Then his biggest issue is gonna be the reference he gets from the WSU coaching staff. Any school looking at signing him is gonna call and ask what happened. He’d be better off keeping quiet on social media.
Pono Gone
- Thread starter etowncoug
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Then his biggest issue is gonna be the reference he gets from the WSU coaching staff. Any school looking at signing him is gonna call and ask what happened. He’d be better off keeping quiet on social media.
The question they will ask is when did you leave WSU? Two weeks before the first game and two weeks after fall camp started. ---Welcome to New Mexico State
McBroom and Ekuale combined for 12 solo tackles and 3 sacks last year. The position is more about occupying blockers than it is about making tackles.
No.
Leach already said he's essentially been kicked off the team for no showing.
He's gone.
In the grand scheme of things, better for him to quit now then to de-facto quit during games.
Have to wonder if they have requested immediate eligibility for McDougle. Waivers of the sit out rule are being granted some this year. For example I noticed Demetris Robertson was granted immediate eligibility to play this year without sitting a season after his transfer from Cal. to Georgia. Recall seeing others granted this waiver as well.
Have to wonder if they have requested immediate eligibility for McDougle. Waivers of the sit out rule are being granted some this year. For example I noticed Demetris Robertson was granted immediate eligibility to play this year without sitting a season after his transfer from Cal. to Georgia. Recall seeing others granted this waiver as well.
Good point PingDude.
Be interesting to know if Mr. Chun might be working the back channels re: McDougle and a waiver of the mandatory one-year on the sidelines.
Wouldn’t hurt to ask the NCAA.
At this point I’m probably the only one, but I’m still holding out that maybe Lolohea would re-think his decision, come to CML and the team with hat in hand and a new attitude and be reinstated to the roster after a one- or two-game suspension.
comfort has done nothing, probably for a reason. I expect him to be routinely blown out and dominated
Thanks Ed.
I do try to stay positive. It seems a lot more enjoyable to follow sports with that mindset.
People seem a little concerned about Taylor Comfort because of his relative lack of size and Pac-12 experience.
It's worth a reminder that Claeys and Phelps also have two more "big bodies" available to rotate with TC if Jordan Lolohea doesn't make it back this season:
Kingston Fernandez, a 6-2, 280-pound redshirt senior who lettered in 2016 and probably would've done so again last season if he hadn't gotten hurt in September.
Hunter Mattox, a 6-3, 290-pound redshirt junior who made his collegiate debut in the Holiday Bowl last December.
Both these guys were 3-star recruits with interest from Arizona State and other D-I schools before choosing to be a Coug.
Fernandez and Matton are veteran options as the defensive staff looks to mix and match "The Steak Eaters" on the defensive front during the '18 season.
Pete... Jlo nor Tapa are coming back this year. Let’s deal in reality. Why would leach let a player back who went on social media and said his position coach knows less than a 21 year old jc transfer. He is not letting him come back.
I hope the two players you mentioned are good stop gap players, where they Contribute until the younger players are ready for full time work. But neither player has played. It is not like 2017 had great depth on the interior like WSU had from 2012 to 2016, meaning WSU played mostly the same three guys in their 3-4 last year, with limited snaps for Mattox and Fernandez and comfort .
Leach's comments were not as harsh as what he's said about other players leaving during the season, which gave me a slight bit of hope that maybe the door was open for a return. But then it came out that Lolohea had been gone since August 13.
I don't know this kid. I certainly have not had an in-depth conversation with him to truly know him. So I hate to say that he IS immature or anything like that. So what I'm about to say very well may not be attributable to him.
But this is where the rating system is lacking. And I don't know that there's a solution, per se. But someone can have all the physical attributes to be successful but without the proper skills between the ears, the physical stuff means nothing. 4star kid can be an incredible athlete. But he's a 2star athlete with what's going on in his head.
EDIT: Wait, what?! He's been gone since August 13th? He's out. No way a kid that's missed that much practice is making it on the field.
But this is where the rating system is lacking. And I don't know that there's a solution, per se. But someone can have all the physical attributes to be successful but without the proper skills between the ears, the physical stuff means nothing. 4star kid can be an incredible athlete. But he's a 2star athlete with what's going on in his head.
EDIT: Wait, what?! He's been gone since August 13th? He's out. No way a kid that's missed that much practice is making it on the field.
Leach said he thought Lolohea had been playing just fine. I suspect what happened is that Phelps was pushing him to play more consistently (some indicated Pono would take plays off during the spring scrimmages). It's possible that Comfort elevated his play, through sheer work and determination more than talent and definitely size, and Phelps saw playing him as a means of motivating Lolohea. Clearly it didn't work, and that's too bad for both WSU and Lolohea, because quitting is going to dog him wherever he goes.
On the flip side, Misiona Aiolupotea-Pei is turning heads left and right. Had Lolohea stuck with it and maximized his potential, he and Aiolupotea-Pei could have been a PAIR of difference makers as the coaches hoped when they signed them.
Of course, there is this squawking that they were making up for the catastrophic attrition of interior d-linemen in the 2014 recruiting class. A closer look shows that only Ngalu Tapa is missing (and didn't play last year). Fernandez is still on the team, and Mata'afa, who wasn't pegged to play inside until last year, would be but is now in the NFL. At 6-8, Jalen Canty was never going to play inside.
I think he did work hard training wise. He dropped his weight from 310 to 295 and trimmed his body fat to 20 percent, down from 26. He did seem a bit pudgy when he arrived in January, so ... .
Was he butt hurt because a former walk-on gave him more than a run for his money? It appears so, but competition is part of the game.
While there are times I know I express myself too much, more times than not, I see how keeping your mouth shut is more of a positive than a negative. I think I just showed my age...
The "one who are close" should get him to shut it up.
Comfort is on record as recognizing that keeping his pads low was his #1 thing to work on this season. If he learns to do that and gets the associated leverage benefits, he will be fine. But a starting nose in the PAC can probably only play for what...70-75% of the plays at the most?? A more ideal distribution would probably be for the starter to pick up 60-65% of the plays. This is going to be an opportunity for one of the younger guys to play and stake a claim on the position for next season.
Time lets us see that sometimes the dirt on your face was thrown there by your own hand.
He might not be getting the kind of recruiting attention he thought when he decided to quit. He's really hurt his stock each time he's opened his mouth.
Gotta love the condescension too - because he needs to explain to (mostly) adults what tough life decisions are.
Like guys making hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars per year coaching football???? lol
I dont like his departure. I think he would be better off at WSU. I dont like how he has gone to social media to plead his case. However, lets not overlook that social media is what young people do and like it or not coaching staffs grossly overpaid to teach a sport should just suck it up and deal with it. Its a generation of kids living online and coaches being overpaid to coach football. They need to learn how to work together lol
Our coaching staff has been quite professional about this. Not a single harsh word for Pono despite his childish behavior.
There is no point. They have to focus on the kids there. Saying anything about him now only redirects attention from the task at hand.
CML doesn't talk about players that aren't there. He focuses on the ones that are.
