Not sure why, but.

[CougPatrol]

Just got back home after a nasty 90 minute traffic snarl on Snoqualmie pass. A fitting end to a depressing weekend.

I’m not sure why, but yesterday’s loss isn’t bothering me as much as I thought it would. Maybe it’s because we’ve had so much success of late, but more than anything, I think it was because yesterday was like a scrap book of everything I thought this team would be.

Great offense (WRs, Borgi, etc.) A suspect (putting it mildly) defense. A good, but probably not great team. I remember posting in August. That I felt this would be a vintage Leach at Texas Tech team, and that’s exactly what last night was.

We were better than UCLA, but our defense stinks and we threw up all over ourselves. That’s it. To UCLAs credit, it was their first game where they put together Chip’s sideline to sideline, rip you with a seam pass, offense. We had 9TDs though, and should have won by 20. It was a great college football game.

We’re not an elite team, but I’m excited to see how Leach handles this team. He’s a great coach, and I know he’ll take this as a huge challenge. I bet we show some nice improvement as the season rolls on.

We’ve got some whoopings coming our way, I’m afraid. Road games at Utah, Cal, Oregon, and UW are gonna be ugly, but we do have an outstanding offense that’s only going to get better. We can match up with ASU, Colorado, Stanford, and Oregon State. If we can steal one of the tough road games, we can still have a decent season.

This team is who I thought they would be, but dammit, hold onto the ball and tackle on special teams.

 

[chugspig]

Hit the same stops on i90. Always awesome to just hit an imaginary line in the road after 60 minutes of creeping and everyone takes off back up to 75 with no obstructions, or obvious issues.

 

[walzuu]

I agree. I walked out the stadium and realized I wasn’t that bothered.

 

[random soul]

I agree. I walked out the stadium and realized I wasn’t that bothered.

I was disappointed in the way we lost, but this wasn't the Portland State ledge. The program seems fine (though the D has issues), the track record is there. I'm very disappointed in this defense, but at least I know this season won't be boring

 

[sylean]

one word.....Borgi.......he's enough to be happy about.....

 

[Cougston]

Last night was horrific, nauseating to say the least. But I have a feeling this team is going to come out fired up next week and take it out on the Utes.

 

[Fab5Coug]

Just got back home after a nasty 90 minute traffic snarl on Snoqualmie pass. A fitting end to a depressing weekend.

I’m not sure why, but yesterday’s loss isn’t bothering me as much as I thought it would. Maybe it’s because we’ve had so much success of late, but more than anything, I think it was because yesterday was like a scrap book of everything I thought this team would be.

Great offense (WRs, Borgi, etc.) A suspect (putting it mildly) defense. A good, but probably not great team. I remember posting in August. That I felt this would be a vintage Leach at Texas Tech team, and that’s exactly what last night was.

We were better than UCLA, but our defense stinks and we threw up all over ourselves. That’s it. To UCLAs credit, it was their first game where they put together Chip’s sideline to sideline, rip you with a seam pass, offense. We had 9TDs though, and should have won by 20. It was a great college football game.

We’re not an elite team, but I’m excited to see how Leach handles this team. He’s a great coach, and I know he’ll take this as a huge challenge. I bet we show some nice improvement as the season rolls on.

We’ve got some whoopings coming our way, I’m afraid. Road games at Utah, Cal, Oregon, and UW are gonna be ugly, but we do have an outstanding offense that’s only going to get better. We can match up with ASU, Colorado, Stanford, and Oregon State. If we can steal one of the tough road games, we can still have a decent season.

This team is who I thought they would be, but dammit, hold onto the ball and tackle on special teams.

The only thing that has me not in a total panic is that ball security really hasn't been a glaring issue for Leach's teams, particularly the receivers.

If they just hold onto the ball like they normally do, then it's an easy win.

I chalk it up to, college football is dumb sometimes

 

[BleedCrimsonandGray]

Just got back home after a nasty 90 minute traffic snarl on Snoqualmie pass. A fitting end to a depressing weekend.

I’m not sure why, but yesterday’s loss isn’t bothering me as much as I thought it would. Maybe it’s because we’ve had so much success of late, but more than anything, I think it was because yesterday was like a scrap book of everything I thought this team would be.

Great offense (WRs, Borgi, etc.) A suspect (putting it mildly) defense. A good, but probably not great team. I remember posting in August. That I felt this would be a vintage Leach at Texas Tech team, and that’s exactly what last night was.

We were better than UCLA, but our defense stinks and we threw up all over ourselves. That’s it. To UCLAs credit, it was their first game where they put together Chip’s sideline to sideline, rip you with a seam pass, offense. We had 9TDs though, and should have won by 20. It was a great college football game.

We’re not an elite team, but I’m excited to see how Leach handles this team. He’s a great coach, and I know he’ll take this as a huge challenge. I bet we show some nice improvement as the season rolls on.

We’ve got some whoopings coming our way, I’m afraid. Road games at Utah, Cal, Oregon, and UW are gonna be ugly, but we do have an outstanding offense that’s only going to get better. We can match up with ASU, Colorado, Stanford, and Oregon State. If we can steal one of the tough road games, we can still have a decent season.

This team is who I thought they would be, but dammit, hold onto the ball and tackle on special teams.

ASU, First, Buffs, and OSU all now have their calendars circled with WSU being their "get-well" game.

Not like we wouldn't have previously, but we're going to get every teams 110% effort because now we're a winnable game.

 

[702coug]

Last night was horrific, nauseating to say the least. But I have a feeling this team is going to come out fired up next week and take it out on the Utes.

Keep in mind, Utes are coming off a disappointing loss also and will likely try to take it out on the Cougs...and of course they may still be a bit pissed about last years loss. Cougs have got to reach deep for a win this weekend. Coaches gotta put in some extra character building and skill work on the crew.

 

[chipdouglas]

glaring issue for Leach's trans

Your search history is showing... #autocorrect

 

[etowncoug]

The Utes secondary has show a lot of vulnerability and Moss had his arm in a sling last week. It's going to be a battle, but it's a game we can win.

 

[CougPatrol]

Of course we want to win this weekend at Utah, but honestly, I'll be happy if we just compete hard and not beat ourselves with turnovers and special teams blow ups.

After Utah we get a needed bye week before what I consider to be a really important road game at ASU. We need to win one of the next two before the home tilt with Colorado.

 

[PINGDUDE4]

Of course we want to win this weekend at Utah, but honestly, I'll be happy if we just compete hard and not beat ourselves with turnovers and special teams blow ups.

After Utah we get a needed bye week before what I consider to be a really important road game at ASU. We need to win one of the next two before the home tilt with Colorado.

You have the best perspective on this board.

Even though they were not technically picked that high, this in my opinion was still the most over rated WSU has been going into the season in the Mike Leach era. There were way too many new players on defense for this to be a pre-season top 25 team.

What you really have is very a unbalanced team- very productive high scoring offense paired with a very below average work in progress defense.

Word of wisdom, hope for the best but never get too emotionally attached to an unbalanced team. That goes both ways when a team is overwhelming on defense with little or no offense. I lived in Tucson during the Tomey teams, and that was as frustrating . You never would have had a loss like Saturday's but you still had plenty of 7-6 , 10-7 losses that leave you equally as frustrated.

Everyone needs to reset their expectations to what the team really is and not what they wish it was.

 

[SaveFerris]

You have the best perspective on this board.

Even though they were not technically picked that high, this in my opinion was still the most over rated WSU has been going into the season in the Mike Leach era. There were way too many new players on defense for this to be a pre-season top 25 team.

What you really have is very a unbalanced team- very productive high scoring offense paired with a very below average work in progress defense.

Word of wisdom, hope for the best but never get too emotionally attached to an unbalanced team. That goes both ways when a team is overwhelming on defense with little or no offense. I lived in Tucson during the Tomey teams, and that was as frustrating . You never would have had a loss like Saturday's but you still had plenty of 7-6 , 10-7 losses that leave you equally as frustrated.

Everyone needs to reset their expectations to what the team really is and not what they wish it was.

Agree especially on the "unbalanced" part. Utah and Cal look similar to those Tomey teams. Utah waste really good defenses year-after-year because they put their entire offense on the shoulders of a running back and typically don't have more than 1 receiver that can break a game open or a QB that could get it to them anyway.

 

[CougPatrol]

There's a lot of hand wringing going on right now after that epic collapse, and rightfully so, but we can still have the type of season that most of the "balanced" Coug fans hoped for.

Our offense was elite on Saturday night. That's our identity. We're good enough to beat a lot of P12 teams, but unfortunately, we can lose to most of them too. Even programs like Oregon State and UCLA can drop 40+ on us. We need to figure out a way to generate a pass rush and tighten up the special teams. Teams will hit big plays against our defense, but if we would generate some QB pressures, we'd at least be able to get teams behind the chains once in a while. Sadly, I think that's the best we can hope for with this years defense.

 

[BleedCrimsonandGray]

There's a lot of hand wringing going on right now after that epic collapse, and rightfully so, but we can still have the type of season that most of the "balanced" Coug fans hoped for.

Our offense was elite on Saturday night. That's our identity. We're good enough to beat a lot of P12 teams, but unfortunately, we can lose to most of them too. Even programs like Oregon State and UCLA can drop 40+ on us. We need to figure out a way to generate a pass rush and tighten up the special teams. Teams will hit big plays against our defense, but if we would generate some QB pressures, we'd at least be able to get teams behind the chains once in a while. Sadly, I think that's the best we can hope for with this years defense.

Yeah, not gonna happen.

This D is historically bad. Not having a true NT is going to be the undoing of this defense all year. D starts in the trenches, and when you can neither plug up holes or create a pass rush you out undue pressure on the rest of the defense to make up for basically playing 3 men short.

Also, and this is an honest question: is what were seeing from the secondary what they are actually coached to do? By that I mean- run stride for stride with the WR and then neither look for the ball or challenge the catch? Are they being coached to just make a tackle after the reception? Would that be to reduce PI calls?

 

[OrangeGravy]

Yeah, not gonna happen.

This D is historically bad. Not having a true NT is going to be the undoing of this defense all year. D starts in the trenches, and when you can neither plug up holes or create a pass rush you out undue pressure on the rest of the defense to make up for basically playing 3 men short.

Also, and this is an honest question: is what were seeing from the secondary what they are actually coached to do? By that I mean- run stride for stride with the WR and then neither look for the ball or challenge the catch? Are they being coached to just make a tackle after the reception? Would that be to reduce PI calls?

Even the worst football coach imaginable wouldn't coach DBs to do that. PI flags in college are nothing. Why give up a long pass on purpose when you can just tackle the guy before the ball gets there and only give up 15yds?

 

[Coug90]

The only thing that has me not in a total panic is that ball security really hasn't been a glaring issue for Leach's trans, particularly the receivers.

If they just hold onto the ball like they normally do, then it's an easy win.

I chalk it up to, college football is dumb sometimes

We lost 7 turnovers to 1. A -6 TO differential and we lost by 4 with a chance to drive at the end for a TD. And these weren’t interceptions because our QB sucks they were mostly fumbles and (at least one that wasn’t) and several that were close to being down.

I bet if you look at the avg score of games in which a team has a -6 TO differential it’s a 35-40 pt differential. We lost by 4! To a conference opponent.

This is not a bad team. This is a team that can still beat everyone left on the schedule. We won’t, but we can. No reason we can’t stilk win 8-9 games.

 

[cr8zyncalif]

Patrol, I may be in a similar boat (life raft?). This game has such a feeling of unreality to it that I'm finding it surprisingly easy to simply disregard it.

As I've posted on other threads, I can understand the way panic spreads when a group has not encountered this sort of scenario before. If it had been in the central highlands in 1968 there would be a lot of dead people due to panic overcoming training. That happened more than we know when the 1-3 leader personalities in a platoon went down early in the ambush. In this case, nobody is dead. Those training & technique items that need to be reinforced can be reinforced. More important, the importance of reacting in the way you had been trained & trusting others to do their assignments has been reinforced, and that is potentially the best lesson to be learned.

Side note with some relevance. One of my partners is from Rickover's Navy. For those of you out of that loop, it means he was a real Navy Nuke. He went to work for Fluer at San Onofre right out of college (he got an EE degree on the GI bill right out of the navy; he is actually a Husky). I asked him in the early '90's, after some reactor scare, "Alan, what is the difference between working at a reactor in the Navy as opposed to working at a reactor for a private contractor?". He thought for at least 30 seconds, then said (and I will never forget the conversation):

"If it were a navy facility, everybody would have leaped to perform the tasks that they were trained repetitively to carry out. At a private contractor facility, if something happens, everybody is frantically pulling 3 ring binders off the shelves, trying to figure out what they need to do."

Last Saturday, we did not have enough leaders to quell the panic. We had too many people disregarding their training in order to try to do too much because they lost trust in the others, thereby putting their entire unit at risk. We also had a few people who were trying to find their 3 ring binder.

We can solve all but the leader personality issue. I suspect that some of the kids who looked in the mirror Sunday morning probably concluded that they needed to take a step up, and some of those will actually do it. That is an issue that the kids have to solve for themselves.

 

[cougarhawk1]

secondary looks as bad or worse than the defensive line.

 

[etowncoug]

Well said. I think all of us had some mild alarm bells going off when the defense was saying they had 11 leaders rather than 1. That works well until chaos hits. 11 leaders carrying out 11 plans on how to put out the fire. Someone needs to be the alpha on defense. Not sure who it is, but there is an opportunity for someone to step up.

Patrol, I may be in a similar boat (life raft?). This game has such a feeling of unreality to it that I'm finding it surprisingly easy to simply disregard it.

As I've posted on other threads, I can understand the way panic spreads when a group has not encountered this sort of scenario before. If it had been in the central highlands in 1968 there would be a lot of dead people due to panic overcoming training. That happened more than we know when the 1-3 leader personalities in a platoon went down early in the ambush. In this case, nobody is dead. Those training & technique items that need to be reinforced can be reinforced. More important, the importance of reacting in the way you had been trained & trusting others to do their assignments has been reinforced, and that is potentially the best lesson to be learned.

Side note with some relevance. One of my partners is from Rickover's Navy. For those of you out of that loop, it means he was a real Navy Nuke. He went to work for Fluer at San Onofre right out of college (he got an EE degree on the GI bill right out of the navy; he is actually a Husky). I asked him in the early '90's, "Alan, what is the difference between working at a reactor in the Navy as opposed to working at a reactor for a private contractor?". He thought for at least 30 seconds, then said (and I will never forget the conversation):

"If it were a navy facility, everybody would have leaped to perform the tasks that they were trained repetitively to carry out. At a private contractor facility, if something happens, everybody is frantically pulling 3 ring binders off the shelves, trying to figure out what they need to do."

Last Saturday, we did not have enough leaders to quell the panic. We had too many people disregarding their training in order to try to do too much because they lost trust in the others, thereby putting their entire unit at risk. We also had a few people who were trying to find their 3 ring binder.

We can solve all but the leader personality issue. I suspect that some of the kids who looked in the mirror Sunday morning probably concluded that they needed to take a step up, and some of those will actually do it. That is an issue that the kids have to solve for themselves.

 

[CougPatrol]

ASU, First, Buffs, and OSU all now have their calendars circled with WSU being their "get-well" game.

Not like we wouldn't have previously, but we're going to get every teams 110% effort because now we're a winnable game.

Teams can circle their games with us if they want, but we still scored 60 in a conference game and damn near won despite 2 kick returns, 4 fumbles, and 2 INTs.

Our offense can light up ASU, Colorado, Stanford and OSU, and UCLA isn’t any worse than any of those teams.

We’re not a very good team, but we have a lot of firepower. Protect the ball, tackle on special teams, and blitz the mother loving hell out of teams and try to pressure some mistakes. If we give up some big plays, so be it. Our ball again. It’s not ideal, but that’s how I’d play it.

 

[wazzucougs96]

Just got back home after a nasty 90 minute traffic snarl on Snoqualmie pass. A fitting end to a depressing weekend.

I’m not sure why, but yesterday’s loss isn’t bothering me as much as I thought it would. Maybe it’s because we’ve had so much success of late, but more than anything, I think it was because yesterday was like a scrap book of everything I thought this team would be.

Great offense (WRs, Borgi, etc.) A suspect (putting it mildly) defense. A good, but probably not great team. I remember posting in August. That I felt this would be a vintage Leach at Texas Tech team, and that’s exactly what last night was.

We were better than UCLA, but our defense stinks and we threw up all over ourselves. That’s it. To UCLAs credit, it was their first game where they put together Chip’s sideline to sideline, rip you with a seam pass, offense. We had 9TDs though, and should have won by 20. It was a great college football game.

We’re not an elite team, but I’m excited to see how Leach handles this team. He’s a great coach, and I know he’ll take this as a huge challenge. I bet we show some nice improvement as the season rolls on.

We’ve got some whoopings coming our way, I’m afraid. Road games at Utah, Cal, Oregon, and UW are gonna be ugly, but we do have an outstanding offense that’s only going to get better. We can match up with ASU, Colorado, Stanford, and Oregon State. If we can steal one of the tough road games, we can still have a decent season.

This team is who I thought they would be, but dammit, hold onto the ball and tackle on special teams.

I'll be legitimately surprised if Utah whoops us.