A typical fall Thursday comes with a couple of days worth of analysis on an upcoming Cougar football game to keep one reading for hours on end. This isn't your typical fall Thursday. Your Cougs will be playing Arizona in Pullman on ESPN tomorrow night. That's good for national exposure for WSU and the football program. However, it's probably going to be a home game that looks like no one gives a hoot about Cougar football. Since school will be out next week, students either left Pullman after classes today or will leave by early afternoon tomorrow. In other words, there won't be many kids sitting in the student section...which is on camera almost the entire game. As the saying goes, "it is what it is".
- Brennan Jackson Earns CoSIDA Academic All-District Honors
AUSTIN, Texas (Nov. 18, 2021) - Washington State EDGE Brennan Jackson was named to the 2021 Academic All-District Team selected by CoSIDA Thursday afternoon.
Jackson recorded a 3.31 grade point average while earning his bachelor’s degree in business administration and currently owns a 4.00 GPA while working towards his MBA. The redshirt-junior is the first Cougar to earn academic all-district honors since wide receiver Brandon Arconado and defensive lineman Dallas Hobbs each earned first-team accolades in 2019.
Jackson has appeared in all 10 games including nine as a starter and recorded 35 tackles with 4.5 for loss including 3.5 sacks, tied for 10th-most in the Pac-12 Conference. Earlier this season, Jackson was named the Pac-12 Defensive Lineman of the Week after recording a season-high six tackles including one sack and recovered the game-ending fumble in the win against Stanford.
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The radio voice of WSU athletics, Matt Chazanow, conducted a great interview with AD Pat Chun last night on his weekly coaches show. There are some interesting tidbits to be gleaned from the conversation so check out the recap by Jamey Vinnick:
https://247sports.com/college/washington-state/Article/WSU-football-Pat-Chun-says-Arizona-on-Friday-Apple-Cup-are-both-must-wins-175630653/ -
Wazzu gained a verbal commitment from a high school safety out of Texas. This one comes as a surprise since the head coaching job for the Cougs is up in the air as of this moment. Then again, it's hard to get too excited about verbal commits anyway.
https://www.nbcrightnow.com/sports/washington_state_university/bryce-grays-a-prep-safety-from-texas-commits-to-washington-state-football/article_1ff71d40-ffe7-59c1-9a59-dd558fd9dd3e.html -
Colton Clark of the Spokesman-Review turned in a really nice, in-depth story on Travell Harris. It's a great read:
https://www.khq.com/sports/washington_state_university/it-was-my-time-to-step-up-washington-state-slot-travell-harris/article_d24854b7-6ea9-5cde-ae8d-66fe66ac4140.html -
Wazzu men's hoops tips off at 6pm Thursday night. The battle of the Palouse will be broadcast on ESPN+. Here's more on the game:
https://wsucougars.com/news/2021/11/17/mens-basketball-the-battle-of-the-palouse-continues-in-moscow.aspx
Allow me to close with a tip of my hat to someone who was a huge influence in my life. My dad would have turned 96 today, were he still with us. Thanks to him, I lived through an 18-year English class that included nightly debating at the dinner table. He enlisted in the Army during WWII. After his service, it was off to college, a brief stint on Broadway as a dancer, then on to the land of opportunity, California. Teaching English for 35-years, collecting a few Masters Degrees, dad reveled in retirement traveling and playing golf. Happy Birthday Dad!
Go Cougs!
- It seems fitting to put together a list of coaches who branch off of the Mike Leach coaching tree. Perspective on his football genius can easily be determined by a cursory glance:
Dave Aranda/Baylor head coach – Graduate assistant coach under Leach from 2000-02 at Texas Tech
Neal Brown/West Virginia head coach – Played under Leach in 1998 when Leach was offensive coordinator at Kentucky
Sonny Cumbie/Louisiana Tech head coach – Played under Leach at Texas Tech from 2000-03 and later served as a graduate assistant coach under Leach
Sonny Dykes/TCU head coach – Coached wide receivers and later was the co-offensive coordinator at Texas Tech under Leach from 2000-06
Josh Heupel/Tennessee head coach – Played under Leach at Oklahoma in 1999 when Leach was the offensive coordinator for the Sooners
Dana Holgorsen/Houston head coach – Coached alongside Leach as assistants at Valdosta State from 1993-95, then served as a wide receivers coach and offensive coordinator under Leach from ...
- The news of former WSU Coach Mike Leach passing at the young age of 61 is very, very sad. I had the pleasure of writing about the Cougs when Leach was at the helm. To say that he was a unique person doesn't begin to describe the multi-faceted dimension of the man.
In terms of coaching football, Leach led his teams in a way that had most other coaches scratching their heads. His offensive creativity gave a multitude of defensive coordinators ulcers. To say that his techniques for molding student-athletes into football players were unusual would be accurate. Making guys run sprints in a sand pit named "Leach Beach" is a prime example. Crazy as that sounds, his players had fewer ankle injuries over the course of the season than any team in football. Only Mike Leach could get players to hit the beach. And if you look at the coaching tree that branches out from Leach, you'd find a myriad of men who owe him for their start in the profession.
When you examine the way Leach represented the schools ...
- Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, so Wazzu's loss yesterday to UNLV by a score of 74-70 was just that, a loss. However, there were plenty of reasons to applaud both the performance and the progress the Cougs are making over the past few games. Let's get the bad observation out of the way. WSU turned the ball over a ridiculous 22 times. No one is going to beat many teams with such wreckless play, especially against a team that posted a 9-0 record going into the contest. Some of those errors might be attributed to Coach Kyle Smith going with a different lineup almost every game because of player injuries. Facts are facts and when there isn't a steady lineup, players struggle to play team ball. On the bright side, Wazzu shot a respectable 54.2% from the field, coupled with a very nice 56.5% from behind the arc. On defense, WSU held UNLV to just 30.4% from behind the arc and 50.9% overall. The Cougs outrebounded the Rebels by a margin of 33-20. Despite being down by ...
