"FORGET YOU!"
Happy Sunday Cougs, and an even better Sunday after a late-night Coug W in the Palouse! Here's hoping you enjoyed last night's blowout win, wherever you happened to be (and those of you at the game, yes, I'm jealous and would have loved to have made the trek. I will be there next Saturday in Seattle though, and I can't wait to see this team in person).
Quite the post-game fireworks last night, hmmmm? I wish the cameras would have stayed with it a little longer but they quickly cut to the end of the thrilling UCLA-New Mexico 59-13 finish….but it sure looked a little rough at the end there between Paul Petrino and Mike Leach.
What's kind of interesting is that if you watch the Youtube clip, you can see Leach tries to say "good game" as they embrace. But Petrino totally "Harbaugh'ed" the handshake and he definitely said the wrong thing. Granted, Leach was hot towards the end of the game and there were reports during the radio broadcast that Leach had to be held back from the refs after arguing against a penalty call late in the game, which isn't really something we've come to see from our head coach? I guess that's one thing I know I've noticed anyway, that he's usually rather stoic on the sidelines aside from some funny faces here and there. But I like that he showed some fire there, and it's probably part of something bigger that's going on around this here football team – the days of taking SH*T from the opponent are over, win or lose!
On to some quick thoughts on the game last night, post Sunday morning run style…
1) Connor Halliday – Pretty clear to everyone who saw it that young Halliday was a little wobbly early on? 2-for-7 passing to start the game, including the missed TD opportunity on a deep ball early on when there wasn't a DB within 20 yards of the intended receiver, and then it went to 4-for-10 as the rhythm and timing just wasn't quite there yet. As Leach said at halftime on the radio broadcast, it was as if those first few series Halliday was trying to throw two TD passes on every throw, sort of like the analogy of a hitter trying to hit a grand slam with every swing when there's nobody on base or a power pitcher trying to strike everyone out and is throwing balls halfway up the backstop?? But you get the drift, things just weren't in synch. The good news is after that 4-for-10 stretch, he settled in and found that rhythm, hitting on 12 of his next 14 and the game turned into a runaway by the end of the second quarter.
While some people were once again nitpicking in social media as to why we weren't up 35-0 or 42-0 by halftime and "only" up by 28, and simply chose to blame Halliday for whatever was happening, well, that's just becoming the norm. The Leachhaters and anti-Hallidays will do what they do and overreact to every single frickin' play that doesn't go right, instead of taking things with a little bit of a bigger perspective. But whatever, I mean no matter what happens, there are those who will just never be happy with anything and will zero in on the insignificant or what they perceive to be the lack of perfection instead of simply enjoying the good in what we are seeing right now. For those people, I'm sorry but there's just not much that can be done. Good luck with all that, and I hope one day you can truly be happy with yourself.
Anyway, Halliday would end up 31-for-43 for 346 yards and 4 TD's. The naysayers will hold on to the two picks, and the first one early in the game was the result of a guy trying to do too much and sailing a deep throw over the middle and right to the free safety playing the deep middle of the field. The second INT was towards the end zone and the ball was tipped, and quite honestly the DB for Idaho made a heck of a catch and securing the ball before he went out of bounds. But in the end it was another highly productive game from the gunslinger. It was his second consecutive game where he completed over 70% of his passes (72.1), and he spread the ball around once again by hitting 11 different receivers. And after starting the season by throwing only 1 TD with 5 INT's in the first two games, he has now thrown 9 TD's to just 3 INT's in his last two games.
But that was to be expected, right? I mean Southern Utah and Idaho were pretty much tomato cans, and you knew going in there was a reason WSU was a heavy favorite in both games. I mean coaches and players can't really think that way, for you have to respect your opponent every Saturday with the risk of an upset (ask any BCS team who has lost to a weaker FCS opponent this season!). But you KNEW the stats would look good after these two games, and that was the expectation and well, they did just what we thought they would. And for the last two games now, WSU outscored the opposition by a combined total of 90-10. So I would say that what we are seeing out of Connor Halliday and the rest of the offense is pretty damn good, regardless of the competition.
Some other interesting facts on Halliday:
1) He now has 34 TD passes in his short career, or one more than Jeff Tuel had at WSU (who knew?). Now obviously Tuel played on some pretty lousy teams, and didn't have the offensive line or skill position guys that Halliday has to work with nowadays. But still, that was surprising to me anyway to see that.
2) That was Halliday's 8th career 300+ passing yard game, already the third most all-time by a WSU QB. Different offensive systems, sure, and the running game is still not much to speak of. But already 8 career games over 300, that's pretty impressive.
3) That was Halliday's 6th career 4+ TD game, tying Ryan Leaf for most in school history(!).
All this from a guy with 581 total passing attempts in his career, 478 of which have come under Mike Leach. And before you dismiss his success as stat-padding against the weaker teams, well, all I know is that Ryan Leaf, Drew Bledsoe, Alex Brink, Jason Gesser, etc all played against crappy teams too in their time in Pullman. But I'm not saying Halliday is the greatest QB who has ever walked the earth, but what I am saying is that he's quietly becoming a hell of a lot better than I thought he was, and he's showing that with time to see the field and throw the ball he can be pretty flippin' good. Once he gets in a rhythm and is spreading that thing around, he can be pretty tough to stop for any defense.
2) LOVE that D-Line! I know, I know, you have to factor in the competition level in all this. Coming in to the game, Idaho had allowed 20 sacks in just their first 3 games, by far the worst in college football in 2013. But last night, that defensive front simply manhandled Idaho for long stretches of that game. I lost count and didn't see the final numbers, but I know at one point the Cougs had at least 12 tackles for loss in the game? Xavier Cooper and Junior Gauta were all over the field, and Cooper was especially active with 3.5 tackles for loss. And I liked again what we saw out of Kache Palacio at Buck/D-end, while undersized a bit for that position I really enjoy watching his athleticism getting up the field. We'll see how he holds up against Stanford when they put in their 17 tight ends(!) next week, but I like what we're seeing so far anyway!
Things changed in the second half though, as it seemed like defensively we were much more content with rushing 3 and dropping 8 as the lead started to balloon, and Idaho started to move the ball a little bit. But Idaho only crossed midfield ONE time on a first-half drive, and never had much going until they were down by 42 late in the 4th.
Best of all, another week and this defense was hitting HARD! There were many shots delivered on the Vandals where I was like "DAMN!" There is a real different level of attitude or intensity or however you want to say it with these guys on D this year that just hasn't been there since, oh, 2006 maybe? But the confidence and attitude cannot be denied, and they really look like a complete defense from top to bottom. Huge tests lie ahead but I cannot be more impressed from what I've seen out of the defense in 2013.
3) About those turnovers. Well, not good. 4 turnovers overall, 2 INT's and 2 fumbles. One of those INT's was on a tipped ball near the Idaho goal line, and another was a Kristoff Williams fumble that, well, had they reviewed it they may have seen a knee hit the turf just about the time the ball popped loose. Who knows, if you take those two turnovers away and we're probably talking about a 56-0 win, but it is what it is.
But this much we do know – THEY CAN'T TURN IT OVER 4 TIMES NEXT WEEK vs Stanford and hope to grab an upset! They have to take better care of the ball, ala the 2nd half vs. USC, or else it could be an ugly night in Century Link. For we know that the Cardinal D is extremely physical and you better believe they are going to be ripping at that ball on every single play.
So that's about it for now. Here we see the Cougs sit at 3-1, halfway to bowl eligibility with 8 games to go. If they can find 3 more W's, then they will be playing somewhere after the regular season (Fight Hunger Bowl vs. BYU? I'd take that RIGHT NOW!). It's going to be tough to make it, but certainly not impossible. Personally I thought we'd be 2-2 after this stretch of games, so we're already one game up on where I thought things would look right about now.
But that's thing in all this, in that as a blogger or message board commentor or whatever we all are looking ahead at the schedule and playing the hypothetical/speculation game. The good thing is that is the last thing these coaches and players are doing, at least publicly they barely talk about the next game. You know, the people who actually have some sort of influence as to what happens week-to-week? For we are just passionate observers but nothing more than that.
What I really like is that Leach has said many times this year that it's not even about the opponent or who we're playing or where we're playing them, but he just wants guys to focus on winning the next play and see what happens. That's the absolutely perfect mentality to take into each and every week with a team that is still pretty young when you look at the 2-deep roster, and you just don't get the whole "looking ahead" talk at all from these guys.
I still remember listening to KJR the week before the Apple Cup last year, where Dave Mahler was talking to some UW players right after they beat Colorado. I believe it was Kasen Williams, and Mahler was asking him how it felt to "likely be headed for a 9-3 season" after they only had the Apple Cup and the bowl game ahead of them, almost talking like it was all a foregone conclusion that they would 1) mop the floor with WSU, and 2) steamroll whoever in the bowl game. Of course they lost out after that, finishing a disappointing 7-6 and the likes of Hugh Millen was calling for the end of Keith Price on the Apple Cup post game show, right then and there! So you just never know what's going to happen, but you also can't look too far down the road when you are in the midst of the daily battle that these guys wage. The Pac-12 is loaded this year, there is no doubt about it after what we've seen so far. There are NO gimme W's on the schedule from here on out, so you just have to put that head down and grind, grind, GRIND over the next two months!
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, and of course, GO COUGS!
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