HCA: Daily links and off-season recap

Congratulations! You made it!

You have just experienced the last Saturday without college football until December. However you got accustomed to spending your time on Saturdays these past 8 months, know that's all over with now.

Now you have Cougar Football Saturdays.

The off-season wasn't a complete wasteland of football nothingness here at CougCenter. After the normal daily links below we'll have some links to content that may be a few months old, but still worth a read if you missed it the first go-a-round.

Go ahead, binge on Cougar content to get you through these last few days of Game Week. Football is almost here and we have the methadone to get you to Saturday, you junkies.

DAILY LINKS

HOT. COUGAR. ACTION.
Another hot cougar pic because Jeff Collier started something.

WSU looking for long snappers - Spokesman Review (Caple)
Washington State practiced for a little more than an hour and a half earlier this afternoon, and we have a few notes to pass along from that session. We also have some interesting comments from coach Mike Leach about an ad placed in The Daily Evergreen for a long-snapper tryout.

Cougar Soccer Opens With a Win - WSU Athletics (Women's soccer)
The Washington State soccer team scored three goals in less than 20 minutes to defeat host Seattle 3-1 in nonconference women’s soccer at Championship Field, Friday.

Auburn:

Frazier adapting well to safety - Montgomery Advertizer
The move to safety is going well for former Auburn quarterback Kiehl Frazier. Just over a week at his new position, the former top quarterback prospect has put himself in a position to contribute far earlier than expected.

Auburn leaning on Josh Holsey's versatility, playmaking to strengthen secondary - AL.com
Josh Holsey entered fall camp as a man between positions, playing safety with one eye on a return to cornerback and the potential to play almost any spot in the back end of Auburn's defense. Now, it's hard to imagine where Auburn's secondary would be without him.

OFF-SEASON ARCHIVE

WSU Football Recruiting Profiles
Kyle Rancourt has compiled a profile of every recruit that's gone crimson. Heard any names in the fall camp reports and want to know who they are, where they're from? Browse through. Maybe you want to read Kyle's analysis of impact newcomers Daquawn Brown, River Cracraft, Vince Mayle and Charleston White before they ever put on Coug gear.

Speaking of recruiting, curious to know what Bill Doba and Paul Wulff's recruiting classes look like when compared to Leach's at WSU? We have a graph that allows you to visualize the differences fairly easily.

Kyle Sherwood's Best Memories
Nostalgic? New to Coug football and can't remember back to the time Wazzu was actually good? Jonesing for happy football memories because you've sucked just about all the juice you could out of last season's Apple Cup? Kyle's series is exactly what you need, and deserve.

Part 1: Jason David Hilarity
Part 2: Jermaine Green Shuts Ryan Leaf's Piehole
Part 3: Jerome Harrison Starts 2005 With A Bang
Part 4: Establishing A Culture In Eight Minutes

Air Raid Playbook
Just because Coach Mike Leach doesn't have a playbook, doesn't mean we can't diagram and explain some of the basic plays in his offense. Plus we; break down some defenses, show formations, go over football nomenclature, and explain OL blocking schemes. Nerd out.

Does Defense Win Championships?
Jeff Nusser dives into the data, and while we're at it....

Could spending more on recruiting expenses be WSU's 'Moneyball?'
Jeff also looked into the money spent by WSU for recruiting and compares it to the rest of the PAC-12.

Where Did WSU's Suck Come From?
Math tells us. Did you know Craig is also an author for Football Study Hall? Did you know that site exists? Check it out, if numbers and graphs don't frighten you. Be warned, minutes turn to hours very quickly there.

CougCenter Podcasts
Michael Preston gives you the "CougCenter Hour", which wasn't quite an hour in the off-season with so little to talk about, but that just means all the awesome was more condensed. Back in May, the Golden Throat along with some of the guys narrowed down a list of the 'Greatest Moments in WSU Athletic History'.

Michael is starting up his podcast tomorrow, which will run with some regularity through the season. Make sure you send any questions you want answered, or topics you want discussed to cougcenterpodcast@gmail.com. You can also tweet them using the hashtag "#cougcenterhour".

And last but not least, a couple other plugs by me; we previewed Auburn's 4-2-5 defensive scheme, and If you heard Mike Leach talk about "distribution" with Rick Neuheisel during the training camp interview for PAC-12 Networks (preview/behind the scenes: here), we use data from last season to evaluate what that looks like and highlight what needs to improve this coming season.

GAME WEEK IS FINALLY HERE!