Mornin Mates and a fine morning it is after beating the Bruins last night...
Today's Topic = Rebuilding the PAC
Jim Mora told reporters before the season started that this Bruins team would be his best since he arrived in Westwood five years ago...isn't this like shades of Todd Graham last year telling anyone who would listen that his 2015 Sun Devil team would be his best at the school to date..??
The Bruins are now 3-3 with a great QB but not much else apparently working much on offense and with a defense that is good but apparently not good enough to beat a Sun Devil team that had its starting QB on the bench due to injury...
The Bruins now have to go to Pullman where the Cougars just dismantled Stanford 42-16 and have their own great QB in Luke Falk and are playing well, after fizzling early in the season against some inferior competition...I had picked the Cougs as my dark horse team to win the PAC and they still may as they are 2-0 in PAC play and have a favorable remaining schedule...
I figure that Falk will throw for about 700 yards against the Sun Devils when the Cougs come to Tempe on 10-22, as our "now you see 'em. now you don't" defense should be easy pickings for Falk and his offense...
For those of you that don't know, our infamous "now you see 'em, now you don't defense" is identified by its ability to turn swing passes and other short passes into 60-70-80 yard touchdowns by opponents, as one tackler after another miss or bounce off the receiver or running back, as he takes a five yard pass and ends up in our end zone 65 yds away a short time later...
And, if we aren't missing tackles, etc, we're blowing assignments in the secondary, where the announcers point it out with a lot of regularity...
However, that isn't where I'm going with my thoughts this morning which is about how Todd fairs against his coaching brethren in the South where he, Rich Rod, Mora and Leach all started at their respective schools five years ago, and where Arizona is a mess, this is not Mora's best team so far in LA, and where Leach managed to lose to Eastern Wash to start the season with, perhaps, his best team to date...
You would think that five years into a programs development that you would have a solid enough foundation in place so that the word "rebuilding" would not be used by teams to describe their progress or lack thereof, to date...
After all, Rich Rod has recruited his kind of guys long enough that the Cats should not be rebuilding at this point, one would think, and that Mora would not be having the problems the Bruins seem to be having these days, given all the recruiting success he's had at UCLA, and that Leach shouldn't be losing to teams like Eastern Wash, and that ASU shouldn't have a "now you see 'em, now you don't defense" these days after developing its program for more than four years...
It even appears that past cellar dweller Colorado may now be ahead of some of these apparently "rebuilding" PAC South teams these days, although the season is still fairly young...
So, where does Todd fit when compared to the other PAC coaches that came on board when he did in the PAC like Mora, Rich Rod and Leach..??
Is he better or about the same as or worse than those coaches..??
On a different note, it would appear that Chris Petersen has already "rebuilt" the Huskies and they look like a legitimate play-off contender, while the Ducks, under Helfrich, now appear to be dead ducks, while the Cardinal, under Shaw, seem to have lost their title contending mojo and seem to be slipping down hill fast...
It sure looks like there is going to be a lot of "rebuilding" almost everywhere around the PAC once the season ends...
What say all of you about this "rebuilding" business in the PAC..??
G'day Mates and Go Devils!!!
Today's Topic = Rebuilding the PAC
Jim Mora told reporters before the season started that this Bruins team would be his best since he arrived in Westwood five years ago...isn't this like shades of Todd Graham last year telling anyone who would listen that his 2015 Sun Devil team would be his best at the school to date..??
The Bruins are now 3-3 with a great QB but not much else apparently working much on offense and with a defense that is good but apparently not good enough to beat a Sun Devil team that had its starting QB on the bench due to injury...
The Bruins now have to go to Pullman where the Cougars just dismantled Stanford 42-16 and have their own great QB in Luke Falk and are playing well, after fizzling early in the season against some inferior competition...I had picked the Cougs as my dark horse team to win the PAC and they still may as they are 2-0 in PAC play and have a favorable remaining schedule...
I figure that Falk will throw for about 700 yards against the Sun Devils when the Cougs come to Tempe on 10-22, as our "now you see 'em. now you don't" defense should be easy pickings for Falk and his offense...
For those of you that don't know, our infamous "now you see 'em, now you don't defense" is identified by its ability to turn swing passes and other short passes into 60-70-80 yard touchdowns by opponents, as one tackler after another miss or bounce off the receiver or running back, as he takes a five yard pass and ends up in our end zone 65 yds away a short time later...
And, if we aren't missing tackles, etc, we're blowing assignments in the secondary, where the announcers point it out with a lot of regularity...
However, that isn't where I'm going with my thoughts this morning which is about how Todd fairs against his coaching brethren in the South where he, Rich Rod, Mora and Leach all started at their respective schools five years ago, and where Arizona is a mess, this is not Mora's best team so far in LA, and where Leach managed to lose to Eastern Wash to start the season with, perhaps, his best team to date...
You would think that five years into a programs development that you would have a solid enough foundation in place so that the word "rebuilding" would not be used by teams to describe their progress or lack thereof, to date...
After all, Rich Rod has recruited his kind of guys long enough that the Cats should not be rebuilding at this point, one would think, and that Mora would not be having the problems the Bruins seem to be having these days, given all the recruiting success he's had at UCLA, and that Leach shouldn't be losing to teams like Eastern Wash, and that ASU shouldn't have a "now you see 'em, now you don't defense" these days after developing its program for more than four years...
It even appears that past cellar dweller Colorado may now be ahead of some of these apparently "rebuilding" PAC South teams these days, although the season is still fairly young...
So, where does Todd fit when compared to the other PAC coaches that came on board when he did in the PAC like Mora, Rich Rod and Leach..??
Is he better or about the same as or worse than those coaches..??
On a different note, it would appear that Chris Petersen has already "rebuilt" the Huskies and they look like a legitimate play-off contender, while the Ducks, under Helfrich, now appear to be dead ducks, while the Cardinal, under Shaw, seem to have lost their title contending mojo and seem to be slipping down hill fast...
It sure looks like there is going to be a lot of "rebuilding" almost everywhere around the PAC once the season ends...
What say all of you about this "rebuilding" business in the PAC..??
G'day Mates and Go Devils!!!
