To answer your question...I didn't give up on the blog. I forgot to give notice that I was taking some vacation time (before the football season starts) and wouldn't blog for a bit. But, now I'm back and ready to talk about the Cougars.

Washington State scrimmaged today for the final time this fall and I was there. Here's what I saw:

I don't think the Cougars looked very good. Paul Wulff reaffirmed my thoughts after the practice. "We have a lot of work do in a week," he said, "We won't be our best football team in that first game, but we need to be good and build off of that." Hmmm.....

There seemed to be some confusion on the offensive side of the ball. At one point, the referees threw a flag because there weren't enough men on the line of scrimmage (before the snap four different players went in motion...almost too much going on). A couple of times receivers had to swap side because they were lined up on the wrong side of the ball. I guess that comes with the territory. Some of these kids are learning a new system in a little more than 20 days (they still need to have it figured out by next Saturday).

I still love the new offense (despite some of the confusion). The Cougs ran the option, they faked the option (and passed instead), and so much more. I'm still impressed with all the movement before the snap (I can't wait for you to see it for yourself).

With Jeshua Anderson out (he had surgery a week ago for a hernia), there are questions surrounding the wide receivers. Brandon Gibson, Michael Willis, and Jared Karstetter (yes, the same kid who played at Ferris High School last year) mostly worked with the ones. Daniel Blackledge (made a couple of catches), Kevin Norrell (one reception for eight yards), and Keith Parr (one catch for three yards) also contributed. The tight ends are also very involved in the offense (Tony Thompson and Ben Woodard combined on nine catches for 112 yards...they easily led the team in receiving).

I thought Logwone Mitz (I had him confused for Christopher Ivory at first because he's wearing #34 now) looked strong running the ball. Several times he dodged out of trouble to gain some extra yards. Chantz Staden also ran pretty well and showed he could catch the ball out of the backfield. Other than that...there was nothing really impressive out of the running game (Dwight Tardy and Ivory did not play).

Gary Rogers was less than impressive as well. According to the stat sheet, he was 11 for 17 (I don't think these numbers are right) with a touchdown and three interceptions. I know I'm not an expert, but it seemed like he was trying to make too much happen on every one of his picks. He often threw into a crowd, only to watch the pass get batted away (better defensive backs probably would have picked a couple of those off). Rogers finally looked sharp at the end of practice during the two minute drill. He completed six of six passes, capping the drive with a 15 yard touchdown pass to Brandon Gibson. After practice Rogers told me they were slowing things down today, so he didn't really feel comfortable until they picked up the pace during the two minute drill. Let's hope everyone learned something from that...JUST KEEP GOING!

I almost forgot about the kicking game...it's awful. They set the kickers (no starter is in place...Wulff could only laugh when asked about the kickers and joked that he might name himself the starter instead) up from 36, 37, 38, 42 (from both hashes), and 47 yards. They made only 6 of 18 attempts combined (some were wide, some were short, some were both). Wulff said if they can't find a good kicker they'll "have to go for it a lot on fourth down."

That's about all I have for now.

I can't say the Cougars look like they're ready to take on another opponent yet (Brandon Gibson said he feels like the team "should be" ready in a week). We'll see what happens come August 30th.

Keep in mind I'm the guy, who two years ago after seeing the Cougar basketball team practice for the first time, told his friends WSU wouldn't win a game in the Pac-10. They won 13 conference games that year and made a trip to the NCAA Tournament.

I'm pretty sure I'll be at practice on Wednesday, so check back for the latest. I'll also blog about any breaking (or not so breaking) developments in the meantime.

Talk to you soon...

1 Comments

Joe Kane said:

Glad to see your back. This kicking game is gonna be a nightmare all season long it appears. Really thought by now we would have a decent kicker but clearly that is not the case. Never thought I would say this but our defense might have to carry us a bit through these first few games until the offense is up to speed on the new scheme.

August 27, 2008 7:21 AM

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