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Recruiting: Four-star linebacker will visit...

Rancho Cucamonga (Calif.) Los Osos OLB Bryce Youngquist says he's down to Oklahoma and Oregon, though he's still planning on taking an official visit to Washington State this fall.

The 6-foot-2, 210-pound outside linebacker, rated four-stars by Rivals and the No. 152 overall prospect in the country, will also visit Arizona State and Wisconsin, in addition to the Sooners, Ducks and Cougars.

Oregon looks like a safe bet here.

Offensive line

I will have to say that I have been impressed with how far the offensive line has come in 4 years under Leach and McGuire. From where they were in 2012 to what they are now, it is encouraging and they are building depth too. The current offensive line has 2 NFL players on it IMO. Dahl, who might be a 1st rounder and Cole Madison. If Grinch can get the defense from being awful to just about average, then this team will win some games.

Story: Bruce Feldman Interview on Leach, Cougars (Part I) + Promotion

Spoke with Bruce Feldman of Fox Sports recently to get his thoughts on WSU & Leach heading into the 2015 season: https://washingtonstate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1784317

Also, today we have started a 30-day free promotion: https://n.rivals.com/users/sign_up/164

So, since most or all of you in the Wazzu War Room are already subscribers, tell your family, friends & co-workers about us. We're excited about the future.

Former CPW hired by......

Hah - made you look! Nice little article about Aron Baynes in the Detroit press. Kind of neat that he is the best FT shooter in the NBA among bigs. No hack-a-Baynes here.


http://www.freep.com/story/sports/nba/pistons/2015/07/15/detroit-pistons-aron-baynes/30194539/

Center Aron Baynes isn’t exactly a household name, so Detroit Pistons fans are going to have to learn about his game.

One area that might be appealing is Baynes’ toughness. He’s the type of guy who doesn’t mind leaving his elbows a little high when setting screens, drawing the ire of opponents.

“Everyone says that I play physical, but I don't see it like that,” said Baynes, who signed as a free agent this month. “I think that I'm out there trying to play hard, and there's things that you're allowed to do on the basketball court, like set screens, and that's a physical part of the game. For myself, I take pride in trying to be one of the best in doing that.”

Pistons president/coach Stan Van Gundy, seated to Baynes’ left at an introductory news conference, just grinned. One of his stated goals for the off-season was to get tougher.

Baynes also arguably is the best free throw shooter among centers in the NBA. He is a career 84.7% shooter.

“Free throw shooting, obviously, was a problem for us last year, next-to-last in the league, and Aron's the best free throw-shooting big out there,” Van Gundy said. “Eighty-five percent at the line last year, that's a huge thing for us in games, especially coming down the stretch. So that was also a big thing — maybe bigger for us than for other people with big guys.”

A question about a "tell"

I just remembered something that occurred after last year's Apple Cup. One of the mutt players stated that they knew ahead of the snap what the play was, that they had picked up on a "tell" from our offense. Distinctly remember thinking that he should have kept his mouth shut and maybe we would still be giving away our intentions this year. Any idea what the "tell" was? Someone posted that when Halliday changed the play that it was invariably to a run. Did Falk show the same tendency? Was that it or some else? One of the players changing their stance or something else? Would be nice to know this so it doesn't reoccur. Any indication that other opponents had noticed something?

Wulff Watch 2015 Continues!

Buckle up kids CougCenter apparently got sick of some of the aPaulogists on here heading over to the SB Nation articles talking about the mythical 6-6 2011 team.....and now they've summoned your lunacy center stage.

One of my favorite quotes about the tremendous "improvements" in 2010,2011

"It did get better, but not nearly enough as WSU was ranked 95th and 98th in 2010 and 2011"

Pac12 Network revenues and Directv

So how much is this hurting? Interesting article, here. It's hurting big time.

Especially when we are in the middle of a "facilities race" with the SEC, look at how much the SEC Network brings in… ouch. The SEC is going to be able to bring in up to $20 mill A YEAR for each school… The Big Ten is bringing in 3 times more for the conference...

http://www.foxsports.com/college-fo...e/the-15-most-valuable-sports-networks-050715

KSU vs WSU

There are folks on here that believe that Paul Wulff was the architect of the worst football teams in college football history and that no coach has ever had to face the challenges that Leach faced when he took over the WSU job. It's often said that no other program was as bad as WSU was when Leach was hired.

My go-to story of a team that went from terrible to great is KSU. I personally feel that no coach has ever done a greater job than Bill Snyder has done at Kansas State. I've been told that KSU was a lot better off than WSU by a lot of measures, but none have actually been presented. From what I've seen, the only way that the KSU job in 1989 was better than the WSU job in 2012 is that the Big 8 featured a lot of terrible teams at the time and it wasn't that hard to win. Of course, that makes KSU's 0-21-1 record in Stan Parrish's last two years all the more damning.

In the six years prior to Snyder taking over, KSU went 9-55-2. They finished winless twice. They went 3-40-1 in the last four seasons before Snyder took over. Those three wins came against 1-10 Missouri, 3-8 KU and 1-AA Western Illinois. In the two seasons before Snyder took over KSU, the Wildcats were outscored by an average of 14-40. Between 1983 and 1988, KSU lost to 1-AA teams four times. Of their 21 losses under Stan Parrish, 10 were against teams with losing records.

As bad as Wulff was at WSU and as much as he needed to be fired, I just can't see how anyone could say that KSU in 1988 was in better shape than WSU. This isn't a puff piece trying to make Paul Wulff look good but I'm curious to see what positive things that someone can say about KSU in December 1988 (or from 1983 to 1988) to suggest that KSU wasn't the biggest dumpster fire in the history of college football when Snyder took over.

New WBB coach

I see where JD hired a new assistant bb coach. Now she needs to tell hubby to get out of the way and let the guy coach.One would bet that Moos put the heat on Batman and robin to hire a new coach. However,JD should have made Robin the Director of Development. One hopes that they have the sense to let the new guy take over the real coaching of the team.
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