WSU has a week left in spring practice

COUGARS

The weekend looms before us like a jelly doughnut, with sunshine today and Sunday supposedly covering a gooey day tomorrow. But it doesn’t matter, with no Washington State football scheduled until an early – and by that I mean before the time Captain Kangaroo used to start (I realize only a handful of you might get that reference, so I’ll explain: Bob Keeshan as the Captain used to kick off my youthful mornings in the LA area at 7 a.m.) – practice on Monday. But we do have some items to pass along, so read on.
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• We’ll start with links, because there are a few worth getting to. … We had our story on the tight end position in this morning’s S-R and on the blog last night. The latter included a few practice notes. … Switching over to basketball for a second, guard Elston Turner is transferring from UW, though to where is unclear (Jim Meehan had some thoughts on this yesterday). This is the time of year young people look to the future, find they are not sure they like what they see and decide to make a change. … Oregon may be getting closer to hiring a basketball coach and if the Ducks get Missouri’s Mike Anderson, it will bring a completely different style to the Pac-10. The Tigers play the old Nolan Richardson “40-minutes of hell” approach to the game in which they play 10 or more guys and try to pressure you into mistakes for 40 minutes. … Back to football … In case you missed it, the NCAA changed some rules yesterday, including making the taunting rule a spot foul (so possible points might be lost) in 2011, and immediately banning messages on eye black and going to the NFL rule on wedge-blocking a kickoff. I asked Paul Wulff his thoughts on the changes yesterday and he didn’t seem to enamored with the taunting change, though he didn’t say anything worth quoting. He did say the staff anticipated the kickoff change and were already practicing under the new guidelines (no more than two men in the wedge configuration). … A short piece on Steve Broussard reuniting with Dennis Erickson at ASU. … Stanford is taking its spring game off campus (expect this at WSU in the near future), though it took some maneuvering to get it into San Francisco’s ancient Kezar Stadium. … New USC coach Lane Kiffin speaks of giving everyone an opportunity to win a position, and C.J. Gable is taking him at his word. … Some UCLA defenders are changing spots. … Arizona has new defensive coordinators and a lot of new looks.

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• That’s it for this morning. We intend to enjoy a little time this weekend, but will be back if news warrants. Until then …