Washington Waddler

Love the way O lines responds to having a back with Cardwell’s patients and timing. It’s a trust you can’t buy.

Think KT put it best with his comments regarding the D’s show of resilience, and how they train for sudden change — it’s all about the next play. 1-0 Baby!

Yes, after yet another magic act win over us it felt good to see the rodents put the clamps on the stumps at clam dip stadium. And besides, it will give them a false sense of confidence coming into Autzen.

WSU’s challenging short passes and run game will be faced with a Duck D that appears to be gelling. Should be interesting.

Obviously, rivalries can live in hearts and minds as much as they do on the field. How fans relate to a rivalry is far beyond any analytical skills I might possess. But, as regards the field, I’m not sure you can say any rivalry is ever static enough to be judged alive or dead. It’s way to dynamic a relationship to ever be in a permanent either/or circumstance: it’s situational. That’s why a field rivalry can be ‘dead’ (through much of the Don James era), but grow into being ‘alive’ (starting in 1994), and then pass once again into being ‘dead’ with Oregon’s recent dominance. Will it flip flop? Most likely. Just don’t confuse the two ways we relate to rivalry.

All I have to do is run this dead pooch idea past my gut, and the surge of adrenaline-laced loathing that comes up tells me this rivalry will never end. They’ve earned my eternal disrespect.

I’ve often felt one of the great strengths of being a Duck grew out of the Rich Brooks development experience which painfully taught us the value to be found in patient determination. We know how to wait something out. We may have whined our way there, but we allowed the Brooks experiment to complete itself. There are not many programs that can say that, and is the primary reason I feel MC senses the kind of confident connection he does to our program. For me, it’s just plain fun watching that guy grow and mature into the coach he wants to be because he knows we have his back.

For what it’s worth, I believe MC’s response regarding this season’s injuries was that he’s never experienced anything like it in his playing or coaching career. Solutions notwithstanding, you know at the very least it has his and the coaching staffs’ attention. Under his guidance, the program protocols appears to be detail driven which gives me reason to think they’ll be revisiting strength and training regimens after the season is over. Is it a situation that could benefit by modification, or just simply behind the eight ball bad luck? Certainly hope it’s the former.

If JL goes, can’t imagine a better fit at Arizona?

It seems like only yesterday that Woofytown was calling Jimmy the second coming of Don James.

Some recruits you can’t wait to see. He’s was one of them.

It may not be the kind of thing you want to be seen doing on ABC, but Jimmy was hardly channeling Woody.

Anything’s possible, but like others have pointed out, Nick is enjoying life. Head coach offerings? Again, hard to read, but my guess would be he’d be very cautious — knowing his own temperament — before jumping in that caldron. Last thing in life he’d like to be remember as is becoming another Mike Stoops.

Agreed, that’s why my play of the game was Camden Lewis’ 46 yard FG into the south wind off Lake Washington. The growth and consistency he’s displaying could be the difference maker against playoff opponents.

I understand the regrets registered regarding no TO taken before time ran out. But, there’s another way of looking at that. There was a message sent that the Poochies just weren’t worth that extra effort. Save it for some team down the road that is.

As usual, the Seattle Times(out) sports section dropped the ball on another golden opportunity for a good headline: “WEATHER MADE FOR A DUCK” or “BOW WOW DOWN POUR DROWNS DAWGS” would have been apt. Sadly — just like Jimmy — they seem to lack prowess.

When you don’t have a leg to stand on, it’s best to just keep your mouth shut. Jimmy Lake doesn’t seem to get that. He reminds me sometimes of an old Mose Allison lyric, “your mind is on vacation and your mouth is working overtime.”

Agreed. The cherry on top that for me though was the 1980 Reggie Ogburn led upset in Seattle of the then 13th ranked Huskies. Oh so sweet!

Intelagunt

Kudos to Hayward Duck. It helps to remember, you can only be the new kid on the block once. OBD snuck up on the national scene with Rich and Mike, and then took it by storm with Chip. As anyone knows, getting to the top the first time is easier than staying there. That rush of original enthusiasm gives way to the complex challenges of building a tradition. But the foundation is still rooted in that original enthusiasm which has never been afraid of risking change if it will make our Ducks better. There’s been more times than I care to count when I didn’t know where we were headed. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was knowing I’m a Duck.

If you’re going to suggest your football team’s recruiting capability is better than another’s by means of academic excellence, you’d best be sure your public statements reflect that reality. When Jimmy Lake says, “. . . We battle more academically prowess teams”, he employs the word ‘prowess’ incorrectly. Prowess is a noun, and a noun can not modify another (team) noun. Such a statement requires an adjective. Corrected, the statement might read, ‘we battle more academically superior teams’. So far, what Jimmy says doesn’t reflect what Jimmy does.

Sure was nice to not have to worry about clock management for a week! Liked the way AM and his O line closed ranks and took care of business. Sent the clear message not to worry about Kingsley’s departure.

Softy, as in soft in the head?

As unsettled as the moving parts are on this year’s edition, I have to give it a slight edge over 2019 going forward based on the emerging potential in the run game. What we saw against a solid Colorado D with the addition of Cardwell and McGee has got to have opposing D coordinators concerned when you add in the known abilities of Dye and Brown. More run options for JM could translate into less pressure on AB’s arm. Speaking of running backs, shouldn’t Sean Dollars be getting close to returning?

While I’m in agreement with the higher % chance ball control would have had in that situation over going for a score that AB finds difficult to execute, JM may have been playing the likelihood that the UCLA defense would provide a better shot at the home run ball by ratcheting-up it’s own endgame plan in the box to stuff ball control, leaving our receivers in man. On both offense and defense, endgames are always going to be a choice between playing it safe or rolling the dice. Considering the strength of UCLA’s front 7, I’d have been tempted to go for it. Don’t think I’d of pulled the trigger though. Against Colorado’s frosh QB, we don’t run the same risk we did with DTR’s 2 minute drill efficiency. Endgame should be more manageable with wider range of choices.