Vote Butch

OR else you’ll get some of this.

Yep, Butch is back in the Capital One Mascot Challenge. Hooray Butch! I love the scouting report from the website – 6’3″, stacked and packed? Really? I’ve seen a lot of Butch’s in my day, as I’m sure you have too. But I’ve never seen one 6-3 and full of muscle!

Butch is a former Capital One champion as well, winning in ’06. He’s definitely got a shot this year. We’ll do our part. And at least he can rock the evil of the Thriller:

Winner winner chicken dinner.

Meanwhile Grippi had a mega post today, doing his best Ted Miller impression by linking to all the other PAC-10 news and stuff. Good work Vince. In the post, he again mentions Chris Ivory’s departure, but still no official word on the reason for the dismissal. We’ll have to wait and see what turns up. But whatever the reason, it was time for him to move on.

In the same post is a link to coach Wulff’s talk with the media, as reported by Teddy Miller. The overall tone?

“We don’t spend a lot of time addressing what other people think because it just doesn’t allow us to keep moving forward. They’re road blocks. It doesn’t matter. If you look at years past, the Cougs have been picked in the lower half and have done extremely well. I’ve coached teams that weren’t predicted to do well and have done well. The thing about it is they are predictions. So many things can happen, from teams improving and staying healthy to good teams that get too many key injuries that [once] were good teams but by the end of the year they’re not a very good football team. Those things no one can predict — coaches can’t, media can’t — we can only control what we can control. If we spend a lot of time worrying about anything other than that then we are just slowing ourselves down. It’s about us and the work we have to do to take care of every single day and each week. That will remain our focus.”

Sounds like major circle-the-wagons time right now. And there is very little motivating tactics out there that are better by telling elite athletes that nobody thinks they are any good. Just keep building up the chip on the shoulder, and eventually you become a nightmare to play on a weekly basis!

Moving on….

Cougfan has a charting of the weight gains for the Cougs. It’s a premium article (but they are running a 2-for-1 right now, 2 months for 9.95. Not bad). While we don’t have any details beyond what is already out there, Joe Eppele is mentioned as having put on 15 lbs of grade-a beef. Nice.

ESPN’s Bottom Ten has rolled out with a new edition (and with a Michael Jackson theme to boot, ala WHO’S BAD!). Yes, UW is on the list. No, WSU is not. But alas, WSU is on the so-called “waiting list”, as in stink it up early, and they’ll be happy to seat you in the bottom-ten. Great. Also worth mentioning that UW’s week-two opponent, the scrappy Vandals of Idaho, are #3 on the list.

Stay tuned for something out of our own Longball with an eye-witness report of fall camp. Enjoy your day, and GO COUGS!