WSU Football: Tuesday Tidbit

We haven’t got to the full WSU football preview yet and believe me we will! But we always have things to talk about with our upcoming team regardless. So today I found a link and was looking at the Orlando Sentinel’s “College Football Countdown” (for a brief on what people from the other side of the nation are thinking about us) in which they have listed the FBS teams from top to bottom and have lovingly placed our Cougs at #84 in the land. This is fair considering our recent showing from a record standpoint, but there are definitely a few problems with their assessment. Here are my thoughts for the OS overview and ranking:

1: Lobbestael is one of the “key losses” in our offense apparently but neither Tuel nor Halliday are “key returners”? By season’s end Marsh was the third string qb… Unfortunately he had to start and we still finished 2nd in the Conference in overall passing offense.

2: There is no way for them to know, but linebacker is the OS choice as our positional weakness. Nobody’s really heard the names here because of the others we had in place, but they will. Our Lb’s will be fine. I think our O-line will be our offensive weakness, but the quick release offense will nullify that somewhat I think. Until proven otherwise, our D-line is our defensive weakness. We haven’t created any pressure over the past 3 seasons with those guys and their kinda losing our best lineman to a hybrid LB spot.

3: The OS for some reason seems to think that the Oregon game will make or break our season?! Craziness! I don’t understand that and I don’t believe it either because I don’t think anybody gives us a chance in that game, and that’s ok. It’s a game that quite honestly is a “nothing to lose” type game for us. I actually think it will be the OSU game a week later that will make the biggest difference in our season and I will elaborate more on that when I do our Pac-12 Preview of the Cougs.

4: In general in the early preseason rankings of the Pac-12, WSU has ranked out at about 8th so far. The OS has placed only Oregon State and Colorado below us in the overall ranking making us 10th. They really don’t think getting both of our top qbs back, along with Mike Leach will make a big time difference on a returning 4-8 (coulda, woulda, shoulda been 6-6) team? Also, we’re returning more than half our starters on both sides of the ball… I have a hard time believing that there are 9 teams in better position than WSU right now.

But of course, I’m a little biased and maybe don’t want to see any other view, haha. Regardless, interesting to start seeing where the Cougs are being placed in the general public eye on the other side of the country though. All for now.

Go Cougs!