Let me start off by saying that unfortunately, our old pal Longball was unavailable last night. After a long discussion, we have decided to place him on the disabled list, retroactive to last week. Longball should be back soon, as he is prepping to go under the knife on Thursday, but should bounce back just fine. We look forward to having him return, stronger, faster, better than before. Get well Longball!
Anyway, here’s the ten or so things to take from this week’s radio show:
First, let me say that the tone of Wulff wasn’t anything too down, compared to what you might think it would be after a 42-0 collapse. He wasn’t giddy with excitement, but he wasn’t exactly down in the dumps either. You get the feeling that he is doing what he said he would do after the debacle in the desert, and that is just to flush this thing, as fast as you can. Time to move forward with this week, and that is that.
1) Bud asked him at the start about the ASU game. Wulff said that it was just one of those days. And he also gave ASU a lot of credit, saying that “Their defense is as fast and strong as any in the Pac-10, and they cause problems for opposing offenses.”
Later, Bud asked Wulff about the chance to see Andrew Furney kick under pressure. They did put him in for a field goal attempt, but a bobbled hold by Reid Forrest took away the opportunity. Wulff said “These are opportunities we want to give Furney, and we wanted to score points. That was frustrating, part of a frustrating game. We were in the Red Zone 5 times in that game, but we just didn’t score points. We couldn’t capitalize for whatever reason.”
Bud brought up how at the end of game, there was possibly a chance at a field goal, but they chose to run a play on fourth down instead. Wulff said “Yeah, we didn’t kick it. It was a situation that nothing had gone right, and it was time to move on. No matter what we tired it wasn’t working. Just a flat response from the team, and we didn’t respond.”
Bud brought up the idea of delivering a “first punch” in a game like this? Especially since ASU had deferred the kickoff, and WSU got the ball to start the game? This year, the first drives for WSU have been less-than-stellar. In nine opening-game drives, WSU has 1 TD, on the trick play vs. USC. There are three 3-and-out’s, one 4-and-out, one 5-and-out, and 3 turnovers. Wulff said “Yeah, it’s frustrating. It sets a negative tone, especially like the last week when ASU defers and you put your defense in tough situations.”
Wulff added: “In the 1st two games this year, we had first play turnovers in both games. We are in fact better this year on opening drives compared to previous years, but it still is not good enough. This week we had a drop on 3rd and 2, just our consistency is not there. We are improved in this area but it is not good enough. We have to make more things happen obviously, it’s an area we have to improve on.”
“We work on setting tempo all the time. We are wanting to evolve as a program that is known to do that. We want to set the tone, tempo, throwing the first punch. But we also want to keep punching on play 70 and 80 as well. We need to keep growing in that area, and we are disappointed in that area last week. The kids know it. ASU threw the first punch, and we never punched back. And I will say that after the first series or 2, I turned around and looked at our sideline. The look in their eyes WAS NOT HOW IT’S BEEN. I knew we were going to have issues.”
Finally, scheme wise, Wulff talked about the difficulty in defending ASU. “They did so many screens, bubble and short screens, they didn’t throw downfield much. But Threet was very accurate and got rid of it so quick, we couldn’t get to him. It was out of there so quick, and that helped keep Threet from getting hit much. They are one of top passing teams in the league and they played well.”
2) Time for injury talk. Wulff said “We are nicked up right now. We should get Bernard Wolfgramm back this week, but Sekope Kaufusi is nursing the sore shoulder so we don’t know. Myron Beck, we think will be back but he is very sore. James Montgomery, it’s not looking positive right now. That is very unfortunate, as James has been relatively healthy this year.”
Note – it’s got to be tough for Monty. Not only has he been relatively healthy this year, but this is his last shot at Cal, in this his final season. Hopefully he can make it back soon!
Wulff added that “Daniel Blackledge, there are health questions on him too. But overall, we have got some guys who are nicked up. This is the 10th week in a row where we have to play, so these injuries start adding up over time. It’s just one of those things. We can’t change it, but we have to get guys back. That said, we should have Aire Justin and Anthony Carpenter back this week, and those guys along with Chima Nwachukwu will be a big help in the secondary. The d-line should be healthy as well.”
3) Bud asked if as a team, are they more mature now in terms of dealing with a tough loss like the ASU game, plus dealing with injuries? Wulff said “We are much more mature where we’ve been. But this team is very immature, also too immature at times. There is a lot of youth, they are eager, lots of “want-to”, they want to do things that are right. But we don’t have enough physical presence or maturity overall right now. And particularly this year, the league is so strong, a lot of veteran teams this year, and we are suffering because of it.”
4) A caller asked about the roster overall. The caller saw 110 players on the roster, but 25 of them didn’t look like scholarship or even what one would term “invited walk-ons”. Why do they do that?
Wulff said “A lot of those guys will have a chance to play down the line. In our program over last year or 2, because of lack of experience, we have given young players and walk-ons a chance to play. It takes time, practice, time to understand system and tempo, getting in the weight room, all of that. But to them, it’s all a dream. If a player has that dream, that’s why they play, even if it’s just in practice. A lot of times it’s a legacy situation and family has been part of the program at some point, but they still contribute. Sometimes maybe it isn’t actually playing in games.”
5) A caller asked a couple of questions. First, he pointed out that the three major teams in the state – WSU, UW and the Seahawks – scored 3 points over the weekend? The caller said “I find that amazing…….are you there??” Wulff said “Yeah I’m here! But no, I wouldn’t have guessed that would have happened. I was told the score of the UW game on the way home, that our combined scores were 83-0 from the Pac-10 schools. And that UW score, that was NOT something I wanted to hear.”
The caller also asked about what we can do about getting better in the trenches? What are we redshirting, anticipating for next year, anything to help shore up the lines? And what about running backs too?
Wulff said “We are very enthusiastic about the o-line and future moving forward. It will be drastically improved over next 2-3 years. John Fullington 3 more years, Gonzales is back next year, Wade Jacobson, BJ Guerra. Jake Rodgers is redshirting, we will have Dan Spitz at o-tackle and we think he’ll be very good. Tyson Pencer will be back too. And the recruits look good. On our D-line we are redshirting Toni Pole, and we’ll have Steven Hoffart, Justin Clayton, of course Travis Long. We have some commitments we are excited about, and I believe we are going to be outstanding on the d-line. I really like the direction.”
The caller also asked about Bishop Sankey, the top-rated running back who is a verbal commit….for now. Of course, Wulff said he “had to be careful here”, unable to name names. But that there are a “couple of commits we are high on. Plus we feel Ricky Galvin is going to be very good. We think he could have been a big impact guy this year, like Marquess Wilson, but unfortunately nobody saw that except us in practice.”
6) A caller went back to the Stanford game, to a specific situation. It was 4th and inches, on the Karstetter reception that looked like a first down, then it wasn’t. Why didn’t they go for it? We were only down 17-7 in the first half, if we make it maybe we are able to score before the half. Why aren’t we going for it, going vertical in that situation? Wulff said “Well, there were about 3 minutes left in half, and it was 4th and 6 inches. We were on our own 30-something yard line, the 38 or whatever. If we don’t make it, we have given them plenty of time and excellent field position to go in and score. But I didn’t think that if we punted that they would go all the way down the field and score. I thought it was a lower percentage for them to score. Plus their kicker was 10-for-10 at the time for this year, if we don’t get it they could have scored via a field goal anyway. I thought if we punted and pinned them deep, then stopped them on 1st and 2nd down we would have used timeout and got ball back in decent field position. But in punting, we went with the percentages. I still think it was the right call at the time.”
Note – Stanford took the punt and then drove the length of the field, scoring on a short TD run with 47 seconds left in the half to go up 24-7 into halftime.
7) Time to talk about Cal. But said it’s strange how Cal is unbeaten at home, no wins on the road. Now they have QB Kevin Riley out for the year. Why the struggles on the road? Wulff said “You have to look at who they have played on road and that can help clarify it. Every team they have played on the road, they are all all teams that have been ranked. But at home, none of the teams they played have been ranked. But they have been better at home, and it looks like their
Cal has one of the best running backs in Shane Vereen, their o-line is solid, and they have two gifted wide receivers. With Kevin Riley, they have made him a “manager” of games, more than expecting him to go out and win it. Brock Mansion played a little vs. Oregon state, and he looks like he has all the tools but not the experience.”
“I can see them put this week’s game on Vereen, and when they have those type of games, they’ve won. I don’t expect a big drop off without Riley at QB, but I expect them to come out and run the ball. We are going to see the Wildcat, plus some trick plays. We need to be disciplined, make plays. And we need the crowd, that is critical in this. We can create issues for them with noise, and whatever we can do to add to that is big bonus.”
Bud brought up Cal’s rushing success vs. WSU in the Wulff era – 391 rushing yards in ’08, over 300 last year. Has the D improved enough to slow that down? Wulff said “Yes, I do believe we’ll contain them better. 2 years ago they pushed us all over, starting with an 80 yard td by Jahvid Best on first play of game and it was downhill from there. They aren’t too tricky with the run game, a power or zone run here and there, but next thing you know they are scoring points left and right.”
Wulff then brought up that the improving health of the defense should help this week. “With Chima, Mike Ledgerwood, Anthony Carpenter all back this week, we should be better. Chima can play corner and safety, and with Carpenter back in fold, both will have to contribute in some capacity. It will be interesting to see how Ledgerwood does, with Sekope not able to play, if Mike comes back that helps us out for this week.”
But said on Cal, they are #1 in passing defense, #2 in total defense in the Pac-10. What do they do on defense? Wulff said “They have a lot of talent, nice schemes, and they are mixing things up well. They get good pressure and been able to make it stressful for opposing QB’s. Their secondary is good, big and athletic. As a team, they defensed Arizona better than anyone all year long. They will be a big challenge. Our O-line has to play extremely well, same with running backs to help the passing game. If they do that and give Jeff some time, he will do the job.”
8) Bud asked about the offensive line shuffle for a short time vs. ASU, with Chris Prummer at center, Zack Williams at guard, what did you see? Wulff said “We wanted to see if we could change a few things up in the middle of the game, and there were some good things that they did. But we’ll go back to regular starting line up on the line. It was good to take a different look, but we should be back to the starting group this week.”
9) A caller asked about Eric Oertel, the frosh recruit from Wisconsin. What is the future of this kid in the program?
Wulff said “We have played him, he strained his hamstring. But he isn’t 185 lbs anymore, he is already up around 200 – 205 lb range. But I have to say that he is one of the most impressive individuals I have been around in years, he is just so mature for his age. High character, excellent athlete, going to bring a lot of intangibles and have huge impact on our program. He was what we thought we would get when we recruited him, the type of guy who will have a big impact in locker room as well as on the field.”
10) A caller asked about whether or not the staff looks at other successful teams in the offseason, and do they take anything from what other teams are doing? For example, defense at TCU, where they have a great system. Are there plans for WSU to go down and look at what they do?
Wulff said “Yes, we will always explore things that other teams are doing, and there are a couple of reasons. 1) We are always looking for new ideas that can help, I am a big believer in that. And 2) when you take a look around, it can kind of reconfirm what you are doing. We like to go to a place that has similar athletes that we do, so we can get some ideas there on what other schools might be doing.”
Wulff said “On TCU, it’s interesting you bring them up. They run the same defense that we ran at EWU, the 4-2-5 defense (note – here’s a look at the 4-2-5 defense by TCU). We would take a linebacker out of there, and run with three safeties instead of two, and two linebackers instead of three. We are interested in changing it in the offseason. But to make a change, we have to tailor our schemes to our personnel, and we are trying to add speed and get the best system for us. But as a staff, you are crazy if you don’t go out and look to add and improve on what you are doing.”
Finally, Bud asked if they will go with pads again for the rest of practice this week? Wulff said “Yep, we need to get physical tomorrow, physical on Thursday. We have to be physical during the week to get ready for Saturday.”
That’s it for this week. Enjoy the rest of your day, and as always, GO COUGS!
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