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Over the last couple months the Oregon Ducks have gone through an interesting time.  Just a few months ago the Ducks were ecstatic about going to a Rose Bowl but things have changed.  So lets take a look at what all has happened since the new year.

January 1st, 2010- Ohio State – 26  Oregon – 17.  In a game where you don’t want either team to win because you dislike both of them way too much, the Buckeyes came in as underdogs and beat up the Ducks.  Oregon proudly extended their drought of not winning Rose Bowls to 93 years.  Suckers.

January 24th, 2010 Part one: 2 Oregon kickers were in a brawl.  Rob Beard was knocked unconscious and put into intensive care for a couple days, he was charged with misdemeanor assault.  The other, Mike Bowlin, has now left the team.  (I don’t blame him)

January 24th, 2010 Part two:  Quarterback Jeremiah Masoli and receiver Garrett Embry are named in a police report for stealing laptops and a guitar from a frat house in Eugene.  Masoli, who has had some legal trouble in the past, is still on the team while Embry has been kicked off.  Some people say this story isn’t true (you probably know my opinion) but no legal action has been taken against Masoli and I expect this to blow over.

February 3rd, 2010:  Defensive end, Matt Simms, was dismissed from the team after being charged with misdemeanor assault in a brawl. 

February 17th, 2010:  At 3 AM, the pac-10’s freshman of the year, LaMichael James, was arrested on the accounts of strangulation, 4th degree assault, and physical harassment.  All of these charges came after James got into a fight with his girlfriend in a parking lot.  Like Masoli, James had been arrested before this.

No one knows if these incidents will lead to anything serious punishments.  Obviously, some players have gotten kicked off the team but those players weren’t very vital to Oregon’s success.  I expect Masoli to be the starting quarterback this season and not have any serious punishment because it’s taking so long for anything to be proven in that case.  But with James it’s a little different.  He was arrested and there’s been no dispute about what he’s done.  That’s the kind of thing that  not only gets you kicked off a team but also gets you kicked out of school.  If either of these kids are not on the team next year the Ducks chances at another Rose Bowl take a significant hit.

This all leads to the question, does Chip Kelley have control of his team?  Remember, he’s only been coach for a little over a year now.  He got the Ducks to produce on the field but, as we witnessed first hand with Rick Neuheisal, it’s important to be in control of your team off the field too.  But maybe this isn’t Kelley’s fault, maybe the blame should fall on former coach, current athletic director, Mike Bellotti for recruiting kids with questionable characters. 

I’m not saying that Oregon is the only school who has problems with their football program.  Heck, the 2000 Huskies had some well documented problems of their own, but the Ducks are really on a roll.  And while I’m usually not too excited about the Ducks getting on a roll, I’d be just fine if this one kept right on going. 

Andrew

Oregon’s star running back was arrested at 3 a.m. this morning on accounts of strangulation, assault, and menacing.  Seems to be a few problems in Eugene this off-season.  More on this later.

Andrew

With March fast approaching (not fast enough) and the Huskies tournament hopes in limbo, I’m stuck in the decision of who I will cheer for in March if my Dawgs aren’t in it.  The obvious choice is Gonzaga.  They’re in-state, have good players, and look like they should get a pretty good seeding come selection Sunday.  But I just can’t do it.

In the early 2000’s I cheered for the Zags.  The Huskies weren’t relevant and I liked the underdog.  Those Casey Calvary and Dan Dickau teams were fun.  Year after year they’d upset someone and became America’s sweetheart.  They were the classic underdog and everyone loves underdogs, myself included.  But I lost that feeling for them. 

It all started with Adam Morrison.  He was annoying, a cry-baby, had that TERRIBLE mustache, and somehow, through all of

Really?

 his years of basketball, didn’t learn how to pass.  I know he was great, the guy could shoot the lights out, but I swear that he took more than half of his teams shots.  He knew how to get the ref’s calls too.  Morrison would get to the free throw line so often that I’d lose track of how many times I’d run into the bathroom to heave from looking at his mustache (I might be exaggerating a little bit).  He changed a team that was fun to watch because of its chemistry into a one man show.  Sure, sometimes the show was phenomenal but it lacked supporting actors and I needed more characters to get attached to.

After Morrison left, my dislike of the Zags only grew.  They stopped playing the Huskies and a feud arose between the two schools.  They weren’t the underdogs anymore and it annoyed me to see them breeze through their terrible league while the Huskies had to put up with playing the Pac-10.  Then Zag fans would brag to me about their great record.  All the while I’m thinking, “Didn’t you guys play the San Francisco school of the blind last night?”  The feud between the two schools has only grown this past year.  With UW proposing to play Gonzaga every year in Seattle (which would never happen) and Mark Few making some comparison to Big Foot.  (When you’re putting down 2 things I love, UW and Big Foot, you aren’t going to be my favorite person).

Let me try to clear up why I dislike Gonzaga by confusing things a little bit more.  A double negative makes a positive, right?  Lets play this game I sometimes play in my head.  It’s called “what major league baseball team would this sports team be?”  (Obviously this game doesn’t work with major league baseball teams because the Mariners = the Mariners).  So for today lets have UW be the Seattle Mariners.  I know there are differences but for this example it works.  The Ducks can be the Yankees, I hate the Ducks and I hate the Yankees.  Again, there are differences (like the Ducks not knowing how to win a championship) but it works.  With these two teams equaling the Mariners and the Yankees this would mean that Gonzaga equals the Boston Red Sox.

For years the Red Sox were the underdog, a team everyone cheered for because of their ridiculously long championship drought.  I cheered for them right along with the rest of America when they came back to beat the Yankees in ’04.  For a while they were America’s team; it was cool to like the Red Sox.  It was great they won, just like it was great to see Gonzaga be the tournaments Cinderella for a few years.  But then the success got to their heads.  They let everyone know they won the world series and that they were going to do it again.  Everyone piled on the bandwagon and that became annoying.  And now they’ve started taking things for granted.  Bill Simmons (the sports guy) wrote a column a year or two ago about how he could see the Red Sox becoming just like the Yankees and I agree with him.  They’ve become arrogant with an attitude that says “I know we’re better than you,”  even if they weren’t.  All of these things that I’m saying about the Red Sox can also be said about Gonzaga. (Although I will never hate the Zags the way I do the Ducks).

I do like Bulldogs!

I realize that some of you are Zags fans and some of you are Red Sox fans.  But you aren’t the typical kind of Red Sox/Zag fans.  You aren’t the annoying fan who has this false sense that your team is out of this world.  But that’s how I feel like a good share of the fans are and that’s how the teams come off as.

So come March I could be searching for a team to cheer for.  I’ll probably just look for some Cinderella team that wins America over in the span of 3 days.  A fun team who is on cloud 9 because they’re living their dream.  You know, the kind of team the Zags used to be.

Andrew

After delving into the Dawgs recruiting this weekend, I thought it was time to write a light-hearted, funny post.  Naturally, I landed on the topic of Cougar football. Sorry WSU friends, that’ll be my only Cougar joke in this post.  Truth to be told, the Huskies were just as much of a joke as WSU was before this year.  Luckily, we got rid of the man who might be my least favorite person on the planet (I’m not kidding) and replaced him with someone who has put excitement back into our program.

All of this to say that it’s obvious Paul Wulff has absolutely no idea what he’s doing.  His teams come in to games not prepared, only scoring 3 points in the first quarter this entire year, and they come out of games beaten badly.  Unless something dramatic happens Wulff will leave Wazzu with the worst Pac-10 winning percantage of any coach in history.  His current Pac-10 winning percantage currently sits at a whopping .055. 

 Although he seems to be a good guy (which is more than we could say about Willingham) Wulff just doesn’t seem very smart.  On signing day, Good ‘ol Paul complained about kids switching schools they’re committed to, basically blaming parents for not raising kids to stick with their word.  Welcome to the real world buddy, this is how division 1 football works.  Yeah, it sucks but that’s the way it goes.  These are 17 and 18 year old kids making one of the biggest decisions of their lives, I can understand why they would change their minds.  This is just another drop of water in a pool of reasons that Paul Wulff doesn’t have what it takes to be a division 1 football coach.  I have friends who go to Wazzu who I honestly think could do a better job than he is. 

So where does that leave the Cougars?  Well, I’d be shocked if Wulff isn’t fired after this year.  Ideally, WSU fires Paul Wulff, Oregon gives him a lifetime contract and then the Cougars hire Tyrone Willingham.  Unfortunately my dream world won’t even touch reality here.  So, here are a few coaches that I think should be high on WSU’s list next year. 

Robb Akey (current Idaho headcoach)-  If I were a Cougar fan, I would be up in arms that Wulff wasn’t fired this year and the Cougs didn’t pursue Akey.  Akey hasn’t taken one of the worst college football programs ever and has turned into a bowl game winner.  Sure, he coaches in a conference that is just plain bad but Idaho used to be like a high school team.  Now they’re winning exciting football games (their bowl game was my favorite one that I watched) and stealing recruits from Wazzu.  Akey was defensive coordinator for the Cougars and may have left on bad terms.  I believe that if the Cougars had pursued him this year, they wouldn’t have run into many problems in getting him.  But if Akey continues his Vandal’s success into next year then their may be a little more competition for his sevices.  I think Akey would be a great fit for the Cougs and should be the top target on their list.

Mike (the pirate) Leach

Mike Leach (former Texas Tech head coach)- This is where things start to get interesting.  By now, I imagine all of you have heard how Leach was fired from Texas Tech.  Yeah, he’s crazy and quirky but you can’t argue with the success he had.  Also, it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Texas Tech and Washington State.  Lubbock and Pullman aren’t the perfect places to recruit players to.  Both schools have smaller but very loyal fan bases.  Both have schools in their conference that are much bigger, wealthier and have better facilities than they do.  They have these things going against them but both have proven that they can have success.  Leach’s offensive system is a lot like Wulff’s system, only Leach knows how to run it.  I don’t know if Wazzu’s administration will seriously look into Leach, like I said he’s crazy and no one really knows what goes on inside his head, but if he became coach of the Cougars, speaking as a Husky fan, I would be very concerned.

Mike Price (Former WSU coach; current UTEP coach)- I know this has come up before and the Cougars have said they won’t hire him.  But why not? He’s the best coach in Cougar history.  He took them to had 3 consecutive 10 win seasons.  Price took Wazzu to two Rose Bowls.  He knows the school and knows how to coach there.  Some could argue that he’s lost his knack for coaching since he hasn’t had much success at UTEP.  I think those people need to realize he’s coaching at UTEP.  The Beatles were great musicians but they wouldn’t have been a good band if they didn’t have instruments.  My point, I don’t think anyone could turn UTEP into much of a winner.  I think WSU should swallow their pride and give Price another chance.  Let the reunion begin and let Husky fans, like me, have nightmares about the Cougars returning to halfway relevance. 

These are 3 guys who I think are plausible candidates for the Cougars and who would have me a little bit frightened.  But hopefully they’ll just choose some alum who has no division 1 experience, has no idea how to prepare his team, and has the IQ of  a seven year old (that might’ve been a little too harsh). 

Andrew

Welcome friends! Over the past few weeks I’ve been thinking about how much fun it would be to start a sports blog. This idea started out as the simple thought, “I text and talk about sports enough that maybe I should start writing about it.” But, like many ideas before it, this thought was pushed to the back of my mind. The thought kept coming back though.

One day last week I mentioned this to my brother, Matthew Long, and good friend, Danny Scansen, and they also thought this would be fun. Between the three of us, we will be bringing you posts about Seattle sports, the Pac-10 and basically anything else we want to write about. It’s an honor to write with these two people that I respect and aspire to be like.

Needless to say, I’m extremely excited about this. It doesn’t really matter to me who or how many people read this, I selfishly admit that I’m writing for myself more than anything. This is because sports fascinate me. How do we come to this deep connection, that can lead to tears of joy or months of frustration, with a team full of players that we’ve never met? After 19 years of fandom, the strongest conclusion I can come to is that sports are our escape from reality. And no matter how harsh reality can be sometimes, I can turn on a football game (or almost any game) and that brings the potential to forget troubles. Does this always work? Of course not. And I’m not saying that sports provide a way to run from problems, when the games over it’s right back to the grind, but sports act as a break from a fast paced and frantic life. Because they do this for us, we become attached. Just like a good friend who’s always there to hear your problems or cheer you up, sports are usually there to get us out of the funk a bad day brings.

I’ve been going to Husky football games for as long as I can remember, and haven’t missed a home game in over 6 years. Recently, I was asked if the Huskies running out of the tunnel before the game ever loses it’s excitement. That got me thinking, I can’t remember a time when the team came out of the tunnel and I didn’t have my arms raised above my head, yelling. Even in the midst of irrelevancy and a winless season, when the team came out of the tunnel I still felt like a 6 year old on Christmas morning. This is because I owe the Huskies something. No matter how bad my week has been the Dawgs are there in the fall. And no matter how awful the team has played, at least they’re there to give me time to spend with my family, some excitement and memories that I hope to share with my own kids someday. They’re there to give me an escape.

So this blog will be here to talk about those escapes. To talk about how the Mariners could plausibly make a World Series run or how the Huskies could be back sooner than any of us had dreamed. We hope you enjoy it, I know I will.

(Feel free to comment on any of the posts!)

-Andrew