CougCenter: All Posts by Jeff Nusser

Jake Rodgers leaves WSU, headed to EWU?

2013-05-22T02:45:43Z

If there is one unit on the field where WSU really can't afford to suffer losses, it's the offensive line, but suffer a loss it did today: WSU confirmed to Christian Caple that junior offensive lineman Jake Rodgers has left the program.

Rodgers started all 12 games in 2012, moving all over the line as Mike Leach continually shuffled the deck in an effort to put together a competent group. It didn't really work, as WSU put up staggeringly bad rushing numbers that were exacerbated by a whopping 57 sacks.

Rodgers experienced his fair share of struggles as part of that line, but that doesn't mean that he won't be missed. WSU's linemen tend to come into their own as upperclassmen, and Rodgers -- a converted high school tight end -- gained valuable experience last year.

It's no guarantee Rodgers would have been starting, but WSU simply needs all the warm bodies it can get along the line. Depth has been a major concern for years, and Leach said at the end of spring that he finally was feeling good about the Cougs' depth up front. Rodgers didn't practice all spring with what appeared to be an undisclosed injury, but it was anticipated he'd be back for fall.

So, I guess I'd put it this way: The loss isn't devastating, but it ain't good, either. I'm not convinced that he wasn't going to end up a decent a Pac-12 player.

Adam Lewis of SportsPressNW.com is reporting Rodgers, a graduate of Shadle Park in Spokane, will head back home to play for Eastern Washington. Caple reports that he can't confirm Rodgers' destination, but Lewis is pretty plugged in with the players.

I guess we now have our answer to this. Best of luck to Jake and his fabulous mullet.

Dennis Simmons mic'd up by WSU Athletics

2013-05-21T22:19:14Z

"Yards after the catch" is a common refrain.

WSU vs. Auburn: Previewing the Tigers with Bill Connelly

2013-05-21T22:00:06Z

We're square in the middle of the long metaphorical winter that is the post-spring practice/pre-fall camp window, and that means it's offseason preview season! While many of these stories are simply uninformed filler, one of the very best in the business at these things is SB Nation's own Bill Connelly. He previews every team in FBS -- no joke, he starts in February -- and he tackled Auburn today.

This season opener against the Tigers is sort of fascinating to me. Last year's blind optimism that led many of us to think WSU could be competitive in the season opener against BYU came crashing down in a hurry, leading to a more guarded assessment of the Cougs' chances this time around -- despite the fact that Auburn was pretty awful last year.

There's a ton of really cool stuff in there, but this is the part that caught my eye:

I would really like to blame most of Gene Chizik's failures on strange schematic decision-making and poor development. But a large portion of Auburn's problem in 2012 was pure youth. There was just too much of it to succeed, and it was particularly evident in Auburn's home-road splits. It stands to reason that more experienced teams are able to avoid terrible drop-offs on the road. Auburn could not.

Adj. Points Per Game (at home/neutral): Opponent 29.0, Auburn 27.9 (minus-1.1)
Adj. Points Per Game (on the road): Opponent 32.1, Auburn 18.4 (minus-13.7)

Now, Auburn was still mediocre at best, even at home. A negative average margin in Adj. Points means you were worse than an average team. But Auburn was also one of the worst teams in the country on the road. That points to poor experience and poor leadership, issues that could begin to naturally rectify themselves in 2013.

Well, that's not exactly what we want to hear! But I guess the good news is that WSU was incredibly young a year ago, too, so I guess that's something?

Go ahead and read the preview, then come back and talk about anything else that you noticed.

Logan Mayes' hit-and-run accident 'relatively minor'

2013-05-20T23:01:46Z

Details are emerging about the hit and run for which Logan Mayes was arrested, and it appears that those who feared the worst had nothing to worry about.

Take it away, Christian Caple:

[Pullman Police Commander Chris] Tennant said an eyewitness called the police after seeing Mayes back his vehicle into another car in a parking lot. Mayes allegedly drove away without stopping to examine the damage or leave his information.

The damage consisted of a broken tail light. Mayes (who admitted to police that he did it) was cited, given a court date and released -- the same sort of "arrest" experienced by Toni Pole.

We all do stupid things in college, things that end up serving as life lessons. Had Mayes left his info at the scene, he probably could have paid cash for a new tail light without insurance getting involved. Instead, his insurance is going to go through the roof with a hit and run on his record (assuming he isn't offered diversion or something), Leach probably will be giving him some extra "conditioning" and he's suffered the public embarrassment of being arrested.

From what I know of Mayes and his parents, the latter is the most serious and will be dealt with posthaste.

We've talked about how it's been a bad couple of weeks for WSU football off the field, but as Brian advised, let's step back and take a look at what actually has transpired:

Pole arrested for giving false information to an officer;
Teondray Caldwell arrested for a number of things, including burglary and assault;
Mayes arrested for backing into a car in a parking lot and driving away.

Are all of these pretty stupid things to do? Yep. Are any of them nefarious? Maybe Caldwell? But even that looks a little flimsy at this point. The most serious event was the assault that ended with Mansel Simmons having to retire, and while WSU players certainly weren't blameless, they didn't put their own teammate into the hospital - that was an Idaho player.

So, while nobody likes to see "WSU football player arrested" in a headline, it's hardly the stuff of 2006 and 2007. Heck, it's not even the stuff of 2010. It's mostly the stuff of doing dumb college kid things as a football player in the fishbowl of Pullman. Might be time to dial back the moral outrage a little bit.

WSU football plagued by off-field incidents

2013-05-20T21:32:00Z

Receiver Mansell Simmons was assaulted and forced to retire because of injuries suffered in the fight, while a string of arrests has left fans wondering what's going on with the Cougars this offseason.

WSU wide receiver Mansel Simmons was hospitalized on Sunday after an altercation in which an Idaho football player allegedly assaulted him, according to Cougfan.com's Howie Stalwick.

Simmons

There has been no comment from WSU, as per its policy to not talk about any potential injuries relating to football players, so it is unknown whether he remains hospitalized.

According to the story, Simmons was with a group of WSU football players who were at a party in Pullman that also was attended by some Idaho football players. At some point, both sets of teammates were asked to leave because they were arguing, and at some point that argument escalated to a fight outside.

Simmons was taken to Pullman Regional Hospital before being transported to Spokane with a skull fracture and concussion, according to Pullman Police Commander Chris Tennant. At some point along the way, the car of the girlfriend of one of the Idaho players was vandalized. How vandalized?

The car had to be towed after "a door was basically ripped off its hinges," mirrors were torn off and the body of the car was dented, Tennant said.

Tennant said they have a good idea who committed the assault, but it appears no arrests have been made. It's also unclear if there are any leads on the vandalism, which circumstantially would point directly to the WSU contingent.

Simmons does not appear to be in any kind of grave danger (although it's tough to be sure since nobody is talking but Tennant), so with the caveat that this sucks for Simmons and our thoughts are with him, I suppose it's not too bad of form to speculate as to what this means for the WSU football team.

Simmons, a redshirt sophomore, came to WSU as a tight end prospect under Paul Wulff, but he was switched to outside receiver under Leach. The spring roster lists him at 6-4 and 226 pounds, and he was third on the spring depth chart at "Z" behind Gabe Marks and Isiah Myers. Given what we know about Leach's propensity to liberally rotate his receivers -- 12 different receivers caught at least one pass in 2012 -- Simmons almost certainly would have been in line for some playing time. One would assume that he's out for the spring and that his availability for the 2013 season is in question, given the seriousness of the injuries to the head.

An additional layer of intrigue? The proximity of the two campuses means that WSU athletes and Idaho athletes cross each others' paths often. For example, the basketball players often will play pickup games with each other out of season, and I'm sure there are more connections that I'm unaware of. While this event may well be a drunken one-off, there's no doubt in my mind that Bill Moos and Rob Spear have been on the phone with each other already to figure out how to diffuse the situation.

EDIT: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the party was in Moscow, because I am an idiot. Thanks.

WSU cancels classes for Halloween football game vs. ASU

2013-05-17T01:00:33Z

In what might be the most WSU thing in the history of WSU things, President Elson Floyd announced Thursday that the school will cancel classes on the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 31, in advance of that night's televised football game against Arizona State.

Additionally, he said that attendance at morning classes will be at the discretion of faculty.

A less cynical person would note that Pullman more or less has to change everything to accommodate the influx of people into the city when there is a football game. Floyd said this is "opportunity to share the beauty of our unique Pullman campus before a national television audience in a broadcast carried by one of the ESPN family of networks," and that this is "part of our efforts to ensure the safety and ease of travel throughout campus for faculty, staff, students and fans,"

However, we all know what's really going on: A not insignificant number of students probably were going to blow off their afternoon classes anyway in an effort to get their prefunk on. Now they don't have to make that agonizing choice between their afternoon chem lab and that case of Busch Light that's calling their name.

Night football game ... canceled classes ... Halloween ...

There's really no way this isn't going to be epic, right?

Mike Leach lifts ban on WSU football players using Twitter

2013-05-16T23:55:40Z

We wondered the other day what was going on when offensive lineman Jake Rodgers suddenly returned to Twitter -- after all, Mike Leach had banned his players from using the social media platform back in October.

It appears we have our answer.

No way... twitter.com/RahmelDockery/…
— Follow Dockery™ (@RahmelDockery) May 16, 2013

Apparently, that's a text message from WSU that went to all the football players. So, if you're a person who likes to follow football players on Twitter, get excited! Here's a sampling of the sorts of things you have to look forward to!

I think Adam Sandler is a brilliant actor
— Jeff Tuel (@qb10jvt) May 15, 2013

When you find that perfect spot in bed where the pillows are just right >>>
— Travis Long (@tlong89) April 26, 2013

She get it from her momma
— rickey galvin (@RICKEYGALVIN) October 23, 2012

@rawwdog24 well good to see that UW education is paying off and you can put together a sentence that pertains to the conversation we had
— Phenry42 (@phenry42) October 6, 2012

OK, that last one was pretty funny, actually.

Thus concludes (we hope) this whole ridiculous drama surrounding WSU football and the use of Twitter. As we suspected all along, Leach's ban wasn't permanent, and you now once again have unfettered access to mundane musings of your favorite Cougar football players.

At least one player is thankful for the second chance.

In case you're wondering, Brooks turned his account back to private shortly after this. So nobody can blame him if this goes sideways.

What the heck is going on with CougCenter?

2013-05-16T18:19:22Z

Let's start here: We're as frustrated as you are about the problems all of SB Nation -- including CougCenter -- have been experiencing. I guess it's less of a big deal for us, since we're out of season at the moment, but it obviously still sucks.

So here's what we know: This is a server and network infrastructure issue, which (loosely translated) means that the SB Nation engineers are working to fix a problem that wasn't our doing. And when I saw "working to fix," I really mean "working around the clock without sleeping to fix."

Hopefully, this will be shored up by the end of the day. I've been with SB Nation since 2008, and I've never seen anything like this. What I know is that Vox Media (SB Nation's parent company) has some of the best people in the business working on this, and it'll be fixed soon. I'll update as updates come.

In the meantime, if you want to follow developments yourself, you can do that through SB Nation's status site and the SB Nation Support account on Twitter.

Ultimately, thanks for your patience. I've felt a little aimless over the last couple of days too!

UPDATE: Here's the official word from SB Nation. Head over to that thread if you'd like to leave a comment with them.

As SB Nation users, you have certainly noticed the significant performance drop across the network this week. The SB Nation team and all of Vox Media sincerely apologize for the site performance problems affecting your experience on our sites and communities over the past few days. We understand how frustrating it is for you. Given the nature of the issue, it is taking several days to fully restore performance completely. We have been working around the clock, taking incremental and comprehensive measures, to restore performance to normal levels.

Our approach to correcting the issues affecting the network has been two pronged: 1) improve performance as much as possible incrementally and 2) restore long-term stability to the system.

The first prong has been focused on improving the performance of logged-in users as these users have experienced the biggest drop in performance. Some of the improvements that we have pushed out to this point include:

Page load performance for logged-in users, including lower error rates

Commenting performance

Logging-in

Publishing content, including Fanposts and Fanshots

Some of these errors, specifically for logged-in users, may appear intermittently until we complete the necessary infrastructure work, but performance should be greatly improved from Tuesday evening and Wednesday.

We have all hands on deck to complete this work and will be performing maintenance after hours this weekend to restore full service to the network. Of course, we would like to do this work sooner, but we need to be extra careful and thorough in making these changes, so as to not risk new problems.

Again, we completely understand the frustration our users have felt over the past few days and will continue to do everything in our power to restore full service to the network and ease your frustration. We greatly appreciate your patience and understanding as we've worked through these issues and bring long term stability to the network. Thank you for your dedication to and support of SB Nation and Vox Media.