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WSU has one more long road trip

Posted by Vince at 8:11 a.m. on November 2 Comments (5)

COUGARS

Washington State’s 2009 version of a Long March comes to an end this weekend with the Cougars third consecutive road game. This one is in Tucson, that “little” college town near the border with Mexico. Saddled with a five-game losing streak, WSU will try to pull a big upset in the desert after racking up about 8,000 miles of travel. Well, at least Tucson has an In-N-Out, so there’s that. Read on.

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• Washington State: We covered the injuries in yesterday’s post and there’s little new to report – Chima Nwachukwu was in a boot (by the way, his brother is Texas A&M’s leading receiver as a true freshman and his name was called often on the radio broadcast we heard Saturday) to promote healing of his ankle – and may not play Saturday. … I’ve got to believe most college football fans, when they think of the University of Arizona, think of defense. Desert Storm, all that stuff. But that’s not this year’s Wildcats. Looking at UA in the national statistics, the defense still stands out (26 out of 120 teams – WSU is 118) but it’s the Wildcat offense is really interesting. They are 27 in rushing (188.14 yards per game), 29 in passing (257.29) and 14 overall (445.43). That’s a lot of yards considering they’ve played Iowa, Oregon State and UCLA, all teams who take pride in defense (yes, I know the Beavers are down this year and UCLA is an enigma). The emergence of Nick Foles at quarterback (he’s 19th in the nation in passing efficiency) has energized this group. Now they get WSU, which is still 114 in rush defense (220.38 yards per game), 118 in pass defense (290.75) and 119 in total defense (511.13). … Let’s move on to the links. … We had our follow story in today’s S-R, and our look back, the long version of which you can find here (below the follow). … Freelancer Howie Stalwick wrote a column that ran in today’s Kitsap Sun.

• Around the Pac-10: Bud Withers of the Seattle Times examined the rest of the Pac-10 schedule to discover if the king is really dead after its loss in Eugene. … ESPN.com’s Ted Miller had his usually crowd of items related to the weekend past, including what was learned, the power rankings and a look at the conference in the national polls. … The change that came to light in Eugene Saturday night actually happened once before. …Washington: Bye week, so no stories. … Oregon State: The Beavers need two wins to ensure themselves a bowl berth and, with three of their last four on the road (starting this week in Berkeley), it will be interesting. One of those, of course, is in Pullman. … Oregon: The Ducks feel they are in better shape than the rest of the conference. In more ways than one. Cal: Nothing, nada. … Stanford: Couldn’t find any football news here either, so I’m passing along a pretty important basketball story. Not good news at Stanford. … USC: Will the participants in Saturday’s “Game of the Year” be able to bounce back? …UCLA: It looks like Kevin Prince has ascended to the quarterback throne once again. … Arizona State: Despite the loss Saturday, the Sun Devils moved up and are fourth nationally in run defense. … Arizona: Sorry, but the past really has no bearing on this week’s game.

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• That’s all for this morning. We’ll take our first look at the Arizona Wildcats this afternoon. Until then …

Five comments on this post so far. Add yours!

kaddy on November 02 at 10:12 a.m.
Howie Stalwick's article is the painful truth. A good read, but it really drills into what has happened to Cougar football, since 2006.

For me, it does make me appreciate the kinds of recruits that this coaching staff is bringing in. I can only imagine the level of success in recruiting we will have when we start winning games.

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DeerLakeRon on November 02 at 10:47 a.m.
This write up sure points out How bad would think WSU's defense is. But fails to point out lack of ball control leads to most of it.
I a team has the ball 40 minutes out of 60 is it really no wonder why they cna have 600 yards in a game. With out looking I would have to say TOP is awful. Leaving the defense on the field way too much.

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ECoug01 on November 02 at 12:49 p.m.
I won't go into the beat down and constant losing we all know we have been unfortunate with the injuries and we are young and inexperienced. These add to our problems in a big way. However, I had a few points of confusion, frustration and anger as I watched the cougs in HD.

We still have guys that do not space themselves well when pursuing a ball carrier and 3 coug defenders are there. All 3 take the same angle and all 3 get juked and the ball carrier runs right by them. If they spaced it better to contain the carrier it would be a NO GAIN instead numerous guys got 6 yds out of a play we had contained and should of been stopped. This should be worked on by coaches and is a coaching issue I have with this staff. You don't need talent for fundamentals. We also have a lack of wrapping up when tackling. I am SICK of watching guys throw shoulders at guys and the ball carrier just bounces off.. wrap up. You don't need talent to do this fundamental part of tackling and coaches need to harp on this.

Also the strategies of this staff sometimes blow my mind. The slot WR have beat us how many games now? There was a point in the game the announcer circled Tate in the slot no coug appeared to be covering him. Ball snapped, pass thrown big gain to Tate. How do you let the #1 WR on their team stand in the slot unguarded. Just like Hawaii, SMU their guys in the slot went off for 100+ receiving days. This is a coaching issue. At no point should Tate be standing uncovered.

My spirits were lifted with a solid drive and hope for the future before half only to go into a rage of almost throwing the remote through my tv with the hail mary. Everyone knew it was coming. 2 WR and 3 defenders are there orignially. Great play by the WR yes. However, when you watch it the cougs are there but they don't try to bat it down they try to pick it off. Slap the ball down.. Coaching and fundamentals. That was an embarrassing embarassing play and killed tons of momentum to keep it respectable.

Then the Tardy issue. I don't get the coaching staff's strategy it changes from week to week. One week its burn all the redshirts and play only young guys. Tardy gets 1 carry. This week Tardy had 90 yds and was the main man. Winston got 3 carries? So now you have flip flopped to the opposite strategy. Are we going young or we going old? So confused. Oh and for those of you who thought Tardy should be on the pine from last weeks comments he played a great game. We should have ran more ND run defense was their soft spot.

I feel for the coaches and the inexperience and injuries but I still have major issues with their lack of accountability and question some of their skills as coaches. I have yet to hear the coaches take any responsibility for their schemes, play calls or anything. At least Sark and Co. took responsibility for their screw ups and putting the team in bad schemes. There is never a comment out of PW's staff about calling a poor coverage, not adjusting as they should have, etc. Take responsibility boys we pay you hundreds of thousands of dollars. Be a leader. You are the captain of the ship. I am not saying you don't have issues we are all aware of those but you blaming it all on those issues and not taking any blame for yourself is a joke and is not being a leader. That irritates me more than anything about this staff.

I need hoops badly.

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dickkenn on November 02 at 1:29 p.m.
I allmost feel sorry for Ken Bone and the young coug baskettballers, if they have a losing season or some growing pains as the team is mostly fr.,redshirt fr.

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Edog on November 02 at 3:30 p.m.
Speaking of that, lets just be clear right now. This is a development year for Cougar hoops, so all of you folks living in your instant gratification world (as with Cougar FB) our main goal in hoops is to make the NIT! Not the Dance. The dance would mean we exceeded expectations. Lets all remember that when we lose some games this year before you start calling for Ken Bone's Head.

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