Hello Followers. Hope you had a great long weekend.Today, I bring you a “special announcement”, one that carries with it the potential for world peace and transformation.
So, if you want to read why and how it is that a new Zen will be coming soon to a Coug Universe near you. Then Read on.
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Followers, many years ago, the Coug Blog-O-Sphere was largely a space unfulfilled. ..We had CougFan.com as the unquestioned leader in Cougar sports and then we had Cougzone.com out there running as a distant second.
A short time later, along came the WSU Football Blog, followed closely (by what I can remember) by Jeffrey Nusser’s “WSU Hoops” blog on WordPress and Grady’s “Stadium Way” blog. All three quickly attracted a decent following of Cougmaniacs.
Sometime later, SB Nation approached Nuss and Grady (and maybe Craig, I don’t remember) about starting the CougCenter blog. Truth be told, SB Nation inquired about whether or not Sean and I could join that team, but it was decided that such an arrangement would not work out….
As the months and years went on, our Blogs became rivals and at times, bitter rivals. To be sure, most of it—at least from our end—was in jest, but there were times that our commentary was intentionally harsh. And the reason? Well, quite frankly, some of their stuff seemed unnecessarily
pretentious. And in fairness, undoubtedly, some of our “over-the-top” proclamations/declarations represented some of the “cyber waste” that their blog generally discourages.
Anyhow, while there were several moments of TENSION between the two blogs over the past few years, the last straw probably occurred last year when I made a mockery of their community rules, at the same time that Longball got involved in an exchange about the merits of calling certain basketball games “must wins.”
To put it mildly, those incidents marked the peak of the Cold War.
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Since that time, things have changed a bit. And frankly, things had been changing A LOT for some time whether we at the WSU Football Blog wanted to recognize that or not.
And what changed? Well, as noted here before, Cougcenter.com hired Brian Floyd as well as Mark and Kyle. And with those hires, Cougcenter.com stopped competing with our Blog and made a huge leap toward (MY VIEW) battling with Cougfan.com for WSU-Cyber space supremacy.
(I actually think they’re becoming close to rendering the Spokesman obsolete, at least in the SR’s current form)
I mean take, for instance, a look at these graphics—representing the unique visits and page views between the two sites over the last month.
As you can see after factoring in the difference in scale on the Y axis, Cougcenter’s traffic is usually six, seven, or eight times higher than ours. In other words, if you’re evaluating the “arms race” between the two sites with respect to popularity, it’s no contest: Cougcenter.com wins eight days a week.
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So, why do we bring all of this up now?
Well, last week, we posted a link to a story about the proposed HBO documentary about Coach Leach. This link was posted by me after I received an e-mail from Longball which alerted me to the “story.”
Later, someone on Cougcenter posted our link as a “fan shot.” Here was the comment thread that followed:
Top of FormDisplay: ExpandedCollapsedBottom of Form
h/t to Mark. He tweeted
it first.twitter | CougCenterby Kyle Rancourt on Jan 13, 2012 2:20
PM PST reply
I think Grippi had it first overall
Definitely not the WSUFB Ball
Twitter: @JeffdCollier | Go Cougs! “People ask me ‘why Washington State’… ‘Well that’s a stupid
question…'” – Mike Leach by GoCougs on Jan 13, 2012 2:34
PM PST up reply
I tipped off the person
from where I saw it first.. I have a feeling you guys don’t get along with
those guys to well..by james_WSU on Jan 13, 2012 2:40
PM PST up reply
I have no idea what you’re talking about!
CougCenter | Cougar Sports Weekly | @NussCougby Jeff Nusser on Jan 13, 2012 6:37
PM PST up reply 3 recs
I think I’ve seen you other there a few times 🙂
WSU football blog was the first Cougar blog I found many years ago and I stumbled across the
pre-Cougcenter blog shortly thereafter—which if I remember correctly, was a
Cougar basketball blog? Cougfan, WSUFBB, and Cougcenter are all sites I visit
many times a day haha.by james_WSU on Jan 13, 2012 9:58
PM PST up reply
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While NOT a big deal in almost every sense, this exchange nonetheless represents a “breaking point” for me in relation to the two blogs. I mean, has our discourse truly devolved into fighting over who was the first to talk about SOMEONE ELSE’S STORY?
What’s more, given that blog traffic is NEVER a zero-sum game is there any reason to maintain such passive-aggressive tones at a time when there may be a host of new Cougar “readers” who are looking to be informed and entertained about all things WSU, without all of these negative undertones?
I think not.
And so I say to all once and for all:
THE COLD WAR IS OVER.
Let me say it again:THE COLD WAR IS OVER.
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Now, what can we expect relative to WSU Football Blog and CougCenter interactions moving forward? Well, for starters, we are putting a Cougcenter link back on our site as soon as our Penguin rep can make the change. Second, those who follow me on Twitter know that I follow several of the Cougcenter Blogfathers and you also know that I have advertised Cougcenter content on several occasions. And, moving forward, both myself and the rest of the team will continue to do just that.
But beyond that, you and Cougcenter should also know that I and we will continue to poke fun at Cougcenter and their authors from time to time for the precise reason that doing so is PART OF WHAT WE DO AND WHO WE ARE. After all, we routinely blast Grippi, Bob Condotta, Cougfan, and basically anyone we can think of….. And truly, that’s not personal, its merely a part of the idiot identity that we have created for ourselves.
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In closing, a big congrats to Cougcenter for all of their success. As the graphics indicate, what they have done represents a remarkable achievement, and is frankly astonishing when you factor in the relative quality of teams we have covered over the past few years.
And congrats to us at the WSU Football Blog for continuing our own important brand of dull-edge analysis and entertainment.
In the coming months, may all Cougar blogs enjoy unprecedented success as we see the dawning of a new age of Cougar Football, including the 3-4 version of the Hair Raid defense.
All for now. Go Cougs!
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