or progression should look like. Here’s my main half-thought:
This team should make a significant move out of the basement this year, as this team figures to be better in all 3 phases of the game.
Mind you, as we all know around Cougarland, being “better” or doing “better” often is not the same thing as being “good.” But, when you look at the offense—especially assuming that Conor Halliday’s health improves—it’s pretty hard to imagine things not clicking for this group.
For one, we have now added arguably the greatest offensive mind in college football. For two, we have another year’s worth of experience and maturation in a group of young WRs that Coach Levy and the current staff have labeled as superior in talent. For three, we have—assuming that Halliday returns—a depth at quarterback that rivals just about anyone in the country (Keep in mind, we were one inch from being “2-0” against two bowl teams last year when Halliday was on the field….).
Anyhow, if you take at face value that the O-Line figures to be about the same as last year once everyone returns from the injury list, well, we can see that the Offense, overall, figures to be better, if not much better than it was last year.
Regarding the Hair Raid defense, well……..
If we look at the D-Line, certainly Rankin will be missed—but he would have been missed much more if he had been playing his natural DE position in a 3-4. The secondary? Well, if you figure that some of their troubles could be traced to (a) A lack of pass rush; and (b) Injury; this group figures to better not only because of an improved scheme but because of the nautural “maturation effects” that tend to happen with college athletes. And finally, we have the Linebacking corps, where we lost what would appear to be three key players from last year’s defense.
But did we?
I mean, CJ Mizell basically lost his job to Mike Ledgerwood in the season’s final games. Sekope Kaufusi, dismissed from the team in the spring, now apparently has a path back to the team. So, if he can get his academic/non-football life in order, he could conceivably be back in the fall. And Alex Hoffman Ellis, who played brilliantly at times last year against the run, never quite seemed to figure it out in pass coverage, especially against those damn wheel routes (not to mention the blown assignment on the fake punt against Utah). In sum, if Kaufusi comes back this fall, we kind of are only down one LB. And when you look at the potential and progress of Chester Sua and Darryl Monroe, well, the cupboard is hardly bare…
And then we have special teams: The group that absolutely KILLED us last year.
Although the early reports suggest that this group won’t finish at the top of the conference in 2012, it also appears that it won’t be prone to giving up 7-10 points a game like it did last year down the stretch. In fact, judging by the strength of Bowlin’s leg, I would venture to say that the special teams blunders of the past will be all-but curtailed simply by virtue of a vastly improved kicking game.
So, where does this leave us?
Well, if you consider that last year’s team would have won one or two more games with a healthy Tuel or this year’s Halliday behind center, and you have six wins as being the low end for what we should expect from this year’s group.
Thus, in my view, the big challenge for this team is not only to get to bowl eligibility, but to beat someone of serious consequence along the way, be it Oregon, CAL, Stanford, or Utah (all of whom I expect to be in the top 25 next year), much in the way that Dick Bennett’s final squad beat Arizona on the road and swept a Sweet 16 bound Washington… And if we do that, we’ll establish ourselves as making the move toward being in contention as the “separation Saturdays” come around each November.
And for 4.3 or 4.4 million dollars a year, we should expect nothing less.
All for now. Go Cougs.
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