Ty's Terrible Recruiting

Over at Bleacher Report, a Notre Dame fan named CFB360 runs down the list of Ty Willingham's recruiting failures, the result of which is "scorched earth" for whatever coach follows him. (It seems like there might be an analogy to our national situation...) In addition to being generally lazy on the recruiting trail, says CFB360, Willingham has a strange aversion to recruiting offensive linemen. The article is quite thorough and worth a read. Check it out.

Topics: College Football and Huskies

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The Definition of Unsportsmanlike Conduct

According to the 2008 NCAA Football Rules and Interpretations. Pages 122-124.

Key excerpt after Saturday's 28-27 loss by the Huskies to the BYU Cougars:

2. After a score or any other play, the player in possession immediately must return the ball to an official or leave it near the dead-ball spot. This prohibits... (c) Throwing the ball high into the air.

Section 2. Noncontact Fouls
Unsportsmanlike Acts

ARTICLE 1. There shall be no unsportsmanlike conduct or any act that interferes with orderly game administration on the part of players, substitutes, coaches, authorized attendants or any other persons subject to the rules, before the game, during the game or between periods.

Continue reading "The Definition of Unsportsmanlike Conduct"

Topics: College Football, Cougars, Huskies, and Stupid athlete tricks

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The BCS, Jell-O, and Message Board Bans: An Interview With a BYU Fan

BYU mascot Cosmo the Cougar rolls hard at a parade.

My friend Matt grew up in the Seattle area and has been an intensely devoted BYU Cougar fan as long as I've known him. Recently, though, his critical eye has provoked the ire of his fellow Cougs. So I figured, who better than he to offer insights on tomorrow's BYU/UW matchup and the schools' respective football cultures?

Despite being in the middle of a business road trip, he agreed to answer a few questions on his Blackberry:

Tell us a little about your history as a fan of BYU football

It started when I was born. I was raised in a Mormon family and my parents met at BYU. Every Saturday in the fall meant Cougar football. Before we had home satellite TV, we would go to the local church building and view the games using the church satellite. We would sit in a meeting room and order pizza and drink root beer while we watched the games. I would be dressed in full Cougar gear, all the way down to BYU socks.

Is it true that you are serving a lifetime ban from the BYU fan site, cougarboard.com? If so, why did they ban you?

Continue reading "The BCS, Jell-O, and Message Board Bans: An Interview With a BYU Fan"

Topics: College Football and Huskies

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Wazzu Gets Even Drunker

I realize the fact that Wazzu is going to begin serving liquor pretty much everywhere on campus, including at football games and in the CUB, is going to start the Cougar-hater joke train rolling (and I went to UW, people), but really, this is genius. If the tight-asses who ran my alma mater would have deigned to even serve beer at football games back when the Hawks needed some new digs, they'd have a fan-fucking-tastic Paul Allen-financed stadium to play in right about now, instead of having to beg the statehouse for hundreds of millions of dollars it doesn't have to spare. UW needs to follow Pullman's lead, for once.

Topics: College Football

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For You Duck Haters Out There

Nike released its quarterly report to the Securities and Exchanged Commission today announcing a 10 percent jump in profits over last year, about $359.4 million. Announcement that the Oregon football team will now have motivational pedicurists on full-time staff is expected to follow.

Topics: College Football

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Apple Cup Turns 100 With a Fizzle

www.wsu.edu

The dogs and cats will fight it out tomorrow for the 100th time since the battle for the apples began more than a century ago. With both teams long out of the running for a bowl game, there isn't much on the line except the fervent desire to dodge the title "Worst Team in the Pac 10".

Good thing basketball season is getting off to a better start on both sides of the Cascades.

Topics: College Football

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Boise State Joke of the Day

It's the night before the Bronco season opener and the Bronco coach gets a call from BSU�s sole math professor. He tells the coach that his quarterback is academically ineligible because, shockingly enough, he missed his math final from summer session.

In true Bronco fashion, the coach asks for a bending of the rules and like a usual BSU �professor,� he agrees and they decide on a one question, all or nothing math final at the 50 yard line in Bronco Stadium on Opening Day.

So there's the quarterback at midfield, the entire stadium becomes dead silent, and over the PA system, the math professor shouts:
"OK, what is 2 + 3?"
The quarterback furrows his brow, sweat drips down his rather large forehead and he racks his brain with all his might before letting out a hoarse "5?"

The entire stadium erupts in a huge roar with every Bronco fan jumping up and down screaming "Give Him another Chance!! Give Him another Chance!!"

Topics: College Football

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The Big Game Means Nothing

Not my hand.

This Saturday is THE BIG GAME: The Boise State Broncos against the Idaho Vandals. Remember BSU? You know, the team the UW Huskies actually beat (thank you for that, by the way).

BSU is 9-1 and undefeeted in the WAC. UI is 1-9, with the single W against Division II Cal-Poly. It isn't very likely, but it would be wonderful if the Vandals could play spoiler and beat BSU (or Donkey State, as many of us in Moscow like to call them), making the season-ending showdown between the Broncos and Hawai'i mean much less.

Here's the thing: UI made money from BSU's Fiesta Bowl victory and will have another payday if Hawai'i can stay undefeated and get a BCS bid. This year's meeting of interstate rivals takes place at Boise, in a stadium sponsored by Taco Bell and covered in that annoying blue turf. This game is the high(low)light of the Vandal season. Every year, UI is the underdog and for the last eight years, have come up short.

Well, if nothing else, there is always a chance. And if the Vandals can at least score, that's one step better than Utah State. UI plays USU (0-10) in the final game of the season.
Like I said, there's always hope.

Topics: College Football

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Greatest Football Philibuster Ever

I didn't make it back from vacation on time to see UW's season go up in fourth quarter flames at home against Arizona (speaking of flames, that's how hot Ty Willingham's carseat is right now), but I was encouraged by the news that the Husky marching band dedicated their entire halftime performance to the musical stylings of Phil Collins, and even spelled the British crooner's name out on the field to top the bizarre tribute off.

In other news, the Red Sox swept the Rockies to win the World Series (told you so, over a month ago!), the Emerald Downs-based filly Smarty Deb finished a very respectable fifth in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies championship in New Jersey (her stablemate, Margo's Gift, scored a major upset in a $250,000 stakes race on Friday's undercard), and the Sonics inexplicably picked up the option years on Mo Sene and Johan Petro's rookie contracts. Speaking of those two and Robert Swift, the best and brittlest third of the team's three-headed 7' pivot monster, ESPN's Sonic correspondent, Nick Berliner, reported the following rumor back in July, which remains hilarious in October: "Petro, Swift, and Sene all live together in a loft in Belltown. One of them brings home a chick from Ozzie's every night." The LQA: getting pro ballers laid since 1967.

Topics: College Football

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Better Players in High School?

Source: Scout.com

It's been a grim season for local Pac-10 football with the Apple Cup/Toilet Bowl looming as the last chance for either team to prove they don't suck the most. While fans wring their hands through the last month or so of play, there is hope on the horizon.

Rainier Beach Senior Alameda Ta'amu was named to the offensive line for team West in the second annual All-American Bowl (sort of the Pro Bowl for high school). He'll hit the field in Florida on Jan. 4. In the meantime, he's fielding offers from Washington, Oregon State and Hawaii, but has yet to commit. On behalf of my fellow West side Cougar fans, here's hoping he turns the Huskies down.

Congratulations Ta'amu!

Topics: College Football

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Bring your alma mater to the slaughter

Today is the big game. The No. 1 ranked USC Trojans face off again against the No. ... um ... number ... ah, hell, completely unranked Idaho Vandals.

The pressure is one, but not int he way you think. You'd think that all the pressure would be on Idaho, going against the behemoth of college football that is USC. You'd be wrong.

No one expects anything from Idaho in this game. The Vandals, a 46-point underdog, have absolutely nothing to prove. It's USC that must prove the validity of their pre-season top ranking. Anything less than the complete and total annihilation of the Idaho team is unacceptable from the Trojans. If the Vandals score, the Trojans have failed. 

If, and this is the biggest if in NCAA football, Idaho wins, All hopes for a national championship are lost for USC. In many ways this is the biggest game of the year for USC. Idaho still has Hawai'i and Boise State to face. Those are big games. USC still has Pac-10 games and their eventual bowl game. But a loss to Idaho, as unlikely as it is to happen, would ruin USC's entire season.

Are you feeling it yet, USC? Yesterday the Vandals slept better than they will all season. They don't have a damn thing to prove.

Topics: College Football

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Who Do We Hate? Boise State

A well-meaning colleague of mine, who knows I am a proud graduate of the University of Idaho, just asked me how I feel about Boise State. Hearing the school's name was enough to get my blood boiling.

I understand that team south of Moscow had something of a good season last year, and there was some talk about an interesting play in the Fiesta Bowl. I wouldn't know. I won't watch it. As for the Vandals? They've had some challenging seasons. And Dennis Erickson didn't do them any favors. Coach Rob Akey appears to be here for the long term, which is exactly what they need.

Watch the Beater for more talk on Vandal/Bronco foolishness. To aid in this discussion, Moscow Bureau Chief T.J. Tranchell will be keeping us up to date with the talk of the town.

Game 1: Sept. 1, Vandals at USC

Topics: College Football

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Boise State Gets Jobbed

After Florida rolled Ohio State in last night's BCS championship game, I really felt like Boise State would finish second in at least one poll with a dozen or so first-place votes. Boy, was I wrong. They're fifth in one poll, sixth in another, ranked behind two teams with two losses (USC and LSU) and Ohio State. What a screw job. What more can you ask of a team than to go undefeated and knock off a big-time program in a major bowl game?

Topics: College Football

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Boise St. Wuz Robbed

After Michigan's Rose Bowl loss to USC took any wind out of the argument that the Wolverines should have gotten a rematch against #1 Ohio State, undefeated Boise State was expected to roll over against mighty Oklahoma. Didn't happen. Boise State won to cap an undefeated season, and breathed new life into the old BYU argument: Should undefeated mid-major college football teams get a shot against undefeated major college football programs in a national championship bowl game? In Boise State's case, yes. Which begs the question: If once-beaten Florida upsets Ohio State in a few days, will some writers and coaches cast their first-place votes for the lone undefeated team in the land? We'll have to wait and see.

Topics: College Football

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