Preseason Media Poll
- Thread starter ScottHood
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I don't quite understand why OSU and Stanford (perhaps even Cal) are as highly regarded as they are. We all had losing conference records last year and a major turnaround is speculative at best.
It's depressing to think that voters think so little of WSU that we could peak in 2018 at 11-1*, and we're already regarded as being perhaps the worst team in the worst P5 conference again. Literally one ~0.500 year and it's like the Leach era never happened.
*USC was a dubious result
It's depressing to think that voters think so little of WSU that we could peak in 2018 at 11-1*, and we're already regarded as being perhaps the worst team in the worst P5 conference again. Literally one ~0.500 year and it's like the Leach era never happened.
*USC was a dubious result
Until WSU can prove a true winning consistency with a coaching transition, it will always be looked down upon.
I agree, I had just hoped we bought ourselves more goodwill getting ourselves in the Top 10 a couple of times over the last 5 years... didn't think it would be as convenient as it is to put us back in the storm cellar
Fair. But going from a household name like Leach to...well, Rolovich (obviously jury is still out, lol)...I pretty much expected it.
Expected it as well especially without a spring to see what we look like. It's just a preseason poll at the end of the day though.
Not surprising. ESPN's best odds for us is a toss up against OSU. We're expected to lose the rest.
There's at least some chance the respondents carefully examined the returning roster and analyzed the impact of needing to install new offenses and defenses, the loss of spring ball, and the QB having zero college snaps.
OK, fine, I can't even type that with a straight face. They just looked at last year's records and considered programs' reputations and overall profiles, and 50,000-foot considerations like who the coach is.
I'm not surprised at all, and even based on more careful consideration, I have a hard time disagreeing with anything in the poll. I wish we got Oregon State later in the season, assuming all the games will be played.
OK, fine, I can't even type that with a straight face. They just looked at last year's records and considered programs' reputations and overall profiles, and 50,000-foot considerations like who the coach is.
I'm not surprised at all, and even based on more careful consideration, I have a hard time disagreeing with anything in the poll. I wish we got Oregon State later in the season, assuming all the games will be played.
Well it will be an interesting year, the Cougs have a solid Oline, good running backs, good experience at WR, the big question is the starting QB, and based upon last year, someone without starting experience stepped up, I have to think all those practice reps the back up QBs have had helped, there are a lot of weapons in this offense.
The D can't get any worse, both Stanford and OSU had losing records last year, hell Hawaii beat OSU last year, I'd like to think Rolo is playing them with more talent this year. Cal gets by on D, and their offense could have trouble in Pullman in middle of December, plus their QB wil be out by then, he can't stay healthy. New coach I get, but I think this team has a chance to be better than last year, if the defense improves. They'll run the ball more, which in itself should help the D. I think 4-3 through the first 7 games is certainly possible, if Rolo and the defensive staff handle the transition well, could be better. Oregon lost a lot of players through the draft and those that took the opt out route. Helton has gone to the airraid at USC, well the Cougs have seen that more than anyone, and with Jimmy as the HC at UW, who knows. The pac 12 is not a great football conference right now, and if we get good to great QB play, with this new offense, and some improvement on D, we can surprise some people, I realize that may sound optimistic, but there are no highly ranked teams in this conference for a reason, so in theory we are capable of beating anyone on the schedule. If Leach was still here they would be projecting at least 3-4 wins, if Rolo brings something new and refreshing to the team, who knows. On the other hand, if the new staff and players don't adjust quickly, it could get ugly, and that's the only thing the prognosticators are looking at.
The D can't get any worse, both Stanford and OSU had losing records last year, hell Hawaii beat OSU last year, I'd like to think Rolo is playing them with more talent this year. Cal gets by on D, and their offense could have trouble in Pullman in middle of December, plus their QB wil be out by then, he can't stay healthy. New coach I get, but I think this team has a chance to be better than last year, if the defense improves. They'll run the ball more, which in itself should help the D. I think 4-3 through the first 7 games is certainly possible, if Rolo and the defensive staff handle the transition well, could be better. Oregon lost a lot of players through the draft and those that took the opt out route. Helton has gone to the airraid at USC, well the Cougs have seen that more than anyone, and with Jimmy as the HC at UW, who knows. The pac 12 is not a great football conference right now, and if we get good to great QB play, with this new offense, and some improvement on D, we can surprise some people, I realize that may sound optimistic, but there are no highly ranked teams in this conference for a reason, so in theory we are capable of beating anyone on the schedule. If Leach was still here they would be projecting at least 3-4 wins, if Rolo brings something new and refreshing to the team, who knows. On the other hand, if the new staff and players don't adjust quickly, it could get ugly, and that's the only thing the prognosticators are looking at.
You apparently missed last season. We beat Oregon State at home by one point. If homefield advantage means anything, we would have lost in Corvallis and stayed home at 5-7 while Oregon State would have been the one getting ground into dust by Air Force at 6-6. I'm not surprised at all that we are behind the Beavers.
Stanford is harder to figure out. They somehow beat UW but were otherwise terrible. They've been in general decline since 2015. That said, last year was their first really bad year in over a decade, so they've probably earned a little more rope than us.
Just re-watched the Stanford game from last year and forgot how Borghi and the offense simply manhandled the Cardinal D. Coug defense almost let Stanford come back before the half but the offense simply out gunned them. Brutal beatdown against Shaw. I'm personally glad Cougs get the Beavers early, I watched the Hawaii-OSU game last year and the Rainbows made it look easy. With the *upgrade in talent I'm optimistic Rolo can bring a similar game plan this year.
You apparently missed my last post: my hope was that peaking for a few years and having a 0.500 year would buy us a little bit of goodwill beyond 1 year... Obviously, I was wrong.
This season will tell how right or wrong the voters are, but FWIW I don't think media voters are really getting into the weeds with how many points Team X beat Team Y by, and who had HFA at the time...
If we hadn't totally sh!t the bed last year, I'd feel differently about what to expect from the media. As it is, even though Leach washed away most of the Wulff stench, WSU is still a team that has had a lot of mediocre seasons. I personally expect us to be 3-3 going into the 7th game. I'd love to see us finish 5-3 this season and surprise the media.
I for one think that it is an advantage to be underrated. And the return to underrating WSU is a golden opportunity to over perform when we were underrated. Beat a few others and we will move off the bottom of the predictions.
We haven't finished at the bottom of our division since 2012 but they still put us here. The perception is we are a doormat despite this. No one in the press loses credibility when they pick against us. We're going to be disrespected until it because laughable to pick against us.
That is certainly an optimistic way of looking at it. I'm more pessimistic, so my thoughts are:
- Cougar football has been one big "opportunity" to prove the doubters wrong. We are below 0.500 all time, haven't won a Rose Bowl in 105 years, are on a 7 game Apple Cup skid, have just 2 conference titles post-Herbert Hoover era the last of which was nearly 20 years ago, were last seen getting a prison beating from a service academy in the Cheez-It Bowl, have lost 3 of our last 4 bowl games, just hauled in the lowest-ranked recruiting class in our division in the worst P5 conference in football, have comparatively no football budget relative to our competitors, and are now breaking in new talent new coaching and a new scheme.
- An optimist might also reflect on his wife leaving him and taking the kids as opening up "opportunities" for "much more free time" and a chance to "reinvigorate his love life," but that would seem to conceal the ugly side of things
I don't think that things are quite as dire as that......but it's a point well taken.
For me, any criticism of the media's perception of us is irrelevant given that most of our fans appear to be hoping that we win 2-3 games this year.
Maybe so, but I believe WSU has the 3rd most top-10 finishes over the past 25 years of any P12 team.
3rd most top-10's, dead last in budget. That's pretty good, no?
Our history of intermittent success (with the right coaches) is why I am excited about Rolovich in the long run. He feels like a great fit for WSU and even if I think Leach was the perfect man for the job in 2011, I think that Rolovich might have been able to do well given what we saw at Hawaii.
Our history of intermittent success is also why I'm not surprised that expectations are low for this year. Too often, WSU coaches have been mediocre in their first year at WSU. Here is a list of first year records at WSU for previous coaches:
Walden: 3-7-1
Erickson: 3-7-1
Price: 6-5 (three win dropoff from prior year)
Doba: 10-3
Wulff: 2-11
Leach: 3-9
I feel good about our future with Rolovich and history suggests that we should feel good. History also suggests that this is going to be a rough year. Doba's 2003 team that Price left behind is the only time in 40+ years where a coach started with a team at a high point that hadn't been gutted by graduation. Price's first year featured a good team but we sucked once Stallworth went down. No quality WR depth on that team.
Flat, I liked your post and understand your point(s). But of your list of 1st year coaches, only Doba clearly had more talent on the roster than Rolo has, and most of the HC's had less...sometimes much less. That matters when discussing the success of coaches in their first year.
I also believe (though I may be wrong; time will tell) that moving from the AR to the R&S is probably one of the easier offensive transitions. Fortunate, since we did not have spring ball. And since most of the offensive change is mental rather than physical (with the exception of more run blocking for the O line), I suspect that we've made some progress since June even though we have not been able to hold organized practices.
Finally, our problems last year were mostly on the D side, and my thought (though again, I may be wrong) is that our problems were much more about the staff than the players. We have a much better staff this year; what they accomplish will suggest a lot about how bad or good the D staff was last year. If we put an average PAC north defense on the field (which is, I think, a reasonable goal) and combine that with the best kicker/punter duo in the north, we only need to have average O results to win half our games. I'd be very happy with going 3-3 during the "regular season", especially since I expect us to win the 7th game against our southern counterpart.
I also believe (though I may be wrong; time will tell) that moving from the AR to the R&S is probably one of the easier offensive transitions. Fortunate, since we did not have spring ball. And since most of the offensive change is mental rather than physical (with the exception of more run blocking for the O line), I suspect that we've made some progress since June even though we have not been able to hold organized practices.
Finally, our problems last year were mostly on the D side, and my thought (though again, I may be wrong) is that our problems were much more about the staff than the players. We have a much better staff this year; what they accomplish will suggest a lot about how bad or good the D staff was last year. If we put an average PAC north defense on the field (which is, I think, a reasonable goal) and combine that with the best kicker/punter duo in the north, we only need to have average O results to win half our games. I'd be very happy with going 3-3 during the "regular season", especially since I expect us to win the 7th game against our southern counterpart.
It wouldn't be shocking for us to have a good season this year. I agree with the idea that our biggest issue was defensive coaching. It's hard to say how long it will take to get back to a mediocre D. This year? Next? We'll see.
FWIW, Warren Powers put together a 7-4 season in 1977 before he bailed for Missouri, so you don't have to go back too far. Since he bailed immediately, there's no way to know if it was a fluke or not.
FWIW, Warren Powers put together a 7-4 season in 1977 before he bailed for Missouri, so you don't have to go back too far. Since he bailed immediately, there's no way to know if it was a fluke or not.
Flat, you are right about Powers. I also thought about him. But remember, he had full benefit of Sweeney's best recruiting class, from the year that Don James was hired and started in a recruiting hole. A series of decent classes, crowned by that class, was how we survived 4 head coaches in 4 years. And Powers had the right year with the right kids. Having said that, he also had a good staff. And it didn't hurt that he knew Nebraska inside out. It wasn't quite a perfect storm, but it came close, and if not for a couple of lunkhead decisions during the season (both coaches and players), it would have been an 8 win season.
