WSU Football: Vince Mayle A Glimpse Of What Cougars Envisioned Against Cal Golden Bears
By Josh Davis
Oct 5, 2013; Berkeley, CA, USA; Washington State Cougars receiver Vince Mayle (1) celebrates after scoring on a 35-yard touchdown reception as back judge John Jenkins signals for a touchdown against the California Golden Bears at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a Super Mayleeeeeeee!
Too much?
Don’t care!
Vince Mayle (MAY-LEE) was indeed super yesterday afternoon as he finally, FINALLY lived up to the billing coming out of junior college in Rocklin, CA. This was the big, physically dominant, play making athlete on the outside that LSU and Ohio State tried to steal late in the recruiting cycle but couldn’t. These were the soft hands with the “get off me” attitude that Mike Leach and receivers coach Dennis Simmons raved about in Fall camp after he arrived.
When I say ‘finally lived up to the billing’, I don’t mean simply making a few plays, he’s done that. I mean dominating a football game, at least seemingly. Mayle definitely moved up on Connor Halliday’s target list yesterday with the plays he made and at 6’3″, 240 it would seem he could take on that role adequately.
On the day, he accounted for four catches for 113 yards and two touchdowns, including breaking free of a corner trying to tackle him before the ball arrived on the first and then hitting the truck stick on a safety on his second. In his postgame (linked below) he said “coach says try to make the first guy miss, so that’s what I did”. I laughed because his version of “make you miss” is simply to crush your hopes and dreams as he runs over you, whatever works!
Vince also made several key blocks for his fellow teammates to spring big gains, including a big one on the 68 yard touchdown to Marcus Mason in the second quarter.
Yesterday was a beautiful glimpse of what Coug fans envisioned when we heard Mayle was headed to Wazzu. As Leach will tell you though, he can and will still get better and have an even bigger impact in future games. The excitement on this kid is definitely rising!
As you can see HERE he wasn’t bad when it came to answering questions either, though he seems a man of few words at this point. I guess we can’t blame him, to my knowledge it was his first Pac-12 post game interview.