Interesting Wilner and the Pac-12 Football grades...

[M-I-Coug]

Pac-12 football grades: Here’s how Huskies, Cougars were graded for 2022 season

Given the state of the Huskies 13 months ago, after the 4-8 dumpster fire, this qualifies as a stellar year. Here's how Jon Wilner graded UW and WSU.

www.seattletimes.com

 

[How_did_this_happen?]

Pac-12 football grades: Here’s how Huskies, Cougars were graded for 2022 season

Given the state of the Huskies 13 months ago, after the 4-8 dumpster fire, this qualifies as a stellar year. Here's how Jon Wilner graded UW and WSU.

www.seattletimes.com

USC didn't deserve that high of a grade with the talent they had.

UW lost to ASU of all teams. That disqualifies them for an A+ grade. I'd give them an A- because they had plenty of talent returning. I didn't buy the preseason expectations.

All the other grades look good.

 

[BleedCrimsonandGray]

USC didn't deserve that high of a grade with the talent they had.

UW lost to ASU of all teams. That disqualifies them for an A+ grade. I'd give them an A- because they had plenty of talent returning. I didn't buy the preseason expectations.

All the other grades look good.

paywall... can anyone give a tl;dr?

 

[Flatlandcoug]

USC didn't deserve that high of a grade with the talent they had.

UW lost to ASU of all teams. That disqualifies them for an A+ grade. I'd give them an A- because they had plenty of talent returning. I didn't buy the preseason expectations.

All the other grades look good.

They went from 4-8 to 11-2 and you want to nitpick their grade?

I gather that our 2018 season would have been an A- in your grading system since we lost to 5-7 USC and barely beat Iowa State in our Alamo Bowl...or would it have been a B+?

 

[moxeecoug]

I would not have graded Arizona so high. Granted they were vastly improved and one win away from a bowl game but their defense was not that good and they were the eighth placed team so there are issues they need to address before taking the next step. I would have given them a C+/B-

I have no problem with the other ratings. I thought OSU and UW were the best teams at the end of the year.

 

[425cougfan]

I would not have graded Arizona so high. Granted they were vastly improved and one win away from a bowl game but their defense was not that good and they were the eighth placed team so there are issues they need to address before taking the next step. I would have given them a C+/B-

I have no problem with the other ratings. I thought OSU and UW were the best teams at the end of the year.

Agree with that. Wilner has always seemed eager to cheerlead Fisch and Arizona.

I'd also knock WSU down to a B-, UW to an A, and otherwise leave it.

 

[Cougini5591]

USC didn't deserve that high of a grade with the talent they had.

UW lost to ASU of all teams. That disqualifies them for an A+ grade. I'd give them an A- because they had plenty of talent returning. I didn't buy the preseason expectations.

All the other grades look good.

Doesn't matter what fuw does...

Give them an "F" and a side order of a middle finger every single day.

Their constant arrogance overrides anything they actually do.

 

[BiggsCoug]

Doesn't matter what fuw does...

Give them an "F" and a side order of a middle finger every single day.

Their constant arrogance overrides anything they actually do.

Agree. uw is a F every year regardless of wins or losses.

 

[95coug]

Agree with that. Wilner has always seemed eager to cheerlead Fisch and Arizona.

I'd also knock WSU down to a B-, UW to an A, and otherwise leave it.

I'd leave OSU as the only A+. They overachieved and found ways to win most of their games.

Everyone else should get knocked down at least a notch or too.

The ratings are about this year, not last year. Losing to ASU automatically costs UW the +.

No team that finishes below .500 gets an A. UA was more competitive overall, but they get a B- for their crap defense and their inconsistent offense/QB.

Utah should have been better. Shouldn't have lost to Florida or UCLA, and folded against Penn State. B+ at most.

With the amount of talent they brought in, USC should have been a top 10 team, but they were soft on D. B, at most

WSU gets a C+ for having a paper tiger defense and an overrated QB. The only reason they're better than a C is that expectations weren't really that high.

Oregon was pretty much what was expected, but they pretty much squandered a really good year by a transfer QB, and the collapse against the Beavers knocks them down all by itself. C+.

UCLA gets a C, because they started hot and then went cold. They underachieved....which means they met expectations.

ASU gets an F. You don't get a passing grade when you fire your HC 3 weeks into the season and still only end up with 3 wins.

Cal gets an F for losing to Colorado...even though they were shorthanded. They were 4-8, but only 1 of their wins was against a team with a detectable pulse.

Stanford gets an F for demonstrating what it looks like when a team has been driven into the ground.

Colorado. I don't even want to give them an F. Pretty sure the letter F could score 40 points against them.

 

[cr8zyncalif]

I'd give Colorado an incomplete...even though they finished the season....

 

[CougPatrol]

WSU gets a C+?

lol, ok.

 

[How_did_this_happen?]

I'd leave OSU as the only A+. They overachieved and found ways to win most of their games.

Everyone else should get knocked down at least a notch or too.

The ratings are about this year, not last year. Losing to ASU automatically costs UW the +.

No team that finishes below .500 gets an A. UA was more competitive overall, but they get a B- for their crap defense and their inconsistent offense/QB.

Utah should have been better. Shouldn't have lost to Florida or UCLA, and folded against Penn State. B+ at most.

With the amount of talent they brought in, USC should have been a top 10 team, but they were soft on D. B, at most

WSU gets a C+ for having a paper tiger defense and an overrated QB. The only reason they're better than a C is that expectations weren't really that high.

Oregon was pretty much what was expected, but they pretty much squandered a really good year by a transfer QB, and the collapse against the Beavers knocks them down all by itself. C+.

UCLA gets a C, because they started hot and then went cold. They underachieved....which means they met expectations.

ASU gets an F. You don't get a passing grade when you fire your HC 3 weeks into the season and still only end up with 3 wins.

Cal gets an F for losing to Colorado...even though they were shorthanded. They were 4-8, but only 1 of their wins was against a team with a detectable pulse.

Stanford gets an F for demonstrating what it looks like when a team has been driven into the ground.

Colorado. I don't even want to give them an F. Pretty sure the letter F could score 40 points against them.

Good work on that last sentence. That's a classic.

 

[How_did_this_happen?]

They went from 4-8 to 11-2 and you want to nitpick their grade?

I gather that our 2018 season would have been an A- in your grading system since we lost to 5-7 USC and barely beat Iowa State in our Alamo Bowl...or would it have been a B+?

You understand that USC has a lot more talent than we have? A loss to them is not as nearly as bad as a loss to, for example, Zona.

Iowa State was ranked when we played them as I recall. They also had more talent overall than we did.

It's not that complicated.

 

[gpcoug]

WSU gets a C+?

lol, ok.

Slightly above average 7-6 record tracks haha

 

[Cougini5591]

I'd leave OSU as the only A+. They overachieved and found ways to win most of their games.

Everyone else should get knocked down at least a notch or too.

The ratings are about this year, not last year. Losing to ASU automatically costs UW the +.

No team that finishes below .500 gets an A. UA was more competitive overall, but they get a B- for their crap defense and their inconsistent offense/QB.

Utah should have been better. Shouldn't have lost to Florida or UCLA, and folded against Penn State. B+ at most.

With the amount of talent they brought in, USC should have been a top 10 team, but they were soft on D. B, at most

WSU gets a C+ for having a paper tiger defense and an overrated QB. The only reason they're better than a C is that expectations weren't really that high.

Oregon was pretty much what was expected, but they pretty much squandered a really good year by a transfer QB, and the collapse against the Beavers knocks them down all by itself. C+.

UCLA gets a C, because they started hot and then went cold. They underachieved....which means they met expectations.

ASU gets an F. You don't get a passing grade when you fire your HC 3 weeks into the season and still only end up with 3 wins.

Cal gets an F for losing to Colorado...even though they were shorthanded. They were 4-8, but only 1 of their wins was against a team with a detectable pulse.

Stanford gets an F for demonstrating what it looks like when a team has been driven into the ground.

Colorado. I don't even want to give them an F. Pretty sure the letter F could score 40 points against them.

Okay... I'll bite...

Who do think we really should have beat and didn't?

Fuw?
Osu?
Fusc?
Oregon?
Utah?

With 60% of our team playing... should we have beat Fresno State?

So if we have 8 wins we get a B and 9 wins we get an A?

I guess that's not completely irrational, but I would think the losses only happening to BOWL teams gets us a B

 

[95coug]

Okay... I'll bite...

Who do think we really should have beat and didn't?

Fuw?
Osu?
Fusc?
Oregon?
Utah?

With 60% of our team playing... should we have beat Fresno State?

So if we have 8 wins we get a B and 9 wins we get an A?

I guess that's not completely irrational, but I would think the losses only happening to BOWL teams gets us a B

In the circumstances we played them, we should have beaten Utah and oregon. Several games - including the rest of our losses - we sucked in the second half. I’m not sure we played a legitimate 4 quarter game all season.
In spite of that, we finished right about where we expected to…but in reality, we underachieved to get there. The way the season played out, none of our games should have been unwinnable…but our performance made them so.

 

[BiggsCoug]

Okay... I'll bite...

Who do think we really should have beat and didn't?

Fuw?
Osu?
Fusc?
Oregon?
Utah?

With 60% of our team playing... should we have beat Fresno State?

So if we have 8 wins we get a B and 9 wins we get an A?

I guess that's not completely irrational, but I would think the losses only happening to BOWL teams gets us a B

Moral victories. Let’s all have a big standing ovation for losing the game we were supposed to lose lol

It was a C season.

 

[Cougini5591]

Moral victories. Let’s all have a big standing ovation for losing the game we were supposed to lose lol

It was a C season.

Stop it. I never said it was time for a parade.

I will say that us having a new starting sophomore D2 qb and winning 7 games with beating Wisconsin at Wisconsin and being right there to beat Oregon and fuw is a little bit better than "our average".

Extra credit earned for bringing in a 1st/2nd round LB

Spin back at you...

Do you think we would've won 8 games with De Laura?

 

[roses04]

Only time I give the UW an A+ is when they go 0-12.

 

[BiggsCoug]

Stop it. I never said it was time for a parade.

I will say that us having a new starting sophomore D2 qb and winning 7 games with beating Wisconsin at Wisconsin and being right there to beat Oregon and fuw is a little bit better than "our average".

Extra credit earned for bringing in a 1st/2nd round LB

Spin back at you...

Do you think we would've won 8 games with De Laura?

Hard to say. Jdl and Ward both suck. Jdl may have more sizzle but he is also high risk. Maybe a game either way.

Also, if you give up 702 yards in a game, do you have a 1st/2nd round linebacker?

If Mark Fields took the place of Henley, does WSU give up 702 yards in the AC?

 

[BiggsCoug]

Only time I give the UW an A+ is when they go 0-12.

Facts.

 

[BleedCrimsonandGray]

Hard to say. Jdl and Ward both suck. Jdl may have more sizzle but he is also high risk. Maybe a game either way.

Also, if you give up 702 yards in a game, do you have a 1st/2nd round linebacker?

If Mark Fields took the place of Henley, does WSU give up 702 yards in the AC?

Bro, how can you be so dense at times yet have some decent takes?

If Henley goes in the 1st or 2nd round, which he will, then yes... despite giving up 700 yards you still have an NFL high draft pick as a LB. Last I checked it was a team sport. And yes, given our pourous DL and highly suspect secondary, Mark Fields gets steamrolled as well.

 

[95coug]

Stop it. I never said it was time for a parade.

I will say that us having a new starting sophomore D2 qb and winning 7 games with beating Wisconsin at Wisconsin and being right there to beat Oregon and fuw is a little bit better than "our average".

Extra credit earned for bringing in a 1st/2nd round LB

Spin back at you...

Do you think we would've won 8 games with De Laura?

Maybe. But no guarantees. JDL is boom or bust. Maybe he’d have a great game and we win one that Ward didn’t. Then the next week he’d lay an egg and lose one that Ward won, or we get blown out instead of losing a close one.

 

[CougPatrol]

I've been frequenting this message board since it launched, and it's interesting to think back to the conversations we had on here years ago and compare them to today's dialogue.

Prior to Mike Leach arriving in Pullman, the almost universal mindset of Cougar fans was that we had a successful season if one or both of the following criteria were met:

1. We beat UW
2. We qualified for a bowl game

With the rapid advancement of social media over the past 10 years, the mindset of our fans has shifted dramatically to resemble more of a professional or blue-blood collegiate program expectation level. In the eyes of these new fans, if WSU qualifies for only "minor" bowl games and/or finishes with a record only slightly better than .500, the season is "mediocre" at best, and those thinking otherwise are kool-aid drinking, participation trophy simpletons who need to be expelled from the fanbase.

With that preface out of the way, allow me to state my point as a reminder about who and what we are. WSU is one of the lowest grossing programs in all of power 5 football. We are located in one of, if not the most challenging recruiting geographies in all of D1 football. It is a minor miracle that WSU has been able to achieve the success that we've enjoyed over the past 40 years.

It's astonishing that we were able to go out and land a coach like Mike Leach to turn our program completely around, but it's even more remarkable that in the wake of Leach's departure, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Rolovich fallout, we've qualified for consecutive bowl games and have enjoyed 2 of the more "fun" seasons in our history.

Please keep that in mind.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

Bro, how can you be so dense at times yet have some decent takes?

If Henley goes in the 1st or 2nd round, which he will, then yes... despite giving up 700 yards you still have an NFL high draft pick as a LB. Last I checked it was a team sport. And yes, given our pourous DL and highly suspect secondary, Mark Fields gets steamrolled as well.

I'm really interested in seeing what happens with Henley. He was obviously a good pickup for us and he played well. That said, when I watched him play in coverage, I didn't come away thinking he was particularly good in space. Henley is good overall and I hope he experiences success in the NFL, but in terms of talent and ability, he is not in the same conversation as Fields or Will Derting when it comes to best MLB at WSU. It's important to remember that Derting shredded his wrist and was never the same after that.

For all of the negativity about how terrible our defense was, our rush defense finished #42 in the country. I absolutely think that guys like Fields or Derting would have made a difference. Maybe not into a Top 25 defense, but they were elite linebackers when they were healthy and they played in space better than what I've seen from Henley. Henley is good, but again, not in their league.

Just one guy's opinion of course.

 

[95coug]

I'm really interested in seeing what happens with Henley. He was obviously a good pickup for us and he played well. That said, when I watched him play in coverage, I didn't come away thinking he was particularly good in space. Henley is good overall and I hope he experiences success in the NFL, but in terms of talent and ability, he is not in the same conversation as Fields or Will Derting when it comes to best MLB at WSU. It's important to remember that Derting shredded his wrist and was never the same after that.

For all of the negativity about how terrible our defense was, our rush defense finished #42 in the country. I absolutely think that guys like Fields or Derting would have made a difference. Maybe not into a Top 25 defense, but they were elite linebackers when they were healthy and they played in space better than what I've seen from Henley. Henley is good, but again, not in their league.

Just one guy's opinion of course.

Fields would make a difference on any defense. He was a freak, and has to be in the conversation for the best defensive player ever at WSU.

Derting was an overachiever. He was smart and read the field well, but was never the fastest player or the best athlete. He was better in the OLB spot earlier in his career, he was really out of position at MLB...but he was the best option we had there. Even without his injuries, he probably didn't translate to LB at the NFL level.

Henley, I think was somewhere in between. Better athlete than Derting. Pretty good at reading the field. Probably didn't anticipate as well as Derting, but his speed and athleticism made up for that. His weakness was coverage. I don't think I've seen a grade on him, but I don't really think he's a 1st rounder.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

Fields would make a difference on any defense. He was a freak, and has to be in the conversation for the best defensive player ever at WSU.

Derting was an overachiever. He was smart and read the field well, but was never the fastest player or the best athlete. He was better in the OLB spot earlier in his career, he was really out of position at MLB...but he was the best option we had there. Even without his injuries, he probably didn't translate to LB at the NFL level.

Henley, I think was somewhere in between. Better athlete than Derting. Pretty good at reading the field. Probably didn't anticipate as well as Derting, but his speed and athleticism made up for that. His weakness was coverage. I don't think I've seen a grade on him, but I don't really think he's a 1st rounder.

Agree that Derting was better at OLB than MLB. Derting had football speed and wasn't going to win any 40 yard dash contests. Still, he had incredible instincts. I'll have to agree to disagree about the NFL for Derting. Watching him dominate in the Notre Dame game in 2003 will always have me believing that he was an NFL talent if not for the injuries. That said, he never played a down in the league...so it's all guessing at this point.

After you mentioned it, I looked at a scouting report and they praised Henley's coverage skills. It was very critical of his rush defense and criticized his ability to get off blocks and too often allowed the offense to dictate the action when the DL didn't protect him. I felt like he was usually a step late in coverage and the article mentioned that he struggled to diagnose plays and was often reactive and that slowed him down. The article projected him as a 5th rounder.

 

[cr8zyncalif]

I'd leave OSU as the only A+. They overachieved and found ways to win most of their games.

Everyone else should get knocked down at least a notch or too.

The ratings are about this year, not last year. Losing to ASU automatically costs UW the +.

No team that finishes below .500 gets an A. UA was more competitive overall, but they get a B- for their crap defense and their inconsistent offense/QB.

Utah should have been better. Shouldn't have lost to Florida or UCLA, and folded against Penn State. B+ at most.

With the amount of talent they brought in, USC should have been a top 10 team, but they were soft on D. B, at most

WSU gets a C+ for having a paper tiger defense and an overrated QB. The only reason they're better than a C is that expectations weren't really that high.

Oregon was pretty much what was expected, but they pretty much squandered a really good year by a transfer QB, and the collapse against the Beavers knocks them down all by itself. C+.

UCLA gets a C, because they started hot and then went cold. They underachieved....which means they met expectations.

ASU gets an F. You don't get a passing grade when you fire your HC 3 weeks into the season and still only end up with 3 wins.

Cal gets an F for losing to Colorado...even though they were shorthanded. They were 4-8, but only 1 of their wins was against a team with a detectable pulse.

Stanford gets an F for demonstrating what it looks like when a team has been driven into the ground.

Colorado. I don't even want to give them an F. Pretty sure the letter F could score 40 points against them.

Fields would make a difference on any defense. He was a freak, and has to be in the conversation for the best defensive player ever at WSU.

Derting was an overachiever. He was smart and read the field well, but was never the fastest player or the best athlete. He was better in the OLB spot earlier in his career, he was really out of position at MLB...but he was the best option we had there. Even without his injuries, he probably didn't translate to LB at the NFL level.

Henley, I think was somewhere in between. Better athlete than Derting. Pretty good at reading the field. Probably didn't anticipate as well as Derting, but his speed and athleticism made up for that. His weakness was coverage. I don't think I've seen a grade on him, but I don't really think he's a 1st rounder.

I'd say that James Darling is a more direct comparison to Henley than Mark Fields. Just my $0.02.

 

[Observer11]

Lee Blakeney would like a word please.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

I'd say that James Darling is a more direct comparison to Henley than Mark Fields. Just my $0.02.

That's actually a pretty good call.

 

[cr8zyncalif]

Lee Blakeney would like a word please.

Solid guy, exceptionally durable. Similar to Derting but more durable. Still, since IMHO quickness is Henley's biggest asset (he has many assets, but that one is inherent), I"d say that only Fields and Darling are comparable. And because Fields could probably stop a tow truck in a head on collision, I'd put Henley with Darling.

 

[95coug]

I'd say that James Darling is a more direct comparison to Henley than Mark Fields. Just my $0.02.

Yeah, that's better. Hard to compare anyone to Fields.