Hello Cougar Nation and members of the Ball Hating (BH) army. Hope you've had a great week.
As for us, well, its been busy, and I must admit that I don't have a lot of time today...After all, me and the fellas are packing our bags for a return to the Mothership!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Of course, since Ben and Sutra lack confidence in themselves (L-O-S-E-R-S), they're not totally shutting this sucker down.
But I am! (or at least, I'd like to if Sutra gave me the fricking code!)
I mean, I really can't wait to get back home. That said, before we step completely away from irrelevance, I did think it appropriate to let you all know about what I think is going to happen to us this weekend.
And yes, it's NOT going to be pretty.
Yes, as was stated on the AP wire earlier today, we are going to lose Saturday's must win game against the Berkeley Bears 38-17.
Now, will that be the end of Paul Wulff?
Could be.
But, I think what it does is set the stage for Utah and UW to be the final and ultimate must-win games of Paul Wulff's tenure.
(And yes, I do think that 5-7 gets Wulff retained for another year. And the reason? Most of us thought we'd win 5 or 6 games with Jeff Tuel. So for me, winning 5 games without him would still be a hell of an accomplishment for this group.)
Now, click on the jump for the Quick Keys to the Game:
*****
1) Get A Rush.
Yep, Saturday would be a good day for Geddy Lee to jump on the stage in AT&T park dressed in his Cougar whites. Simply put, while Maynard is a threat scrambling, his mechanics tend to go all to hell when he's hurried in the pocket. And truly folks, there's a reason why they have 10 turnovers in their past 2 losses: Maynard's not good, but more to the point, he's TERRIBLE when pressured. But, when he's not.......?
2) Force Lots of Turnovers and Don't Return the Favor. Sutra stole this take from me on Monday and posted it as a comment on the Mothership on Wednesday. But, check this out. CAL's turnovers when they played and lost against SC and UCLA=10 (yes, I know I just said that).
Now, their turnovers in a win against Utah? Zilch. (While Utah gave it up 4 times).
And how about Oregon State? Well, they had four turnovers against BYU, and then played near error free football against us. Of course, they basically killed us in that game. And then, the next week against Utah? Four turnovers, including three INTs by Manion. And Utah kicked their Beaver butts just like we had hoped to....
Of course, the point in all of this is that both CAL and OSU have been crappy because of turnovers and stupid youthful mistakes, not because their D tends to get run over like a herd of frogs crossing the road in China...
So, unless we really help them beat themselves, they're gonna parlay that NFL talent right up into our backsides...
3) Execute in the Red Zone.
One word there: DUH!
4) Stoke him if you got him!
Been down this road a bit before, but just like Chris Polk ran the Dawgs to a bowl game last year, the bowl hopes of this team are squarely on the shoulder of Carl Winston.
To be sure, for us to win at all the rest of the way, the D has to improve. But the fact remains that the best way for the D to shine is for them to stay the frick off of the football field as much as possible.
So, go get em, Carl, cuz we're going to need you to run for close to 90 yards on Saturday, and we're also gonna need you to score a touch or two inside the ten!
5) Keep the Score Down.
When you see that CAL keeps teams under 200 yards per game passing, you should all be headed for the hills. Cuz even if we have success in this game throwing the ball, it sure seems like a BIG stretch for us to score more than 28 on these Bearsies on Saturday.
Of course, all of that means that our D is going to have to keep the other team UNDER 28 points for the first time since, well, um, UNLV?
So, dial it up Chris Ball, you "I coached some good DB's under Price so I must be qualified" Lame Ass excuse for a D-Coordinator.
And toward that end, it sure would be nice to defer and get the ball to start the second half. Cuz we' re gonna need something good to happen at the start of that final stanza--and does anything good happen when our D is on the field in the second half???
********
Of course, in spite of all of this doom and gloom, there is some good news. And the good news is that if ASU plows over UCLA as expected, then the Sun Devils should enter Pullman next week flat as a pancake, having that South Division title already in the bag.
In other words, bowl eligibility is still a possibility for this group, no matter what happens this week!
Go Cougs.
No comments:
Post a Comment