Dickert clearly calling out Arbuckle. Good.

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Health/personal issues? Strange timing.

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4 to go...

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Bit of a different beast on the men's side. Expect a fun year.

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Getter done

Hot news I guess but looking at how the Bennett's do things....hope his health is okay. Dick did about the same thing at Green Bay if my memory serves. Early Novemer during his last season. Also he didn't go along at WAZZU, just long enough to get Tony the job and build up a team for him.

Those were nice years in Cougar MBB history.

I have no idea if the Pac-12 is looking at Sac State or not, but if they're not I think they should be. I've seen several articles regarding Sac State's interest in the Pac-12 or MWC. The money they are raising is astounding. They are building a new 35,000 seat stadium. The Kings have offered to allow them to use Golden 1 arena for basketball. They have a 35,500+ enrollment. Most importantly the Sacramento metro area has a population of 3.5 million. They are poised to move up to FBS and there's a lot to like.

I'm always willing to give great athletes the benefit of the doubt. Mateer is in the process of transitioning from a running back who plays QB to a dual threat QB. His pre-snap reads (or lack thereof) are killing us. He is fundamentally and situationally undisciplined. We play behind the chains too much. I'm old enough to remember Rosey going through a lot of the same growing pains. Mateer needs to set his feet and consistently hit the check down. He's dangerous in 3rd and less than 5.

I'm not panicking with Mateer. This was a bridge season, and we have the opportunity to finish 11-1 with an Apple Cup win and a win over Texas Tech. On the other hand, Hawaii has the best defense in the MWC, San Diego State and Oregon State will be tough road games, and even Utah State can put up points. We need to play better offensively.

We've said, the new Pac-12 is playoff access.

Now our AD (who is from the Jim Sterk penny pinching regime) is scheduling "games for money" is telling to where things are going: back to the old days.

Couple days late , but……

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Haven’t seen much about visits lately. Checked our commitments and I don’t see 1 true Olineman? We will be ass if they don’t take 4-5 guys + 1-3 transfers. Hope they lock in some high schoolers soon because that is unacceptable. Last year we signed 3 HS and added a transfer.

Link below to a new Brand X article on the Cougar Collective. Color me absolutely unimpressed. I donated $100 to the BB matching campaign last Fall(?), which resulted in absolutely nothing as almost the whole team split. Now they are trying to get to their $400,000 FB matching campaign goal? Wow. Shit - Mateer and Parker alone will command more NIL money than that. Hoping that doesn't happen, with Mateer's deal with Northern Quest (which I assume is outside the Collective's efforts, purview and numbers?) Let me remind you of the $35 MILLION that the Sacramento community raised in NIL $ in a day. Shit they could just buy our entire team and have cash left over. A bunch.

And the Collective partnering with the pathetic bunch in WSU Athletics (marketing and fundraising)? Oh boy. Abbott and Costello? Dumb and Dumber?


Now, on to 2025. Last Thursday, we were teased with "We're putting together a schedule and there should be more news coming out here in a week or two on the next five opponents."

Ok, it's only been 5 days. Not a week, not 2 weeks. But still.

Pac-X realignment. Gotten those media deal analyses done yet? MW conference has announced that Hawaii will join as a full member, so they have their 8 teams. Pac - Just go get Sac State now and let them get on with their stadium plans and recruitment (did I mention their $35M in NIL?) and harnessing their #20 TV market and clear community support. And easy travel. Our pipe/wet dream of luring really not that great Memphis and whatever other AAC team is just stupid. We f-ed it up. Get over it. Maybe talk to them later.

Oh, and OSU sucks. UNLV will kick their ass this weekend. What a Pac partner they are.

So there. Time for bed.

F-them all.

B1G:
Oregon - (blech) T-1st, 6-0
uw - T-10th, 4-3
FUSC - 15th, 3-3
FUCLA - 18th, 1-5

Big-12
ASU (what?) - T-4th, 5-1
Colorado - T-4th, 4-2 (that Sanders is for real. Not sure how KSU beat them, and I watched most of the game!)
UA - T-9th, 3-3
Utah (hah hah) - T-9th, 4-2
(of note - TT T-1st, 5=1)

ACC
Stanford - T-12, 2-4
Cal - - T-15th (last), 3-3

Did I say F them all?

After the Covid stuff. We should hire Stutzman back. I guarantee Mateer under Stutzman would be a sure 40 points a game. Actual RPO. No drop backs and qb draws. We’d actually utilize Mateer’s full range of talent, especially since he said himself he prefers to throw on the run. Too bad we had to get rid of Stutzman because that offense would be filthy. Watch Texas State if you want to see how it’s done.

“I was like, ‘Bro, I’m gonna get a pick, and it’s gonna be during this exact play,’” O’Connor said. “I was telling all of them, ‘It’s gonna be this exact play, and I promise I’m gonna jump it and take it to the house,’ and that’s what happened. You just gotta speak stuff into existence sometimes.”

​

WSU’s Ethan O’Connor shows his smarts with pick-six against Fresno State​

Greg Woods
Oct. 13, 2024 at 9:28 pm
The Spokesman-Review

PULLMAN — As Washington State cornerback Ethan O’Connor has emerged in his team’s secondary, earning a starting role as a redshirt freshman, coaches and teammates have repeated a variation of the same phrase to describe him.

He’s a ball hawk.

He has a nose for the ball.

“Ethan has a knack for the ball,” WSU coach Jake Dickert said after his group’s 25-17 win over Fresno State Saturday evening.

O’Connor has proven that time and again. With his go-ahead pick-six in Saturday’s game, he now has three interceptions on the season, making him one of only six players in his class nationwide with that many. He may be starting because veteran Jamorri Colson was out with an injury the first five games of the season, but warts and all, O’Connor has indeed found the ball several times.

Dig a little deeper, though, and we find out O’Connor’s teammates aren’t just repeating some cliche to praise him. He isn’t lucking his way into interceptions. He’s grabbing them because he’s emerging as one of the Cougars’ smartest players on defense.

Take his interception in Saturday’s game. On the play, he’s lined up on the outside to cover Fresno State receiver Mac Dalena, whose only real job is to run straight ahead and clear out O’Connor, making space for wideout Raylen Sharpe to run a hitch route and make a catch. O’Connor recognized it, waited for FSU quarterback Mikey Keene to make the throw, leapt in front and took it 60 yards the other way.

But O’Connor only knew what to expect because he remembered that the Bulldogs ran the same play in the first quarter. He read that play well too, bringing down Tim Grear Jr. right as he made the catch, but O’Connor didn’t get there quite in time to jump in front of the pass.

Nearly three hours passed between those plays. In between, O’Connor made another interception, this one in the end zone, only for it to get wiped out by WSU edge Quinn Roff’s roughing the passer penalty. When O’Connor was finally brought down, he landed awkwardly on his side, forcing him to enter the injury tent for some 10 minutes, receiving treatment from trainers.

None of it stopped him from remembering that Bulldogs play. O’Connor was so confident he would see it again, that he would jump in front of the pass, that sometime before his pick-six, he turned to defensive back Kenny Worthy and told him what would happen if FSU ran the play again.

“I was like, ‘Bro, I’m gonna get a pick, and it’s gonna be during this exact play,’” O’Connor said. “I was telling all of them, ‘It’s gonna be this exact play, and I promise I’m gonna jump it and take it to the house,’ and that’s what happened. You just gotta speak stuff into existence sometimes.”

O’Connor has spoken plenty into existence this season. He secured his first interception in WSU’s win over Texas Tech on Sept. 9, leaping and picking off Behren Morton. He snared his second two weeks later, picking off San Jose State quarterback Emmett Brown in the end zone in the first overtime of that one.

But with those two picks, O’Connor showcased more of his awareness and athleticism. To make his interception on Saturday, he proved he’s one of the team’s smartest defenders too, making him one of the Cougs’ most valuable assets — even with Colson back in the fold.

Is O’Connor a perfect cornerback? Not at all. In last month’s Apple Cup, he got burned by UW receiver Giles Jackson for a touchdown. For the season, O’Connor has yielded a pair of touchdowns, and with a slender build and 6-foot-1 frame, he makes for an easy target for some opposing offenses.

But O’Connor has now shown he’ll make interceptions when he has the chance. He’s also proven he’s smart enough to remember plays and capitalize on them. Even if WSU reinserts Colson back into the starting lineup, as he was expected to before suffering a jaw injury before the season, O’Connor likely has some type of role locked up for the remainder of the season.

“It was a lot of pressure,” O’Connor said of stepping into a starting role. “I was nervous. I was super, extremely nervous, to be honest. But after a while, when you finally get the groove and you get the connection with those guys, you practice and you’re going against guys like K-Dub (Kyle Williams) and Kris Hutson, your nerves slowly go down. Those are great players.”

Elsewhere on WSU’s defense in Saturday’s game, the Cougs’ pass rush finally broke free late in the fourth quarter, when the Bulldogs got the ball back, down eight with a chance to tie the game. It was then that WSU’s edge rushers finally harassed Keene and forced him to flush from the pocket and throw a couple balls away, making it harder on FSU to complete a comeback.

But all told, the Cougs totaled just seven pressures and one sack, which came from backup defensive tackle Khalil Laufau earlier in the game. WSU earned a Pro Football Focus pass-rush grade of 58.6, the unit’s second-lowest of the season. This came against a Fresno State offensive line that profiled as vulnerable, entering Saturday’s game with nine sacks given up, some of the most nationwide.

WSU now has just six sacks in six games, tied for No. 114 nationally. On Saturday, the Cougs’ pass-rush was nearly invisible until the final drive of the game, when they knew the Bulldogs would be passing, allowing them to rush Keene without worrying about play action or rushes.

Some of that, Dickert said, had to do with the fact that Fresno State faced too many third-and-short and third-and-medium situations, where the Bulldogs could feasibly have run or passed. Of the 10 third downs FSU faced, seven were third-and-six or shorter. That made it difficult to cut WSU’s edges loose, Dickert said.

But that’s now six straight games to open the season where the Cougs’ pass rush has yet to generate any meaningful, consistent pressure on the opposing quarterback. Can they do something to solve that problem?

“We’re still growing with some of those things. We gotta be better affecting the passer,” Dickert said. “I think we got one sack tonight, so we gotta grow in that area.”

Indiana, Oregon and Penn State.
Combined record of 18-0.

This should be fun to watch!

play calling. Dickert made a dumb decision to go for two and those seem to always come back and haunt a coach.

Justin Wilcox went for two in the first quarter. Then had to go for two to catch up. Making it 12. add a field goal and Cal lost by two . Should have been tied.

Dickert goes for two in the first quarter . Why? Then has to go for two late in the game. When they kicked the FG to go up by 8, if he just kicks the extra point he is up by ten and Fresno doesn't have a chance to win.

Dan Lanning did the same thing. He like Dickert lucky it didn't haunt him as OSU was in FG range. but OsU qb messed up.

Lanning has lost two games to UW simply because he wouldn't take the field goals and went for fourth and goal or fourth and short.

There is no clearer example of this aggressive mentality than Brandon Staley of the Chargers. He literally costs the Chargers two consecutive playoff appearances by not kicking the field goal.

And the 4th and short on our side of the field has to stop. There is much greater down side if you miss it versus upside if you make it.

I absolutely love watching this!

I do hate Whoregon A LOT though

Of course, Ohio State can always chew on a long one as well

Dan Lanning appears to be fond of Coke.

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Only 269 views though so I’m skeptical it’s going to happen

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I think it’s gonna be a long night for USU

Somehow, I managed to wander into some old threads from this site. Check out this conversation about realignment from 2017:

Old theories

It's kind of funny to see the ways a lot of us were right and wrong, how we saw it coming but still didn't expect it. Also interesting to go back and see some of the people who used to be contributors - a lot of the names in the conversation don't seem to be around anymore...including a few that I understand really aren't around anymore (can anyone believe the last post from SCGlory was over 7 years ago?).

Not sure why they call it the Rudy League, the Mustang League, after SMU, makes more sense than naming after a walk on. The only question remaining is who gets invited to the party, we already know of about 40-50 teams.

70 team super league per SI