WSU quarterback Connor Halliday finally had his moment in the sun on Pac-12 Networks the other night as it was his turn to go "Under Center with Rick Neuheisel" for a half an hour.
If you're unfamiliar with the format, Neuheisel sits down with a Pac-12 QB and spends some time talking Xs and Os, game strategy, etc. before heading out to the beach to just -- for lack of a better term -- talk about life. They then return to the study for a little more football talk.
There are a lot of fairly interesting things in there, including Halliday explaining what happened in the now-famous Utah game in which it was discovered after the loss that he had lacerated his liver:
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"I thought I broke my ribs," Halliday said. "This was kind of my chance to earn a starting job and maybe compete the next year for a starting job, so I wasn't coming off the field."
It's that sort of attitude that originally endeared fans to Halliday, and it's those sorts of responses that leave you coming away from a viewing of the show feeling like you desperately want Halliday to succeed -- not just because we're all fans, but because Halliday is a really likable guy who deserves to have a monster year after the difficulties early in his career.
Neuheisel clearly misses coaching, as he also uses these episodes to talk about the craft of quarterbacking (not unlike Jon Gruden's QB Camp on ESPN). One segment featured Neuheisel quizzing Halliday on decisions with the clock running down, which was actually pretty cool, as it featured a teachable moment at the end.
Oh, and it also included this:
If you have a Pac-12 Networks subscription and don't want to wait around for the program to re-air (it looks like the next showing is 8:30 p.m. PDT on Tuesday), you can watch the video here.