LA Times column on Mora era and loss to WSU
- Thread starter How_did_this_happen?
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One interesting thing about that article is the author's apparent conviction that losing to Washington State (gasp!) should be a universally agreed-upon school embarrassment. Hey, fella - this ain't the WSU you THINK you know. This is now one of the best teams in one of the best conferences in the country.
And I've been noticing that a lot, with WSU and also with the Seahawks. WSU has a reputation, recently of being bad; the Seahawks, good. When WSU wins - no matter how good we are right NOW - it's viewed as an embarrassment, because we haven't been good long enough for the reputation to change. With the Seahawks, there is a reputation of being good - even though the record is .500 through midseason - and so every opponent victory is heralded as a signature win. Andy Dalton has turned a corner! Cam Newton has turned a corner! (Or they're just pretty good QBs playing a team that is not as good as its reputation). In short, losses to good teams with bad history are viewed as shameful, and wins over bad-to-mediocre teams with good reputations are viewed as enormous signature wins.
Otherwise, this was a total sour grapes article. Complains about Falk playing through apparent injury, about officiating, about lucky bounces. It's a typical homer move to describe your opponents' victories as YOUR losses, but still obnoxious. He also makes it sound as if UCLA controlled the game from start to finish only to blow a big lead at the end. Um, in the game I was watching, we led for much of the game, and you led for about 2 minutes late in the 4th quarter. That was not your lead to blow - that was a very fragile thing you enjoyed for 2 minutes of game clock.
Complaining about players powering through injuries is a strange one though. Sure, I can see it from the perspective of "I'm annoyed that this team is trying to win at all costs," but really? You're complaining that we beat you with our starters in the game? It's such poor sportsmanship; basically asking if we will play our backup(s) because it gives YOU a better shot at winning - all under the pretense that YOU think you know something the medical staff don't about his medical condition.
Bill Plaschke was the author. He is on ESPN's "Around the Horn". He has been a longtime columnist. At one time a long time ago, he was the Mariner beat writer at the Seattle PI.
The article was definitely written from a point of view that ignored a lot of facts and exaggerated many things. It seems it was written to get "Hits/Clicks" more than anything.
I like this comment from a Bruin: "This is the biggest "sore loser" article I have ever read. Undermanned WSU team? We were a FG away from being in first place in the north and are now ranked....oh wait that is right the classless UCLA team who warmed up on the WSU side of the field before the game isn't ranked anymore?? Face the facts you got beat by a better team and got what you deserved. No more disrespecting WSU....better start paying attention."
Yeah, that jumped out at me too. I meant to make a mention of that in my post, but forgot. It was clear to me that the UCLA coaches and players thought that WSU and it's Air Raid was a soft finesse offense. They believed that they were going to out physical WSU and WSU would fold. The warming up on WSU's side of the field was the first mind game for them. It didn't work.
I am sure glad that Seahawk owner and Cougar Paul Allen was smart enough to fire husky Jim Mora after one year.
And by out physical you mean take every opportunity to push the bounds of unsportsmanlike conduct and late hits, right?
Undisciplined penalties. Inability to score TDs in the red zone. Getting picked apart down the stretch.
Sounds like football 101 on how to lose games because of bad coaching.
Sounds like football 101 on how to lose games because of bad coaching.
Why crap on the ceremony to honor Pasquale in that article? It really seems out of place. I can see he's trying to draw a comparison between good and bad, but dude... "yeah, all this nice honoring seniors was nice, but was really nothing because they lost the game" was what I took from that.
Never really cared for Plaschke much anyway, but that pretty much cements it.
Yep. They went over the line a few times, but didn't get called. That is on the refs who let that go. During the game, I wrote that UCLA was blatantly holding on each pass play, often directly in front of the refs. I said at the time, if the refs weren't going to call it, they should continue to do it. The refs didn't penalize UCLA for their sometimes cheap shots, so they continued to do it too.
Yeah, I think with all the false starts they refs decided to swallow their whistles on the holding calls.
I only saw a few myself, but they were blatant and usually on a play where we actually got some penetration. There was one where the LG got bull rushed and knocked on his a$$ and just held onto our DT and took him down with him - right in front of one of the sideline officials.
I think that was a Cougar fan commenting, not a Bruin. He uses "we" when talking about WSU being a FG away from 1st place in the north. Nonetheless, spot on comment.
Glad Cougar
plashcrap is a literary embarrassment. Never read him. Just win, he'll eventually die and move on. That guy is a class A moron. There is more than one Trojan fan that uses a plashchke quote (which was wrong) in their signature......
