Leach and player video

COUGARS

FROM PULLMAN — Mike Leach has a way of getting to the point he wants to make, even if nobody asks.

Which is why he said this earlier today when asked about dropped passes in the red zone:

“All of a sudden our fragile little receivers are going to go into the end zone and get frightened so then all of a sudden they can’t catch the ball. That’s crazy,” Leach said. “They just need to learn to be tougher. Fortunately for them you didn’t ask me if you think our receivers are tough, because if you had asked me they certainly wouldn’t have gotten the answer they’d like to hear.”

So, are they tough, or  … ?

“Hell no, they’re not tough.”

Ah. OK then. At least Brett Bartolone escaped a portion of Leach’s wrath.

“He may be tougher than the rest of them,” Leach said. “At least last game he certainly was. He did get after it last game, made some great plays, scored two touchdowns, certainly ahead of his time as a freshman.”

He continued.

“How do you drop four balls? Because if your hands weren’t in the way they would have hit you in the face.”

And it’s not known if he was serious or not when he broke into this aside during an assessment of safety Casey Locker’s play: “I think he’s physical, I think he is tough. I think, as a matter of fact, I may have him hammer on some of our receivers. For example, we’ll throw them a ball and just as the ball’s ready to get there, we’ll have Casey Locker slaughter them. We haven’t ruled that out.”

There’s a Pac-12 officiating joke in there somewhere, if you look hard enough.

On to the video, courtesy, as usual, of WSU athletic communications …

Christian Caple can be reached at christianc@spokesman.com . Twitter: @ChristianCaple