Cougars Consider Bye The Equal To Buried Lie
Question: What do a bye week for Washington State’s football team and Mike Price’s golf swing have in common?
Answer: Price has no control over either one.
Which is why the Cougars’ seventh-year coach isn’t letting the early season break on his schedule bother him any more than a bladed wedge from a perfect fairway lie.
“It’s just fine,” Price said Sunday of WSU’s bye week, which seems to fall at an inopportune time considering the season is only two weeks old and the Cougars are relatively healthy and eager to play through following Saturday’s 38-21 home win over Division I-AA Montana. “If it’s on the schedule and it’s done with and I can’t control it, then hell with it, I like it.
“It’s like my golf game. Sometimes when I don’t hit it right it’s still a perfect shot (because) I don’t have any control over that, either.”
In some quaint way, the analogy works.
But if Price wants to assure his players - or himself, for that matter, that there is a positive side to this bye week timing, all he has to do is look back to the 1994 season when WSU’s bye week fell at about the same time.
The Cougars opened with a 10-9 win at Illinois and then blistered Fresno State 24-3 in their home opener before taking a weekend off.
They used that time to prepare for their Pacific-10 Conference opener against UCLA and proceeded to go down to Pasadena and humiliated the Bruins 21-0 in the Rose Bowl.
This year, UCLA will again be the first team up for the Cougars following their bye week, and Price is hoping for as strong a showing as last year when the two teams kick it off Sept. 23 at Martin Stadium.
The game is scheduled to start at 2 p.m., but there is a chance ABC or Prime Sports might decide to televise it live. In that case, the time of the kickoff would probably be changed.
In any event, the Cougars once again have some extra time to prepare for the Bruins, who open their Pacific-10 Conference schedule this Saturday at home against Oregon.
And Price has promised that much of that time will used to work on cutting down the penalites that have plagued his team in its first two games.
The Cougars were penalized 149 yards in a season-opening 17-13 road loss to Pittsburgh and amassed 14 penalties for 113 yards against Montana.
“We’re not going to beat the UCLAs and Nebraskas of this world with 14 penalties,” Price said, adding that he will do everything within his power to come up with a cure for the penalty problem in the next 13 days.
“I’m going to talk to all our players and our coaches and really evaluate why it’s happening and try to come up with some kidn of program, some kind of teaching (method) or some kind of punishment that will stop it,” Price promised.
Price said WSU will practice in full pads Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then take the rest of the week off before returning to its regular practice schedule next Monday.
He plans to bring several of his players to Spokane Thursday to talk to children at some of the area’s elementary schools. There will be no practice Thursday, but the junior varsity will practice Friday afternoon in preparation for a 1 p.m. matchup against Walla Walla Community College Saturday at Walla Walla.
Price said Thursday’s school talks will be part of a “Give Back Program” designed to have WSU football players return eventually to their former elementary schools and talk to the students there about what it takes to be successful in athletics.
“Just talk to the kids and bring a simple message - stay in school, stay off drugs and dream big, set your goals high,” Price said of the message he hopes his players will get across.
Price said he will video tape the talks his players have with the students and use them to promote the program at other universities.
, DataTimes