It seems that a lot of the coaches feel they finally are getting the depth that they need. Big Joe said it yesterday that he finally feels that he has good depth at the line, Maestro feels he has good depth at running back. It appears that the McGwire has built the line up pretty well. We have players at receiver, just not a lot of experience, but we got some players there. Linebackers and the secondary seem a little thin. The main issue is that we are still a really young team, but that is to be expected after the attrition that we have had for the last 10 years. I know that isn't gonna appease the Furness's and Moore's of the world because they feel that $2.5M should equal instant depth and 10 win seasons, but the roster is slowly taking shape. Leach made a mistake not taking more JC's in the 2013 and 2014 classes, but could that have been a choice to build the roster stronger from the ground out? Look at what Weis did at Kansas in 2013. He took all JC's and Kansas still sucked, so maybe Leach did the right thing by going with freshman. Price did it post 97 and it lead to 30 wins in 3 seasons, even though many wanted him fired at '00. I have a feeling this is going to be decent year I think we can get to 6 or 7 wins and if he did that would be two bowl appearances in four years. Which is what Leach was hired for.
For the first time in awhile
- Thread starter Brent H.
- Start date
Good post. I agree with most of it with a few changes. I do think the top receivers are very experienced. Three of the top five receivers return and that does not count running back Morrow who was the fourth leading pass catcher and Marks who lead the team in catches the previous two year and sat out last season. It is just skewed in most peoples eyes because Mayle and Myers had so many catches.
Regarding recruiting more JC's, like any recruit, it is a gamble. But, for every JC you pick up, take away a freshman. What freshman or sophomores would not be there today? Honestly, if Andrew Furney were there last season and every other player was the same, this team would have won one more game and possibly one or two more.
People who thought a team that went 2, 1 , 2, 4 with recruiting in the bottom of the entire FBS was going to win 10 games in 3 years are idiots. Leach is doing what he is supposed to do and that's develop us into a competitive Pac-12 program. That's why he was given that rolling contract. He knows how to do it, and we gave him the keys to bring in the construction crew to build us into something, and it wasn't going to happen in 1, 2, or 3 years.
2 bowls games in 4 years is a tremendous step up from a program that hadn't been to 1 in a decade, and I agree loading up on JCs could be disastrous, but I think 1 or 2 in 2013 for the secondary REALLY would have helped us transition to get the young guys ready instead of throwing them to the fire.
The good news is that in 3 years our secondary will be a strength like our O-line is this year. Just another roster issue Leach has to sort through, but he'll fix it just like he did the o-line.
The people that cry and complain have zero idea what the solution is because if they knew a damn thing they'd know that building a program from scratch takes time and consistent recruiting as well as a strong scheme. It's the first time in a long time we've had that, but they are too stupid to see it or know how it actually works.
Easily. And I think that is purely from the standpoint of, we tried a field goal and missed. I'd say 3 games were won with Furney on board, strictly because there were many times we tried to go for it on 4th down when kicking was obviously the proper choice. CML just had zero confidence. He'd throw the kicker a bone every once in a while to see how they performed. Seemed like it never worked out well.
Optimistic talk to begin the year is what all coaches do. Here is the thing. There are two types of young, young and talented and young and bottom rung. Young and talented AKA, the 2000 Cougs, though 4-7 lost three OT games, another in the final minute. If this team is young and talented, it will be displyed on the field, not necessarily in the win column. There was little demonstrated in 2014 that this team has turned a corner on the talent front. Hopefully 2015 is the new 2000, but that next level talent was on display during the 2000 spring game, was it displayed in the 2015 spring game as well? I don't think so, beyond Dom.
So what you are saying is that you don't see the talent on this current team that you saw on the greatest run of football in Cougar history? Guess what? No one does, not even Coach Leach. What this team is, is better than it was last season. How much more, not sure. But, it is better.
By the way, wasn't it the 1996 team that lost three overtime games? I think the 2000 team only lost one overtime game and ended up losing the Apple Cup in Pullman 51-3.
Did you read his post? He said the coaches were pleased with depth. That's fact, not optimistic talk.
I don't think youth at the skill positions is a detriment, not in todays game. WR's, RB's and CB's come to campus very well coached and ready to go. The mega programs like Alabama, Ohio State, USC, etc. routinely play true and RS freshmen, and we certainly can't afford to sit kids on the bench who are capable of cracking our 2-deep.
Things have turned to the point where elite senior RB's and WR's are seemingly more rare than top producing Frosh/Soph/Juniors.
Things have turned to the point where elite senior RB's and WR's are seemingly more rare than top producing Frosh/Soph/Juniors.
Upon thinking about your correction, I think this happens a lot when it comes to Mike Price. He was our golden child!!!! He did no wrong!!!! When we had down years, it's OK because we saw light at the end of the tunnel!!! I don't know how much people go to this extreme but history has a way of "muddy'ing" up. I remember some of his down years and he was lucky to go to McD's and not get strung up. People were so ticked. The idea we had to have 2 or 3 years in-between good years, was getting old for a lot of people. Yes, he brought us 3 GREAT years… I also remember the other years as well and while Price has made WSU something of a "remember when…" program, the battle to make us "relevant" was a long one with a torturous path of miserable games.
I say all of this, lest we forget.
By the way, wasn't it the 1996 team that lost three overtime games? I think the 2000 team only lost one overtime game and ended up losing the Apple Cup in Pullman 51-3.[/QUOTE]
It was the 2000 team that lost 3 overtime games. The 1996 Apple Cup went to overtime (the first Wazzu game to go into overtime I think)
It was the 2000 team that lost 3 overtime games. The 1996 Apple Cup went to overtime (the first Wazzu game to go into overtime I think)
Mike Price did plenty wrong. Longtime an Yakin were co-head cheerleaders on the #FIREMIKEPRICE bandwagon during and after that 2000 season.
I wasn't on this board, didn't even know it existed. But if I try to look back without any alterations to reality, I'm fairly certain Price would have been fired before that, if I had any say to it. So many crappy, crappy years. As I've gotten older, I've found patience is a virtue. Reality is a good thing, not emotion.
Reality is a good thing. Price had already landed the impossible at WSU... a Pac-10 conference Championship and Rose Bowl... and you would have wanted him fired, too?
A lot of people don't realize how Price's miniscule budget was micromanaged. At times he was encouraged not to fill scholarships in order to 'save' money.
A lot of people don't realize how Price's miniscule budget was micromanaged. At times he was encouraged not to fill scholarships in order to 'save' money.
I don't think that there is a single person associated with WSU football thought expected us to be winning 10 games in a season within 3 years. There are many that felt that given the 4-8 season in 2011, Mike Leach's history and a general sense of improvement, that WSU would be a 6 win team on a regular basis within a couple years and be a team with a puncher's shot at a north division title in 4-5 years. Any frustration you see is because 3-9 is less than 4-8 and if we had to fire Wulff at 4-8, what are we doing with Leach? If we make a bowl game this year, most of the angst will disappear. If we win a bowl game this year, anyone who says that Leach is not their guy is someone who just doesn't want to be happy with Leach and WSU football.
I'm frustrated because there are still people around here that think that 4-8 is an acceptable result to this season as long as we work hard and improve some statistics. There is no fanbase in the country that would accept zero improvement over four years. At the end of the day, wins are all that matter. As the OP said, it's nice to see that the coaches are starting to talk about how happy they are with the guys that they have. That's the only way that we'll have a shot at reaching our goals. If we continue to lose more games than we win, only a fool would be surprised about fans being angry and unhappy and wanting change. We are truly at a crossroads as a program. Failure this year is going to have a catastrophic effect on fan donations and participation. It's already started to slide and we need the added depth to be meaningful and not just a talking point.
So was I. We followed up our (at the time) greatest achievement in our modern football history by going something like 3-21 in league games over the next 3 seasons. I was hungry for more, and terribly upset by what I saw on the field; particularly in 1998 & 1999.
Let's play the what if game....Had WSU lost to UCLA, USC, and Arizona in 1997, games that we easily could have lost, and only qualified for the Alamo Bowl, I think Price may have been fired after the 2000 season. Thankfully, it didn't happen.
Unlike some people on here, I don't mind being wrong about my negative WSU predictions.
You bet. As many, IMHO, are complaining now, I was then. Rose Bowl birth, and all that, then a 3-8, 3-9 and a 4-7!!! We won 3 conference games in 3 years after that! We were 10th in the Pac, 10th in the Pac, 8th in the Pac. It was sheer misery those 3 years after being lifted so high. Yeah, he had a great year. I was all about, "What are you doing for me NOW". And those 3 years sucked beyond belief. Looking back, I see how that 1997 success, set us up for the 2001 year… But it took 3 years and that was with a Rose Bowl birth to gain the recruiting success. I didn't care, we should have been better...
Thanks for the memories, CP.
Mike Price seemed to be on a perpetual hot seat. A lot of folks didn't want him hired in the first place, withdrew support and cancelled season tickets when he was.
A lot of folks wanted him out after the 1996 season due to the terrible QB play and seemingly, lack of talent overall at the QB position. Leaf's AC effort bought him breathing room.
People forget, Mike Price recruited TWICE... into the final year of his contract. The guy simply had little support from Smith and NONE from Rawlins.
Mike Price seemed to be on a perpetual hot seat. A lot of folks didn't want him hired in the first place, withdrew support and cancelled season tickets when he was.
A lot of folks wanted him out after the 1996 season due to the terrible QB play and seemingly, lack of talent overall at the QB position. Leaf's AC effort bought him breathing room.
People forget, Mike Price recruited TWICE... into the final year of his contract. The guy simply had little support from Smith and NONE from Rawlins.
So, you're saying, with Price, emotionally you wanted us to be better, in 1998, 1999 and 2,000 even though that wasn't realistic?
Yep. Because back then, I didn't know why it wasn't realistic. EDIT: and might I add, emotion is not logical… it just isn't. We just went to the freakin' Rose Bowl and battled Michigan hard! And after that, we didn't have the ability to have 1 conference win!? That sure seemed like a whole big pile of bullarky, IMHO. But looking back, I see how it takes time to fill those empty slots. We lost some serious athletes… Steve Gleason will always be the top of that list for me, personally. Regardless, I've changed in that regard. That's why I love college ball, in any form (baseball, football, basketball). There's no "pay to play", although it's skirting that now. It's about the battle to "reload" that really is fun for me. I don't watch with anticipation on who verbals and who doesn't but I love watching these players grow and move on. So I get that it takes time to rebuild, now.
That 4 years is a prime example of why I believe CML needs all the time in the world, IMHO. Price had 1997 to get the recruiting he wanted/needed. The results were 4 years later. Now realize, CML doesn't have his, "1997" year yet. He's got to build that. That is the ultimate, core reason I'm patient now. Why I'm patient in most things. I look for "improvement" and I'm pretty darn happy. No improvement, or marginal improvement, we need to move on.
It took Price 9 years to get to the Rose bowl and he went to 3 bowls in those 9 years or 33% of the time.
Leach has been here 3 years and has been to a bowl.... 33% of the time.
Price's first 3 years... 13 wins
Leach's first 3 years...12 wins
I've pointed out the similarities numerous times. Winning in Pullman requires a certain amount of patience when we have the right guy. We shouldn't screw with someone that fits our formula for success.
I've noted that I don't think Leach will have the valleys that Price had after he gets us somewhere due to how he reloads talent into his system where as Price would run his talent till it dried up...then go hunting for the next well while we were at the bottom.
I prefer Leach's reloading method as it mitigates seasonal peaks and valleys. When it's built the machine is built, but we were way way behind in being able to build this thing.
Leach has been here 3 years and has been to a bowl.... 33% of the time.
Price's first 3 years... 13 wins
Leach's first 3 years...12 wins
I've pointed out the similarities numerous times. Winning in Pullman requires a certain amount of patience when we have the right guy. We shouldn't screw with someone that fits our formula for success.
I've noted that I don't think Leach will have the valleys that Price had after he gets us somewhere due to how he reloads talent into his system where as Price would run his talent till it dried up...then go hunting for the next well while we were at the bottom.
I prefer Leach's reloading method as it mitigates seasonal peaks and valleys. When it's built the machine is built, but we were way way behind in being able to build this thing.
Just when I think you're starting to get it, you post something asinine that has been repeatedly explained to you.
Once again, I think some posters lose their minds when improvement is not linear.
I hope you understand that differences of opinion are normal? If you read my post, you would see that I was speaking in general terms about frustration being expressed. I wasn't "losing my mind" and I'm personally confident that this season will be better. My initial comment was to counter the thought that people were expecting 10 win teams. We weren't. We weren't expecting to finish 3-9 two out of three years. If someone had asked you in December 2011 if you would be satisfied with WSU being 12-25 under Mike Leach after three years, you would have not accepted that as an acceptable record. If you say otherwise......you are lying to yourself.
There are always going to be rough years when you are a WSU fan. I accept that. That doesn't mean that 3-9 or 4-8 is ever excusable. Wulff needed to be fired because of his failings and any coach who's teams are comparable to Wulff's after three years needs to be on the hot seat. It's time to start seeing some W's. The good news is that we appear to have guys that are physically and mentally ready to do it (even if that only means six wins).
The 2000 comparison wasn't mine. You don't win unless your talent is upgraded. Where/who are our next level talent upgrades? Sadly, the talent overall appears very similar to the lower rung talent that got Doba canned.
As for the rest of the kool aid drinkers, when you haven't had a winning season since 2003, you don't have depth, you might have more "bodies," but you are still looking to find a skeleton crew who, if they can stay healthy, are good enough to get you over the hump. In the last 40 years the Cougs have only had depth during the 2001-2003 seasons. Surely, you realize that.
Once again I will reiterate. Show me 1 BCS coach that had a better/faster turn around from our situation in recruiting/program wins.
The only 1 anyone could come up with was Bill Snyder. The only 1.
And how many games did Snyder win his first 3 years... 13. Leach 12.
To put it bluntly. Our fan base is too stupid to know what progress looks like. It just is. It has ZERO idea what it takes to build a successful program. Case in point people like CougEd. Case in point people that are unhappy that we haven't won more when it's NEVER happened in history any other way for any program ever in our situation.
I'll say it again. If you are unhappy. You are stupid.
And if you want to be happy. Then you need to be smarter about understanding how and why things are the way they are and what needs to happen for us to be successful.
If you don't know what needs to happen or what to look for you will always be disappointed until it all comes together.
We are 2 years away from being a decent Pac-12 team. By decent I mean all phases are ironed out. Our recruiting has caught up in age and developed, and all the roster wrinkles are fully ironed out.
We had to shed 4 years of WAC/MWC basement recruiting. While getting players in who can play and contribute immediately to bridge us through. That's where we were at, and while it's easy to complain it's not hard to understand why things are the way they are, and how we will be improving.
Every single Pac-12 team except Colorado, Oregon State, and Utah were Pac-12 ready. Oregon State and Utah were much further along than us yet we have beaten both of those teams.
Leach has beaten the following Pac-12 teams
Arizona, Oregon State, Utah, Washington, USC, Cal
The ones left to beat
Oregon, Stanford, Arizona State, UCLA, and Colorado
Already you can see that with the deficiencies and bandaid fixed roster Leach has gotten us to a point where we can beat just about anybody in the Pac-12. We are not far away, and THAT is what is supposed to make you have optimism. That is what is showing you we are on our way.
Our fan base is too stupid to see it. It's like everybody wants the Payday, but nobody wants to do the work/ go through the workweek to get it.
Disagree on the talent level. They may not be world beaters, but we have guys that are legit Pac-12 DTs. Charleston White is the best athlete we've had a CB since Paymah. The back 7 in general and secondary in particular needs to improve greatly; we'll see if the JC guys are the answer. I'm not certain that we have any certain NFL draft picks in the receiving corps, but if you compare talent level on the two deep to the Doba era I think we're at least even now if not better. OL, RB, and QB is no worse than a push.
The whole special teams unit needs to improve greatly. Not just kicker and coverage teams. The return teams were quite poor last season, those just slide under the radar because of the many coverage disasters and FG misses.
Now that year three is in the books, I think it's fair to conclude that Harbaugh at Stanford did a better job. He took over a team coming off a 1 win season, and won 4, 5 and 8.
Not having a clue what he inherited in terms of previous players, I gotta think that Stanford still had way better athletes than what Leach inherited, thus having an easier path to that steady improvement.
Agreed. I think we are on the right path and I'm seeing positives but CML is not taking the fastest route, either. Or maybe it is… I don't know. So, that is his prerogative, as he is the HC but I can't argue that he is blazing his own path, on this one. I'd also wager there are many, many examples like Harbaugh. But I think we can now find examples of HC's that have come in and after 3 years, they'll have had a better record than CML. I'm not concerned at this point. Whopptee Do. As long as we aren't on an extreme path of downward spiraling.
I also think, as he has stated, CML is encountering mentalities and situations that he's never encountered before. So from his stand point, he is having to feel some of these things out, too. Either way… his deal. I'm along for the ride. So far, there's improvement on many/most points, so I'm not real concerned.
"Upward trajectory is the Goal, People! Upward!!!"
If you look at the recruiting rankings for Stanford with Harbaugh it's still not the same. No doubt he did well, but he also was starting with a better roster.
Stanford recruiting rankings pre-Harbaugh
2006 - #54 (This included Toby Gerhart etc.)
2005 - #41
So as you can see Harbaugh was given a roster that still was competitive where as for us...
WSU rankings pre Leach
2011 - #73
2010 - #91
So as you can see that's a big difference.
There has been nobody that has done what Leach has done given what he has had to work with.
Price would have went to a bowl in year one had they been passing out invitations to the Greg Fawker bowl.
We had a losing record the magical bowl year of 2013 that you bring up all the time.
Mike Price was bowl eligible 6 out of 13 years. Or less than 50% of the time. If Leach gets us bowl eligible this year he'll have a better bowl frequency than Price and 2 appearances in 4 years which would account for 22% of our total bowl appearances.
For the record here are our bowl appearances by coach and the number of years coaching
Leach - 1 out 3 years
Wulff - 0 out of 4 years
Doba - 1 out of 5 years
Price - 5 out of 13 years
Erickson - 1 out of 2 years
Walden - 1 out of 9 years
Hollingberry - 1 out of 17 years
So with a bowl game this year Leach will be 2nd all time in our 96 year history in bowl appearances.
As I said our fan base is too stupid to know what progress looks like.
If he doesn't even know how to spell a fictional character's name correctly, what makes you think he can interpret your algorithm?
How about Cal before Tedford? 9-35 in the four years preceding Tedford including 4-29 in the three years before he arrived?
How about Stanford before Harbaugh? 16-40 in the five years before Harbaugh.
How about UW before Sarkisian? 12-47 in the five years before he arrived.
In all three of those cases, those programs were struggling as much, or more in the year before those coaches arrived than WSU did in Wulff's final year. Over the course of the years before, they were in the same ballpark in terms of incompetence. In all three cases, the teams got dramatically better within three years. We all know that the WSU job is a tough one, but this "woe is me" crap is just an excuse. Leach failed to do a good job last year and everyone knows it. He'll do better this year. Your insistence that nobody has had it as bad as Leach sounds a lot like the "Vince Lombardi himself couldn't do any better" excuses that we heard when Wulff took over.
They all had talent though. Every single one of those teams weren't recruiting in the bottom of FBS. UW had talent. We all knew that. Harbaugh had Toby Gerhart and an Oline to work with to start. There was more on all those teams than what WSU had.
Show me 1 team that had the recruiting/record we had. You won't find any.
I'll say it again. Our fan base is too stupid to know what building a program looks like and what to expect.
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Justt STOP with the recruiting rankings bullchit.
Everybody knows WSU's recruiting rankings over the past 4 seasons... on average rank DEAD LAST in the Pac-12 according to Rivals.
This entire hopium overdose is based on the belief Leach holds a magic eye in recruiting no other coach has.
Justt STOP with the recruiting rankings bullchit.
Everybody knows WSU's recruiting rankings over the past 4 seasons... on average rank DEAD LAST in the Pac-12 according to Rivals.
This entire hopium overdose is based on the belief Leach holds a magic eye in recruiting no other coach has.
What's an algorithm...is that like a meme or something?
No, you're too stupid because you are comparing apples to oranges.
They didn't offer 6 win teams bowl bids during the previous coaching regimes.
Second, bowl quality.
The New Mexico Bowl does not equal the Rose Bowl, Holiday Bowl, or Sun Bowl
Your never ending spin to make Mike Leach=Mike Price is rather entertaining, though.
That's the bullsh!t part of this whole circus that we've had going on this message board for years. Whenever anyone else struggles, it's because of their coach. For us, it's always the players. Maybe the recruiting rankings were all wrong and their players sucked balls?
There's no definitive answer, but there are plenty of teams in plenty of leagues that struggle, but as soon as they get the right coach, they start to improve. One thing that does muddy the water in our situation is the fact that Wulff was making the team better when he was fired and finished at 4-8. Not good enough to warrant keeping him, but we were improving. Most teams that fire their coaches do it as the program spirals downward in the toilet. With Wulff, we'd already gotten to the bottom of the toilet and the bowl was refilling. That makes it more difficult to evaluate Leach.
Many coaches regress in their third or fourth year depending on the status of the recruiting and current players. It's unusual for them to drop from six wins to three wins. It's normally a one or two win regression. All BS aside, if Leach can't reach 6-6 with this schedule, you have to wonder if we'll ever win a conference championship with him. That's why Wulff was fired in 2011. If he couldn't get to a bowl game in year four of his tenure, why the hell should we have kept him?
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No. It's true. All of the information supports that it is true. It's not just the recruiting rankings, but also the play on the field that sunk the program. Wulff hosed us. The ceiling for Wulff was 4 wins. The floor with him was 1 win.
Leach the ceiling so far is 6 wins and the floor 3 wins. Is that better? Yes it's better.
Now just like building ANYTHING it happens in steps and stages and sometimes there are holes where setbacks happen (see 3 wins last year), Price stepped back for 3 wins...and why did that happen? People graduated and young inexperienced players took over. What happened in the secondary last year... Experienced players graduated and inexperienced players took over.
It's not hard to comprehend...unless you don't have the brain capacity to understand.
Wulff never beat a single Pac 12 team with a winning record. Not one.
Leach beat USC, UW, Arizona, and Utah all with winning records.
We were behind everyone. By a lot, and everyone else upgraded as did we, but at the same time that terrible starting point hurt us and you can't deny it. I mean you can try, but you are just being stupid refusing to believe the truth.
We have to shed those 4 years of poor recruiting + bring in talent and get them experience...while competing against everyone who already has an upper hand. That's insane to think that it will all of a sudden get better.
I posted earlier Mike Riley's last 5 seasons at Oregon State...and Nebraska hired him. You want to know why? Because it's hard to do anything at Oregon State...just like it's hard for us to do anything.
It took Price 9 years to get us to the rose bowl, and he only went to bowls 5 times. ever. He had more losing seasons than winning ones, and ALL of a sudden Leach has to do what Price never did out of a hole Price never faced? Get real.
When you accept how bad things were and realize where we were at then everything makes sense. It completely makes sense why we went 3 wins then 6 back 3 probably back to 6. We are trying to climb out of a gigantic hole, and in order to do that it takes time, and there will be a setback as we sort through all the roster holes left behind while trying to bring in new people.
You don't want to accept that fine, but you just come off as someone that is unrealistically impatient when it's absolutely clear that we are an improved program that is building as we go.
You've promised we'll be in control of a Pac-12 North championship at kickoff on Friday November 27th. Th season is here. Why not let it play out... then gloat?
