COUGARS

What cartoon character hates Mondays? Whoever it is, I'm with that guy, or gal, or crocodile or whatever. Anyhow, it's Monday morning and we have your links. Read on.
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• Washington State: We had our follow and our look back in this morning's S-R. ... Freelancer Howie Stalwick also has his follow in the Kitsap Sun and other papers. ... Cougfan has this piece. ... Now for some thoughts. We like to look at where the Cougars stand statistically on Mondays and usually, the only area in which they are in the top half of the country's Division I teams is punting. That's not true today. WSU is fifth in the nation in forcing turnovers with 18, and tops the Pac-10. Otherwise, Reid Forrest's punting (17th in the country at 43.93 yards per punt) is the one other bright spot. There is just one statistic in which the Cougars rank last nationally and that's new this week: sacks allowed. There are six categories in which WSU is in the bottom five in the country: rushing offense, total offense, scoring offense, total defense, pass defense and sacks allowed. ... As we said on our previous post, WSU will practice Tuesday and Wednesday mornings at 6 – we explained why here as well – and then have the rest of the week off.

• Around the Pac-10: We'll start with Ted Miller of ESPN.com. He has his conference power rankings and what we learned this week. ... Buster Sports' Nick Daschel gives out grades for the weekend. ... The San Francisco Chronicle has this college football notebook and the LA Times has this one. Both lead with the Pac-10. ... Washington: Wins are wins, no matter how you get them. ... A few more, and UW will be bowling. ... Oregon State: The Beavers' kickoff coverage team might have been the key element in the win over Stanford. ... Oregon: Get this, the Ducks won with defense. ... Cal: Bears still in bye mode. ... Stanford: Another week, more complaining about Pac-10 officiating (see Arizona for even more). ... USC: It's rival week for the Trojans – yes Notre Dame is the their true rival. And one linebacker has even more reasons to hate the Irish. ...UCLA: The Bruins are staying with Kevin Prince at quarterback. ... Arizona State: The Sun Devils ' turnovers have got to stop. ... Arizona: Did the football hit the ground? One Wildcat fan thinks so and he has Zapruder-like photos to prove it.

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• That's it for this morning. We'll be back later. Until then …

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