WSU Contest Winners, Plus More

With the end of the 2010 football season upon us, it’s time to wrap up a few things from this year.  Most pressing, of course, is our own WSU Football Blog Pick’em contest!  And after a long, tough year of picking games, we have our three winners.  And now, here they are:

1)  Congrats to “EARL”, who took first place overall!  “Earl” finished in the top spot between both groups, with an excellent overall record of 59-13.  And not just the overall record, but the total points were just enough to take first place, as he finished with 223 total points.  Earl gets first crack at choosing a prize, which is something with our logo – a t-shirt, a beer mug or coffee mug. 

2)  In second place, we congratulate SOZE!  Soze came in second place with 222 total points, sporting  a 56-16 record.  Soze will get to pick from whatever Earl doesn’t pick, either a t-shirt, beer mug or coffee mug.

3)  Finally, in third place we congratulate WEST SEATTLE COUGS!  West Seattle Cougs finished in first place in our second group, with a total of 221 points.  They actually had a better overall record than Soze, at 57-15, but because of the points system, Soze was able to finish just in front of West Seattle.  West Seattle will get to pick whatever is left from the expansive prize chest.

Here’s the top ten finishers from each group:

Group #1:

Group #2:

Winners, we will contact you directly with the details.  Here’s a hat tip to everyone who played!  It was fun to see how things played out, and wow, some of you did very well.  If we are all still hanging around next fall, I think we will definitely do this again.

Read on for other stuff out there on this post-season Humpday….

With the offseason in full swing, and now that the Paul Wulff decision has been made, things are going to slow down quite a bit (really?).  We won’t fully disappear however, if you’ve followed us in the past you know we still kinda/sorta hang around and talk about other stuff beyond just football 24/7.  Here’s hoping you stick with us.  But yeah, the offseason is here, and so the majority of the stories you are going to see are recruiting.  The Cougs are in the home stretch, really, and now up to a verbal count in the low 20’s and 25 spots to sign, things are definitely tightening up.  But as you also know if you’ve followed the recruiting game over the years, well, there are ALWAYS some last-moment surprises.  Maybe a few “soft” verbals switch up in these last couple of months, or maybe we’ll get lucky and shock some people with a CJ-Mizell-Style surprise.  You just never know, but even though it looks like it is winding down, it is far from over! 

One thing with the stay-the-course decision isn’t necessarily what will happen with the rest of this recruiting cycle (probably?).  But I think the real intrigue is going to be what things look like for next season’s class.  After all, Bill Moos said only that right now the best course is to stay with the current coach for next season, but there is nothing concrete beyond that.  Yeah, Wulff has a five year deal, but how often do you see coaches get to the last year of their deal without an extension in place?  Pretty much never, know what I mean?  Either the coach is shown the door after year four, or, they are given an extension. 

But the real question is going to be tracking the verbal commits for signing day 2012.  If things are pretty slow and we get to, say, September and there are only a handful of commits?  It could be a very, very bad thing.  Let’s face it, Wulff was/is getting “dirty” recruited out there right now, and uh, no, that isn’t going to ease up in any way for the next season’s class.  Without a guarantee of future stability, they could be really undercutting Wulff’s ability to land talent similar to the last couple of classes he has brought to Pullman.  Who knows, maybe we get off to a fast start next year and they announce an extension after the first 5 or so games?  But the sad reality is that the other coaches are going to use the perceived instability against Wulff and WSU, and it could be painful for the next recruiting class.  I guess we’ll have to wait and see how it goes, but it could be awfully interesting to say the least!

Moving on, the Pac-10 announced their last-ever all-conference teams.  No, we didn’t get any first or second team selections, but did get some decent honorable mentions – Reid Forrest, BJ Guerra, Jared Karstetter, Travis Long, Tyree Toomer, Jeff Tuel, Zack Williams and Marquess Wilson were all on the honorable mention list.  

The big question is that why didn’t Wilson win top offensive frosh of the year honors?  Wilson lost out to USC’s Robert Woods, but Wilson had more yards (1,006 to 786), yards per catch (18.3 to 12.3), and more yards per game average (83.8 to 60.5).  They also had the same amount of TD catches with six apiece.  Yet Woods got the honors. 

I guess it really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.  This just in – WILSON IS GOOD – so I think we know a special talent when we see it.  But in another tough season of double-digit losses, you know it would have been nice to see a player like Wilson get some props handed down from the rest of the conference?  I guess when you have won two Pac-10 games in three seasons, well, it’s easy to become the afterthought of the conference.  Hell, half the Pac-10 coaches probably forgot all about Wilson at the time of the voting, even though they coached against him this year!  It just comes with the territory, part of the collateral damage from all the losses.  Oh well.

That’s it for now.  ENJOY YOUR HUMPDAY, and as always, GO COUGS!