Not Coug related; but still worth the watch. The Spokane Chiefs celebrating their win of the Memorial Cup, junior hockey’s most coveted prize. Dropping the trophy is hilarious enough, but then picking it up and trying to put the cup back on the stand is just as entertaining.
Posting has been a little light this week – combination of a slow news week and working on another Cougfan article.
Head on over to WSU Hoops for the most comprehensive info on walk-on recruit John Allen of Montlake Terrace. If he makes the 15-man roster, I believe that it all but assures Charlie Enquist of another season on scholarship. I’m leaving the scholarship chart as-is until we get some concrete info from the program, because walk-ons that don’t make the roster just end up on the practice squad (and therefore don’t affect the scholly chart). (Edit: I still would expect Allen to make the roster for this fall)
Cougar football cut ties with QB recruit Calvin Schmitdke, the Lakes High star who has been drawing some hype from people close to the school. It’s unfortunate, and probably related to the numerous, albeit minor, legal problems Schmitdke has come across recently.
Otherwise, if you’re looking for some reading to keep you occupied, check out one blogger’s quest for the ESPN.com “featured comment of the day”. Also, Bill Simmons has a blogspot blog as part of what appears to be a passive-aggressive quarrel with the Worldwide Leader in Sports. If baseball is more of you’re thing, it’s always entertaining to witness the meltdown on USS Mariner as the M’s work to avoid being the worst team in baseball. Bill Bavasi has to be toast at this point, right?
One of the key privileges of being a member of the media is that you have the power to fight an injustice. That’s why there are “investigative reporters”. It’s why there are the 60 Minutes and Dateline NBCs of the world. From Edward R. Murrow to Carl Monday, media members have a desire, perhaps even an obligation, to report what they believe are wrongdoings, no matter how trivial they may seem.
So if you were a member of a sports information network so huge that you proclaim yourself, I don’t know, “The Worldwide Leader in Sports”, you would feel an obligation to fight a sports injustice. Right?
Well, not if you’re ESPN, who continues to gloss over the ever-worsening situation with the Seattle Supersonics.
Get ready for December 13th, where the Cougs play the Hardwood Classic in Seattle against… the Bobcats!!
That’s right. Adam Morrison returns to Washington. It’s Emeka Okafor against Aron Baynes. Michael Jordan’s NBA team against Tony Bennett’s rising NCAA squad. Must see TV at the KeyArena (the worst sports venue in the history of the world, according to David Stern!).
Wait, what’s that?
The Montana State Bobcats?
If you’re like me, you’re hoping the Cougars can take home a NCAA title in something this year. Well, the best chance belongs to the #4 Washington State women’s rowing team, who qualified for the NCAA championships on Tuesday.
In terms of the “major” sports, it’s been a long drought, but here’s how I rank the chances of a title for the Cougs’ squads going into the future:
Men’s basketball
Baseball
Women’s basketball
Football
Men’s basketball has the lead, for obvious reasons. Baseball has the advantage of a wacky postseason, in addition to the very good recruiting work by coach Donnie Marbut. Women’s basketball will be on its way with Daugherty’s first class coming in.
As for football…. well, this is the hardest title to win for us, especially being in the same conference as USC. Add to that the poor state of the program under Doba, and Wulff has some rebuilding to do before we begin thinking of anything big. It’s worth noting that I think a football title is the most coveted among Cougar fans, but I have a feeling we’ll take one in basketball too.
ESPN has gotten itself all excited over the ten-year anniversary of the BCS, featuring dueling columns on the front page by Pat Forde and Ivan Maisel. Forde presents the always easy-to-formulate anti-BCS column, and Maisel plays Devil’s advocate literally by defending the money grubbing heads of the NCAA in Indianapolis (OK, that’s an unfair criticism, but it is not without some merit).
I agree with Forde on most points, including the general idea of an eight-team playoff. I’m into specifics though, and the playoff system I’ve formulated makes so much sense I can’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work. This one keeps the Bowl system intact, adds only two weeks of football to the schedule (over Christmas break where there isn’t football anyway), and gives college football a legit national champion.
The only criticism I can see with this system is that it only allows a maximum of one team from each conference to compete in the playoff: The conference champion. But doesn’t it make a whole heck of a lot of sense that you shouldn’t be allowed to win a national championship if you can’t win your own conference? Forget the pros where divisions change so frequently and the playoffs are such a change of pace that wild-card teams often end up with a title. In college, you can’t tell me that a non-championship Nebraska team deserved to be in the Rose Bowl playing Miami for a title in 2002 while the Pac-10 champion Ducks of Oregon were shelved in Tempe for the Fiesta Bowl. No more gray area. If you can’t win you’re conference, you can’t win a national championship. Simple as that.
Without further ado, let’s get to the system. Here’s who qualifies:
Cougfan is reporting that DeAngelo Casto performed well on a recent ACT, and is officially off to WSU assuming he finishes up his high school course work.
This is encouraging news – I tried to touch on this a little in my APR piece, but this shows why Tony Bennett and the Cougar coaching staff were so high on DeAngelo Casto, despite some of the academic concerns many fans have brought up. The goal for WSU sports teams should be either to bring in players who are already academically talented, or players who are ready and willing to work in that department. With his performance on the ACT it appears the coaches have found a kid who is motivated to perform off the court so that he can play at the Pac-10 level. That’s wonderful news both for Casto and WSU.
Casto is one 2008 recruit that I’ve had a good look at, in part because he kept getting Ferris into the state championship game and therefore onto FSN. The Washington State 4A level is no cakewalk; it has numerous players that are athletic and bound for college ball at all levels. The Greater Spokane league, a mixed 3A/4A venture, has produced all sorts of talented collegiate prospects including Adam Morrison, Sean Mallon, and Josh Heytvelt. Casto was a star in that league, but unlike the others I mentioned, is going somewhere other than Gonzaga. The quality of play in Spokane is such that we can tell Casto is a player that is easily skilled enough to make a college roster. Don’t listen to the recruiting rankings, this is a three or four-star player being listed on many sources as a two.
That’s good news for the Cougs, because Casto has the look of a sure-fire Pac-10 player, with huge athleticism, the ability to block shots, and a huge defensive presence. At 6′8″, 240, Casto will have the ability to body up against some of the most skilled big men in the conference. Under the development of Tony Bennett one can only expect his defense to get stronger. On offense he could develop into a powerful player by his ability to get to the basket and score from multiple angles. He was a man among boys in high school, and what will define his transition to college will be whether or not he can match up with players his own size.
Still, Casto is more refined already than Ivory Clark was when he joined the Cougs. Clark excelled under Tony’s system, and was missed this year when Cowgill was left as the only athletic shot-blocker the Cougs could utilize in the paint. Casto has the potential to be a star. However, it is only potential until he puts in the work necessary to win in the classroom and on Friel Court. For now, he’s put in the work off the court, and it could be the start of something great for WSU.
It had been in the rumor mill for quite some time, but Thomas Abercrombie appears to be headed back to New Zealand to play professionally, according to the Spokesman-Review.
The always informative Vince Grippi speculates that although this frees up yet another scholarship for 2008, his spot may not be filled until next year. I agree with him. This Cougar team will already be ridiculously young with eight freshmen and six true freshmen on the 15-man roster. Unless Tony has a recruit on the radar for this upcoming season, I expect the scholarship to go back to Charlie Enquist, who was set to be a non-scholarship player per an agreement he made with Tony prior to last season. And because this always comes up, let me squash it again: It’s not going to Rochestie. He wants to, and he is, helping the team by giving up his free ride for next season.
It is sad, in a way. The sophomore forward from New Zealand had potential as a player but just turned out to be a wrong fit on the Cougars’ squad. He doesn’t have the height to be a Robbie Cowgill or Caleb Forrest type player at the power forward position, and he doesn’t have the ballhandling skill or 3-point shooting to be an effective option at guard or small forward. But he was a talented, athletic kid who was mentally everything you’d want from a Bennett Baller. Behind the Lord of the Rings movies and Flight of the Conchords, he’s the third best thing to come out of New Zealand this decade. I wish him the best of luck going forward.
Xavier Hicks can add a three game suspension to his 45-day jail stint, all as a result of substituting rubbing alcohol for his roommates’ contact solution (and a theft charge). (note: see the aforementioned Spokesman blog post) The contacts never made it in the victims’ eyes, but it’s not too hard to imagine how it would have felt. That resulted in the assault charge, and coupled with the theft of a credit card, Hicks landed in the Whitman County jail. He entered into a plea agreement to avoid felonies – he instead gets booked with two gross misdemeanors.
Smart wins.
Those were the words of Bob Knight – a man with 902 wins in Division 1 basketball and an impressive personal record in the chair toss.
All kidding aside, intelligence should become more of a priority for the WSU Football program in the wake of eight scholarship losses last week. The penalty is due to a low score in the Academic Progress Rate, or APR. The APR is a fairly complex system that grades every school on their ability to retain players and/or produce graduating student athletes. Without going too much into the details, WSU’s score of 916 fell below the standard of 925. If a school fails to meet that benchmark, they lose the number of scholarships equivalent to the number of players who left the team ineligible the previous year. WSU had eight players leave ineligible, so they lose 8 scholarships.
Bill Doba was widely regarded as being a “nice guy”. And while that is one of the characteristics that made him an amicable figure on the Palouse (and still does), it also may be one of the reasons why WSU fell into the APR’s trap. Most BCS-conference schools avoided the APR penalty because, quite simply, they use their resources. Tutors, aids and borderline academic standards are enough for a lot of schools to at the very least put on the facade that they are producing student athletes. Whether or not those athletes are learning anything or focusing on anything outside of football is questionable, but the APR helps the big wigs at the NCAA sleep a little better at night.
WSU was in all likelihood using the same tools other power-conference schools use to keep their athletes nose in the books and out of trouble. But Doba, the classic nice guy, either just didn’t push hard enough or brought players into the program who just didn’t care enough. You cannot and should not place all the blame on Bill, but it’s hard not to point a finger or two. Even with the distraction of game days and film studies and playbooks, passing college courses should be a priority of Cougar athletes. That means it should be a priority of the coaches. It is reasonable that schools can accept a certain number of athletes to flunk out or leave school without a degree. And the NCAA allows for that within a certain margin of error. Heck, even non-athletes can have trouble in school, and college courses just aren’t for everyone.
What is unacceptable is to fall below the standards to the point where the school loses eight scholarships. The outgoing Doba-led coaching staff should have realized it, and I’m sure they know it now. Part of it is motivating the athletes to keep up on schoolwork. The other part, and the more important part in my opinion, is recruiting players who are already motivated. Remember, smart wins.
The myth about recruiting to Pullman is that because you’re recruiting kids to….. well, Pullman, that you have to sacrifice certain things to bring in talent. Maybe you take a chance on a poor student from California because no one else wants the risk. Maybe you play up the social atmosphere of Pullman to bring in a player who is shy about leaving the city for Middle of Nowhere, WA.
You don’t have to do those things. Tony Bennett proved it by bringing in talent and then shaping a team that made up half of the all-Pac Ten academic team this past season. That doesn’t mean he won’t take a chance – the signing of DeAngelo Casto, who has documented struggles with his high school grades, proves that. But what I think you’ll find with Casto is that Tony and the staff see the potential to make a student better through the resources the university provides. It’s OK to take gambles within reason. It’s not OK to watch 2/3 or your main running back corps, along with several other players, fall off the map in 2007 because of academic problems.
Wulff has the deck stacked against him. It is difficult, particularly in football, to pull in kids who have both the talent and character to be successful in Pullman. But he must find a way. I do not think it is reaching to say that Doba’s staff would care a little more and try a little harder if they went back in time. Apathy isn’t an option. It is not just the future of athletes in question here, but the future of human beings. A substantial number of Cougar, or college football players in general, will not get on a NFL roster. At the very least they should leave WSU prepared for success in another venture.
The main point is this: there is no reason to avoid smart, motivated players. They keep you out of trouble with the NCAA, and they are often equally skilled at catching a ball or running on artificial turf. If WSU is to find its way back to a prominent spot in the Pac-10, they need all of their scholarships. But they also need players who are smart enough to understand the system, know a 4-3 from a 3-4, and find Sudan on a map.
Paul Wulff has zero wins at the Division 1 level of college sports. All he needs to do, for now, is listen to the advice of a coach who has over 900 more:
Smart wins.
Alright, folks. Here we go with what I expect to be an annual or semi-annual event, my Pac-10 conference job security rankings. I wanted to start with football, since Spring Ball has just passed and I am trying to even out the basketball to football post ratio a little bit. But never fear, hoops fans, because I plan on making a basketball list as well.
Here’s how it works: All the coaches in the conference are ranked from 1 to 10 in terms of job security. What do I mean by “security”? It means that #10 is the most likely to be fired this upcoming season and #1 is the least likely to get the axe. We’re not taking into account coaching quality or success/failure beyond this season. It is simply a way of measuring who is most likely to get the boot from their institution this year.
That is an important caveat. For example, who would be more likely to lose their job this year – a first year coach who goes 1-11, or a coach at a big program who has his third straight mediocre season? Odds are the first year coach gets another chance.
Program expectations are also important. USC expects to contend for a national championship every year. Here at WSU we’re just hoping for a bowl game in Paul Wulff’s first year. These things make a difference in whether or not a coach is fired. So do off the field events – if a coach runs a tight, NCAA-clean program consistently they likely won’t lose their job. If a coach is Kelvin Sampson, however…. well, you know how that turned out.
So here now, organized into made-up divisions, are the first Pac-10 football job security rankings for 2008.
The “Please don’t go to the NFL” Division
1. Pete Carroll, USC
Pete Carroll has given USC fans a program that can contend for a title every year. How many coaches can say that? It almost makes you forget just how awful the Trojans were before his arrival at the Coliseum. The only way Pete loses his job is if there is some huge off the field scandal with a key player receiving recruiting violations like a free house or something. Wait a second…
The “Quality Progress” Division
2. Dennis Erickson, Arizona State
Erickson will have a job as long as employers are short-sighted enough to keep hiring him. But hey, he wins ball games. Your school might have some off-the-field issues, and he will probably leave to coach the Houston Texans in three years, but you’ll win in between! Hooray! For fun, ask an Idaho Vandals fan how they feel about Dennis Erickson.
3. Jeff Tedford, California
Tedford has put Cal on the map and made use of the absolutely endless pool of talent in the state of California. The former Oregon offensive coordinator has led the Golden Bears to five straight Bowl Games, and would probably be higher on the NFL’s radar if not for a 6-of-7-loss collapse after a 5-0 start (complete with #2 ranking) to last season. (bonus points: guess who the one win was!) Injuries really hurt Cal in 2007-08, and it’s likely the rest of the conference won’t get that luxury the next time around. Tedford is ceding play calling duties to Frank Cignetti this fall, which could have a substantial impact on Cal’s future.
4. Mike Riley, Oregon State
The great thing about Riley is how he gets the Beavers to consistently overachieve. He’s never finished higher than 3rd in the conference, but he has taken OSU to Bowl games in four of the last five years. His record in those games? 4-0. His propensity for winning big games in the regular season and beyond outshadow most of the bad losses the Beavs have suffered (hello 13-6 loss to the 2006 Cougs).
The Newcomers Division
5. Paul Wulff, Washington State
Regardless of how you feel about the “mutual” dismissal of Bill Doba, it seems all of the Cougar nation is rooting for Wulff to have success. He is a WSU alum, and who better to understand the experience in Pullman than a former Coug. He’s one of us, and it will be hard to turn up the heat on Wulff even if the upcoming season goes sour. There’s also the interesting twist that he played for Dennis Erickson, whom he’ll now have to coach against.
Still, with 13 games on the schedule, including seven home games, it would be reasonable for some Cougar fans to expect a bowl game in 2008. If Wulff gets it, he’ll be very secure. If he doesn’t, he’ll start 2009 with a little less loyalty.
6. Jim Harbaugh, Stanford
James Joseph Harbaugh starts 2008 riding the wave of goodwill from a shocking upset of USC in Los Angeles. Of course the rest of the season wasn’t as strong, but 4-8 following a terrible 2007 season is a welcome improvement for Cardinal fans. He’s a relative newcomer (2nd year), which helps put him a notch below Wulff. Of course expectations are still fairly strong in the Bay Area, and a season of regression could put Harbaugh on the hot seat.
The “Don’t put Money on it” Division
7. Rick Neuheisal, UCLA
Slick Rick will probably not be fired by UCLA this season. If he runs a tight ship. If he wins in L.A., a couple little NCAA infringements might be glossed over. Losing alone will likely not be a problem, considering Bruin fans were fairly generous with Karl Dorrell. But if he loses and colors a little outside the lines, it could be a Kelvin Sampson situation waiting to explode. Certainly he’ll stay away from the tournament office pool (although UCLA losing in the final four is always a good bet).
8. Mike Bellotti, Oregon
Bellotti sits here despite his fairly strong history with the Ducks. Obviously Nike looms large in Eugene, and if the powers that be among the Ducks decide that Bellotti isn’t doing the job, he’s out. Of course we should give Oregon a little credit; they’ve been very patient with Ernie Kent in basketball and they are giving Bellotti his own font (the font on the jerseys is “Bellotti Bold”; you can’t make this stuff up) and plenty of time to build a national powerhouse. But with all the money, facilities and money, you’d have to believe that Mike’s employer might be fed up sometime. And that sometime could be the end of 2008.
The Flaming Red Hot Seat of Hotness presented by Coors Light
9. Mike Stoops
I’d have to say reviewing this list that 1 through 8 are fairly safe and may be able stick around through 2009 without a Bowl game appearance. 9 and 10 are in trouble. A lot of it. Stoops is 17-29 and has been just good enough to avoid a firing the last two seasons. Arizona has also defeated a ranked team in each of Stoops four seasons, which helps. Still, the fact remains that Arizona would like to establish itself as contender in the football world, and Mike isn’t getting the Wildcats there. It’s also tough to keep a coach around who goes absolutely bezerk on the sidelines on borderline calls. And yet the refs have been fairly nice to Mike – like turning the other way when Alex Brink got clocked five seconds after a play had ended (still bitter about that one, especially in a world where a pinkie finger on some QBs is worth fifteen yards).
But I digress. The Stoops regime has struggled in Tempe, especially on offense. If the Cats can’t make it to a bowl this year, he’s probably out of work.
10. Tyrone Willingham, Washington
I had a startling realization when I watched The Daily’s (UW’s student newspaper) YouTube preview of the 2007 Apple Cup. Husky fans actually expect to compete for a Rose Bowl every season. Delusions of grandeur? Possibly. But if Tyrone Willingham is the man the Dawgs want to bring them back to dominance, he has to get to a bowl game this season. Ty has finished 10th, 9th, and 10th over the past three seasons in the Pac-10 conference.
The losing has fractured the Husky fanbase into so-called posidawgs and negadawgs, and led to a prominent booster offering a considerable “donation” if Willingham were to be fired. The meltdowns regarding Willingham over on the dawgman.com message board have been delightful to watch. If you’re a husky fan, you simply cringe and hope Jake Locker returns the purple and gold to dominance. It’s safe to say that another season outside the postseason will result in a new Husky coach for 2009.
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So there you have it. 1 through 8 are looking fairly good going into 2008, and 9 and 10 have to coach for their lives. Which begs the following question: as a Cougar fan, do you root for the Huskies to keep Tyrone Willingham? Certainly the last three season have been bad, but the cupboard was bare in Montlake and Willingham did experience limited success with both Notre Dame and Stanford. Personally, I like the Ty era in Seattle because I have my doubts that he is anything above a .500 coach.
In basketball news, the Cougs have offered PG Xavier Thames, a 6′1″ Class of ‘09 member from Elk Grove, CA. Now that Casto has signed with WSU point guard becomes the most glaring need for the Cougs, especially with the upcoming graduation of Taylor Rochestie. Thames has been on the radar of the Cougar coaches for a little while now, and with the scholarship offer you better believe he’s a solid prospect.
