If you don't know who Mike Marlow is, you should -- there's a very good chance he's going to be WSU's next athletics director when Bill Moos decides he's had enough and is ready to head back to the ranch.

For now, though, Marlow is one of the senior associate athletics directors at WSU which, roughly translated, means "big dang deal over there at Bohler Gym." He's a 1990 graduate of WSU who, before being hired by Moos, had spent the previous 13 years building Oregon's empire. I don't think it's unfair to characterize him as Moos' right-hand man in the athletic department.

That's why I was incredibly excited to be able to spend about 20 minutes chatting on the phone with Marlow last week in the midst of snowicepocalypse (before my Internet died -- yes!). We covered a wide range of topics, from the new philosophy of the athletics department to the facilities priorities in Pullman to what every fan can do to help WSU athletics compete at a championship level ... and more.

I apologize in advance for the recording quality -- there was a bit of an issue on Marlow's end that I wasn't able to get sorted out and wasn't able to edit out with my limited skills. Technology is great ... most of the time.

The thing I love the most about the interview is Marlow's passion. Even I started to get fired up when he began talking about "win the Pac-12." (That's near the end. Trust me, it's cool.) I hope every Cougar fan takes to heart what he's saying; we all need to belong to the Cougar Athletic Fund if we care about WSU athletics. A $50 annual donation is all that's required, and I would hope that we're sending graduates into the world who can afford invest into WSU athletics for less than $5 a month. If we're not, our university is in bigger trouble than we think.

If you're not yet a member of the CAF, you can sign up here. I donate $10 a month. It's not much, but it's something. And as Marlow says in the interview, that's all they're asking for.

Audio player after the jump.

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Back with another podcast. Craig and I debrief the mess that was the loss to Cal, with particular attention paid to the lack of progress on the defensive side of the ball. We also talk about basketball, and just what to expect out of this team considering the numerous injuries that are surrounding the team as it heads to the opener at Gonzaga.

You should be hearing more podcasts from now on, as we have ourselves a real-deal producer now: GoCougs himself, Mr. Jeff Collier. He'll now be the guy who is handling all the postproduction work; it takes about an hour to do all the mixing, exporting, uploading, etc., and saving me that time makes it far more likely that we can do this on a regular basis. Thanks, Jeff!

You can find us on iTunes here, or by simply searching "CougCenter"; you also can manually subscribe to our new feed: http://cougcenterpodcast.wordpress.com/feed/ .

You can listen to the podcast after the jump, either by downloading it by clicking on the link or by clicking the little circle to the left of the link or by clicking the little gray tab with the white triangle in it that's sticking out in the lower left-hand corner of this page. The latter is actually a nifty little Yahoo! player .

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Once upon a time, we used to record a podcast each week. Maybe we just needed a special occasion to get motivated to do it again, as Craig and I got together tonight to look back at the Colorado game, look ahead to the UCLA game, and celebrate the first basketball commit of the 2012 class.

You can listen to the podcast below, either by downloading it by clicking on the link or by clicking the little circle to the left of the link or by clicking the little gray tab with the white triangle in it that's sticking out in the lower left-hand corner of this page. The latter is actually a nifty little Yahoo! player .

For those of you who have subscribed to the podcast in the past -- either through iTunes or another podcast client -- there have been some changes. The old feed is no longer working, which means the current iTunes channel isn't functioning, either. We're working on getting a new iTunes channel set up, but in the meantime, you can manually subscribe to this new feed: http://cougcenterpodcast.wordpress.com/feed/.

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We're back! Craig and I got together to talk about the basketball team as it's in the midst of this three-game losing streak. What's gone wrong, and how can the Cougs right the ship this weekend against Oregon State and Oregon? You'll have to listen to find out!

As usual, you can listen to the audio via the player below, or visit our podcast page for myriad ways to subscribe to all of our audio. (Our podcast page now has a mobile option for those of you reading this on your phone.) You can also find us in the iTunes directory under keyword "CougCenter," or simply click this link. The advantage of subscribing? Besides having the audio directly delivered to your player of choice, I often upload the audio to the podcast site before posting it here.

Also, if you own an Android phone (and I know many of you do), you have no reason not to download the Listen app and subscribe using this link. If you click on it from your mobile browser, you can complete the action with Listen. DO IT.

BONUS! Here's this week's episode of 18 And Life, the Pac-10 hoops podcast I record with Seth Kolloen of Sports Press Northwest. Enjoy both! (You can subscribe to this podcast at our site.)

We're back! Brian and I wrap up the Apple Cup and Kansas State, then preview Wednesday's big game with Gonzaga.

As usual, you can listen to the audio via the player below, or visit our podcast page for myriad ways to subscribe to all of our audio. (Our podcast page now has a mobile option for those of you reading this on your phone.) You can also find us in the iTunes directory under keyword "CougCenter," or simply click this link. The advantage of subscribing? Besides having the audio directly delivered to your player of choice, I often upload the audio to the podcast site before posting it here.

Also, if you own an Android phone (and I know many of you do), you have no reason not to download the Listen app and subscribe using this link. If you click on it from your mobile browser, you can complete the action with Listen. DO IT.

After a little break, we're finally back for another podcast. These should be regular from here on out, probably early in the week, since I know practically all of you set your week to these episodes, right? 

We kept it fairly simple in this one, starting by reflecting on what Dave Niehaus meant to each of us. It was a little emotional, and if you're a WSU student/alum who isn't from the Northwest you might not understand, but it was important for us to share with each other. We then moved into what factors might play into whether Bill Moos makes a coaching change, and then we looked forward to basketball's season opener on Saturday. We recorded last night.

As usual, you can listen to the audio via the player below, or visit our podcast page for myriad ways to subscribe to all of our audio. (Our podcast page now has a mobile option for those of you reading this on your phone.) You can also find us in the iTunes directory under keyword "CougCenter," or simply click this link. The advantage of subscribing? Besides having the audio directly delivered to your player of choice, I often upload the audio to the podcast site before posting it here.

Also, if you own an Android phone (and I know many of you do), you have no reason not to download the Listen app and subscribe using this link. If you click on it from your mobile browser, you can complete the action with Listen. DO IT.

Back for another edition of the podcast. Hmmmm ... whatever was there to talk about? We struggled, but we figured a few things out -- over an hour's worth! It was long, but I think the discussion was good. 

We touched on a number of topics, including the pot bust involving Jamal Atofau and Andre Barrington, Ryan Leaf allegedly taking payments from an agent, the performance against Oregon, listener e-mails, and a look at what we might expect against Arizona. We recorded last night.

As usual, you can listen to the audio via the player below, or visit our podcast page for myriad ways to subscribe to all of our audio. (Our podcast page now has a mobile option for those of you reading this on your phone.) You can also find us in the iTunes directory under keyword "CougCenter," or simply click this link. The advantage of subscribing? Besides having the audio directly delivered to your player of choice, I often upload the audio to the podcast site before posting it here.

Also, if you own an Android phone (and I know many of you do), you have no reason not to download the Listen app and subscribe using this link. If you click on it from your mobile browser, you can complete the action with Listen. DO IT. And if anyone knows of a good iPhone podcast app (although, I guess you probably just use iTunes, huh?), I'll be happy to plug that, too.

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Well, after my little software snafu last week, Craig, Brian and I are back for another edition of talking about a hopeless football game. It's been nice that those have been a little bit fewer and farther in between this year, but we have no illusions about this one.

In this week's episode, we talk about whether anything could happen this Saturday that could cause us to think the team is going backward (given the strength of Oregon), and whether it's OK to like the Ducks. And for a bonus, we talk basketball! Eight days, people!

As usual, you can listen to the audio via the player below, or visit our podcast page for myriad ways to subscribe to all of our audio. (Our podcast page now has a mobile option for those of you reading this on your phone.) You can also find us in the iTunes directory under keyword "CougCenter," or simply click this link. The advantage of subscribing? Besides having the audio directly delivered to your player of choice, I often upload the audio to the podcast site before posting it here.

Also, if you own an Android phone (and I know many of you do), you have no reason not to download the Listen app and subscribe using this link. If you click on it from your mobile browser, you can complete the action with Listen. DO IT. And if anyone knows of a good iPhone podcast app, I'll be happy to plug that, too.