Happy Monday Cougs, as we roll into another week. Here's hoping you are still on a nice little "high" after the toppling of the men of Troy on Saturday night, as the Cougs pulled that sucker out! Huge congrats to the young men who kept battling and never let up the whole game, and finally finding a way to bring it home.
I have to admit it was a strange feeling to see them win in the fashion in which they did, don't you think? I mean who would have thought we would go in to USC, fail to score an offensive TD while getting 10 points total, and walk out as the ones celebrating?? Crazy.
It was a strange feeling during that game too, I mean as things wore on you could see that SC just didn't have confidence in their passing game. While the running game was picking up steam, it was almost reassuring every time they dropped back to pass late in that game that you felt that the Cougs were going to get a stop. Their longest completion was 8 YARDS all night long, even more amazing considering 1) they have Marqise Lee, and 2) the Cougs were missing upperclassmen in Nolan Washington and Anthony Carpenter from the secondary! On paper it sure felt daunting, and that the feeling was SC was going to "right the ship" so to speak against the youngsters back there, and we would see a long night of chasing around the amazing #9 for SC's offense. But, you know, they say it every week – IT'S WHY THEY PLAY THE GAME, for you just never know!
So we went with a podcast last night, which you can listen to here:
Of course if the embedded player doesn't appear, you can always listen to it here on the BlogTalkRadio.com's website. We touched on the USC game, of course, in looking at the biggest positives to take from this one as well as some lingering concerns as we move forward towards a little bit of a "softer" schedule?
Moving on to other stuff out there…
Caple has a quick write-up, basically capturing the theme from Saturday night – winning is sure better than losing.
Caple also weighs in with some notes from Sunday night, including who came back to practice (Nolan Washington) and who didn't really do much (Anthony Carpenter). Among some interesting quotes from Mike Leach:
(Are Connor Halliday's turnovers a concern?) “We’ve just got to keep improving. We’ve got to keep getting better. Just make better decisions and don’t try to force too much. I thought he did a great job managing the game in the second half. The one catch (interception) the kid made was one of the best catches I’ve seen all year. That was an incredible catch.”
I think it has to be said, now that we're two games in – anyone notice that Connor Halliday is getting hammered in social media/message board-land with every mistake he makes, yet Mike Leach seems to quickly diffuse any hint of QB "controversy"? I noticed it after the Auburn game, and even after a sluggish first half vs. SC, Leach went out of his way during halftime on the radio broadcast to downplay Halliday's mistakes and instead talked about how the O-line was struggling vs. SC's great defensive front seven.
And to be fair, Halliday did get the you-know-what beat out of him vs. that SC defense. Those guys are MEN out there, and they manhandled our O-line for the vast majority of that game. And it seemed like that nice long drive in the second possession of the game was just humming along, but then River Cracraft dropped the TD pass and Halliday was absolutely blown UP in the process. From that point on, the offense just kind of slogged through the rest of the game and everything kind of changed going forward.
What's kind of strange is that OK, Halliday has struggled with turnovers so far in 2013 – 5 INT's, plus a huge fumble that gave USC excellent field position and led to the Trojans getting their only TD of the night. So he's tossed 1 TD and 5 INT's through the first two games. He threw for a bunch of yards vs. Auburn (344) but the completion percentage wasn't great, and of course that nightmarish end-zone TD late in the 4th quarter when the Cougs were driving for the tying score. And now this last game, his completion percentage goes way up (68% after going 26-for-38), but the yardage was down (215) and the mistakes were glaring with three more turnovers.
Our own Longball pointed it out on the radio show last night, but this pace of TD's-to-turnovers? It just isn't sustainable.
But despite the bumps in the road, Leach continues to NOT throw this kid under the bus in any way, and appears to be going out of his way to divert your attention elsewhere any time the subject is approached!
I don't fully know what that all means right now, but one thing we can figure is that Leach doesn't just say a bunch of stuff off the cuff, you know what I mean? He makes it seem that way sometimes, but he's pretty media-savvy at this point in his career. There is a method to his madness, and I think the last thing he wants or needs right now is to start being overly critical of the young gunslinger and instead try and boost his confidence any way he can. And maybe Leach and Yost and the rest of the staff believe in this kid, and that he's got the mental makeup of someone who just needs the constant reassurances that they believe in him? Of course everyone is different, you run across this every day at work or school or whatever it is you do – some people are just fine when you discipline them or tend towards being overly critical, but some people just need some constant "stroking" and you are constantly pumping up their self-confidence, all the while knowing that in the end while there are some growing pains, you believe they have what it takes.
We'll see what happens next, but it's going to be an interesting next couple of weeks at the QB position!
Finally, Cougcenter rolls through some quick Twitter reactions to the big win. Not a WSU Football Blog tweet among them, but that's ok. We'll continue to toil in their ever-growing shadow…
All for now. Enjoy your Monday, and of course, GO COUGS!
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