Good morning and happy hump day, Cougar Nation! It’s been a long damn time so let’s first get ourselves reacquainted. I’m that guy who writes that stuff on that website that you all know and love. A lot has happened since last we spoke, but let’s focus on the highlights. First, I became a soccer coach. I think that’s pretty much it on the news front. For all of you that closely follow U-8 soccer, watch out for Wolves, the next big thing out of Burlington. As for my relationship with the Cougs, I’ve had to spend a great deal of my time tending to repairs on the Bridgeport Pumped-O-Meter, which has more or less collapsed under the weight of stars, thanks to Coach Leach and the staff’s work so far on the Class of 2015. With that out of the way, I began to prepare in earnest for the season. I’ve read what Athlon had to say. I’ve kept up with what the smart guys over here have had to say (and while you’re over there donate to Make-a-Wish, why don’t ya?). These guys have been posted up in their chairs dutifully tracking the ins and outs of fall camp, as well as all things beefy. And I’ve been keeping an eye on this guy’s Twitter feed, while unfortunately being too lazy/cheap to get around the pay wall on the website he runs. Sorry, man. I’ll take care of that soon. I even saw Rick Neuheisel, Curtis Conway and Mike Yam at the Salt Lake City airport and picked up insight just being in their presence. All in all, I think I have a good handle on where the Cougs stand going into the 2014 season. Lo and behold, I got to that point just in time since, like the Wyatt Family, football season….it’s here. (Oh yeah, that’s one other development of the last year or so. I’ve gotten pretty into professional wrestling again.)
I’ve learned to not bother trying to walk through the season to figure out wins and losses. It’s a fool’s errand to guess at what will happen three months from now. In spite of my being a fool, I’ll step away from the long term prognostication game. What I do know is this. There are elements of this season about which I’m excited and there are others that have me downright worried. The tricky part is quantifying levels of excitement so I’ll try to do so as I normally would, in the most absurd ways possible.
First and foremost, I’m dog-with-its-head-out-the-window excited about the receiving corps. The Gabe Marks Situation is officially strange. He’s either still injured or just slid down the depth chart some because of previous injury, but either way when he was asked plainly about redshirting Marks, Coach Leach didn’t rule it out as a possibility. I assume he’ll be able to go and will get into the rotation just as much as he did last year, but that’s speculation on my part. Even without Marks, check this out: Mayle, D. Williams, RG5, Robert Lewis, Cracraft, Calvin Green, Bartolone, K. Williams, Isaiah Myers. I’ll be right back because I just got home from the big car ride and was still so excited that I ran in the house and peed all over the leaving room. That’s how excited I am, metaphorically speaking of course.
The Air Raid is predicated on having loads of different weapons to spread the ball around to. Suffice it to say, I think we’re good when it comes to the receivers. As for the other weapons, the running backs? I’d say I’m cell phone upgrade excited. I didn’t particularly need a new phone. The old one still worked pretty well and could do what I needed it to do (kinda like Teondray Caldwell and especially Marcus Mason). Now a shiny new option has come out and even though I have not gotten any extended use with the new phone, I did watch a video once with testimonials that got me pretty excited (Theron West in the Gildan New Mexico Bowl) and pretty much everyone is saying that the new version has the potential to be much better than what I had before (Jamal Morrow and Gerard Wicks). I mean, I’ll get the new phone because I pretty much have to (Mike Leach and Verizon Wireless are pretty well in control of these things) and I’m pretty sure I’ll like it more than the old one, but I just won’t know until I know, ya know?
None of this matters if the person in charge of getting the ball to all these dogs and cell phones can’t get that job done. So should we be excited about Connor Halliday or should we be scared about getting Halliday’d?
I’m Taylor Swift at an Award Show excited for Connor Halliday this season! I’m care free, baby! It’s gonna be good times, some people watching might not appreciate me for it, but I’m dancing my heart out, throwing for 5,000 yards and sneaking my way into mainstream respect. Will stuff like this happen from time to time?
Yes! From what we know, there will be bumps in the road with Halliday, but hey even Taylor Swift experiences bad moments at awards shows. All in all, though, I’m confident the bad will outweigh the good with the Connor Halliday Experience this year. If it doesn’t, I promise I won’t say mean things about him, or any other redheaded quarterbacks, on this website or on Twitter. I also promise to break that promise.
Offensively, there’s a lot of talent to be excited about, but any football analyst worth a darn will tell you, “I look at this Washington State Football team and look, they’re gonna throw the football all over the place and Air Raid this and Air Raid that, but you look at that offensive line and you’re looking at some guys who haven’t played a lot of football at this level and you’re looking at football players that need to keep their quarterback upright so he can throw the football.” Syntax aside, the experts are probably right. The Wazzu offensive line has me a little bit scared. At worst though, it’s like when I saw “The Blair Witch Project” for the first time and just felt a little bit weird about the woods and stuff. It’s an uneasiness as much as anything. We know that the cast of characters is large. It will probably look left-to-right like Eklund-Dahl-Flor-Seydel-Madison and there are viable names, who also happen to be large men, to throw in there behind most of those dudes. We’ll find out Thursday night how long the uneasiness will last.
As for the defense, I think virtually every Coug fan is in the same boat: last-day-of-school excited for the front seven and first-day-of-school anxious for the back four. It’s all Hair Raid and Polynesians up front so you know I’m excited about that! The big question is whether or not we’ll be able to cover anyone. There is a possibility that the aforementioned old phone/running back Teondray Caldwell will play a huge role at safety Thursday night so I’m scared the coaching staff has already answered the big question with a resounding, “no”.
I realize I haven’t broken any new ground with my analysis here. If the offense lives up to the hype and the defense exceeds expectations, we’re looking at an 8 or 9 win season (including a bowl) for Washington State. That, along with the fact, that the first game is THIS WEEK, is plenty of reason to be excited. I’m “Slappin’ Da Bass” excited to enjoy the ride with my fellow Blogfathers and whoever else takes the time to read along. Go Cougs.
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