Category: Cougars Football

Assorted Sports Thoughts

by A.J. Coltrane

Mike Leach to the Cougars: 

To quote Leach – “You can win here and win big, I believe.”

Washington State football just got a lot more entertaining — I may actually make a point to watch a game or two next year. WSU will throw the ball all over the place, and historically that’s what they’ve done when they’ve been good. At the very least they’ll be fun to watch.

The Sounders get a new keeper:

The Sounders signed 6’5″ Austrian keeper Michael Gspurning. From the Seattle Times: “Gspurning’s size lends to a more aggressive approach in coming out to defend crosses, and he is also more comfortable having balls played back to him and using his feet”

The News Tribune has more information about Gspurning, including this YouTube clip of five of his saves:

I’m predisposed to like tall keepers — Kasey Keller would have had a hard time getting to Save #3 on the video, though Keller likely would have been playing another step or two to his left to cover that angle and would have stopped it anyway.

Gspuring is a 30 year-old veteran keeper. I have high hopes the Sounders won’t miss a beat.

Finally, the NBA is dead to me, but:

The Miami Heat signed Shane Battier. I think this is about as important as any signing in the league this year — Battier is absolutely the perfect fit to go with Wade and Lebron. Battier doesn’t need the ball in his hands to be productive, he’s a very good perimeter defender, he’s a good rebounder, a good passer, and he’s a good 3-point shooter. He may wind up being more valuable to the Heat than Chris Bosh. Really, the Heat are the “Big 2 +1” anyway, not a “Big 3”. As Battier approaches the late phase of his career he could basically be Robert Horry all over again. Mike Bibby just signed somewhere else, and if the Heat can get anything besides a corpse to play the point then they have to be heavy favorites to win it all this year. They don’t even need a traditional point guard, it could be a Steve Kerr equivalent and they’d be fine. (Any of the triangle offense non-traditional point guards would work — Kerr, Paxson, Harper, or Fisher. They just need long-range shooting and (ideally) someone to get in the way of quick little guards.)

Bleh.

The Not Scottish Performances of the Week

By Blaidd Drwg

So who had the worst weekend of the Washington football teams:

Udub Huskies – they played like a puppy who has just been disciplined for peeing on the carpet in their 41 – 0 beat down by Stanford at home. They didn’t pass 100 yards of total offense until 3 minutes left in the game, had most of the fans leaving at halftime looking for anything that was more interesting, looked outmatched and outclassed, gave up a 51 yard run to the opposing QB on a fake handoff and were outgained 470 – 107 total yards. Jake Locker may have single handedly played himself right out of the first round in the 2011 draft with his putrid performance in front of 20 NFL scouts in this one. The Sled Dawgs have been a big disappointment all year for those who were drinking Sark’s cool-aid, but they still can make themselves bowl eligible by winning 3 out of their last 4. It is doable since they play @ Oregon (let’s face it, this one could get ugly), vs. UCLA (They have the same record as the Huskies and are actually a worse team), @ Cal (should be a winnable game, maybe) and @ Wazzu (heck, I think my HS football team could beat the Cougs). My prediction – the Pups get their act together and finish 6-6, saving Sark’s job; and if they lose to the Cougs somehow – Sark gets fired before he gets back to Seattle.

"Ay, the performances of the Washington Football teams this weekend were defintely not Scottish, so they were CRAP!"

Wazzu Cougars – They played like an old cat that is in need of being taken out back and shot in their 42 – 0 blowout at ASU. The Kittens were their own worst enemy, getting into the Red Zone 6 times (!) and not scoring once (!), turning the ball over 3 times and giving up 493 yards of offense. In all of this, they somehow managed to actually hold the ball slightly longer than ASU. Not that I think it would have made a difference, but it would have probably been a bit closer than the actual final if they managed to get a few points on the board. Let’s face it, WSU just plain sucks and will be lucky to end this season with more than one win (and that was a 1 point win against FCS Montana State), so this pasting really wasn’t much of a surprise.

Seattle Seahawks – Just a few days after being anointed the “best team in the NFC” by Tony Dungy, they go out an play like a bunch of canaries being chased by a cat in a 33 -3 embarrassment against the Oakland/LA/Oakland Raiders. The Chicks gave up 545 yards of offense and still couldn’t stop the Raiders despite the Black and Silver’s 11 penalties. If anyone thinks the Hawks are a good team, you haven’t been watching them. The offense, to put it nicely, is pathetic. The only way they stay in games is through defensive turnovers and special teams – if those two aspects of the game don’t come through for them, they don’t stand a chance. The really sad thing about this game is that the Hawks were only down 10 – 0 at the half and still never looked like they were in the game at that point.

My vote for this week’s inept performance – The Seachickens. No way should you ever give up 545 yards to a team in an NFL football game. On the bright side, they should still win their division as none of the other teams really seem like they are trying either.