POSTGAME THREAD: Finally, some hope

They showed a lot of life and made some plays. Contained the run after the first quarter a bit although they couldn’t do much to stop them through the air. Tuel will get all the talk but the defense showed some toughness to stick around and not simply cave @ SC.

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And they were playing an actually decently matched game, and have much more alumni than us. Just interesting.

This is surreal. We just lost by three touchdowns and the mood of everyone walking out of the stadium feels like we won by the same outcome.

SC is lvid. Cougs are encouraged. I’m happy…and not sober.

the game last night… the change in QB… the defense starting to play… if we can just get the special teams fixed( was a problem last year )… hope and belief are starting to take hold. if we can just stay healthy this year … some more wins.

livivng on the west side … having to hear about the UW all the time – glad UW was brought back to earth by the trees!

Gives me hope for some of the other conference games yet. These freshman studs are just going to get better with game experience, and for all the praise we were giving Lobster after he engineered that nice drive against SMU, Tuel looked like he could do it against anyone, at any time. That forced pass into double coverage at the goal line that resulted in the pick was unfortunate, but we’ll have to stomach those from time to time with a true frosh at the helm. He was reading plays well and at least twice I saw him scramble to pick up the first with nobody open and a lane in front of him. Was a little late to slide and avoid the big hit when well past the 1st down marker, but I have to think he’ll learn quickly there too.

USC is not looking good this year, especially when they’re not playing Barkley (makes me wonder what this game would have looked like if we’d faced Corp the whole time, not to mention Mays out), but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re STACKED with athletic specimens on both sides of the ball, and somehow the same team – plus a few freshmen – that looked physically pathetic in the first 3 games played competitively. Hard to cheer for a loss, but this was a loss that showed – as Nuss summed it up rather eloquently – this team is heading in the right direction. Absolutely yes.

Now if we could just come out of the gate for a game playing the way we did in the final 3 quarters yesterday. But even that’s a plus – it didn’t take until the second half for us to see something on the field worth cheering about.

Taking your first snap in the Collesium against one of the best defenses in the college football and watching your starting quaterback get sacked 4 times would be a lot to take in. Tuel shows promise which is something that we cant say about any other qb on wsu’s roster. Getting thrown into the ring like that proves that he can handle it. He’ll only get better once he is the one getting all the reps and continuing to practice with the #1 offense. Him and Simone will be a dynamic duo. Can’t wait to see what the next 4 years hold.

But I was more impressed at the way Tuel started to protest, saw that nothing was going to come of it either way, and went about his business of calling the next play. The guy was a d*ck but Tuel kept his composure.

I was firmly in the ‘keep his redshirt’ camp for the long run benefit of the program. But after one series it was clear that he not only deserves to play, he gives us the best chance to win TODAY, we need him out there on the field now just as we do Simone and Long.

Wow. So happy for CPW, hope they can keep this going, and how the h&ll good is Tuel going to be?? Go Cougs!