WSU fall camp roundup: An interesting interview with Cody O’Connell

I don’t know how many of you have ever sat down in an ice bath. I have not. The closest I ever came to it was dipping into in a tub full of cold tap water after I took up running a few years ago, and I’m just going to be honest: It felt extremely cold. It wasn’t, but it felt like it.

Now, I’m kind of a wimp. But it made me think: “Holy crap, athletes sit in tubs like this with ice in it??”

Which brings me to Cody O’Connell, who is not a wimp, and his interview with Matt Chazanow after yesterday’s practice.

A few things stick out to me here:

• O’Connell — who is 6-foot-9 and 368 pounds of mean offensive lineman — could barely chatter his way through the interview. I found this pretty hilarious.
• If there’s any doubt as to just how much of a pro Chazanow is ... I mean, he’s in the ice bath, and you’d actually never know it if you only listened to him speak.
• O’Connell notes that it’s less bad once the water gets still. I’m sure someone out there who understands physics better than me can explain why that is. I’m guessing it has something to do with the temperature of your skin warming up the water that’s touching your skin or something.
• As the interview goes on, other players tepidly slide into the water, as if to confirm for the viewer just how dreadfully cold it is.
• Which makes B.J. Salmonson absolutely savage.

Notable

• Tavares Martin Jr. once again tore up the defense, which you will see in the camp recap video at the top. I can hardly contain my excitement for him at this point.
• I’m also starting to get excited for Isaiah Johnson-Mack, whom Theo Lawson wrote excellently about for today’s Spokesman-Review. He talked about switching to Gabe Marks’ vacated No. 9:

“(Gabe) didn’t really say nothing. I just got it. I know what it means, though,” he said. “You’ve got to be on your stuff if you’re going to wear Gabe Marks’ jersey. I didn’t really want a young freshman to come in and not know what Gabe was, because I’ve seen what Gabe was and I’ve seen the tenacity he played with and the competitiveness. So I just tried to take that and just carry that on.”

• To follow that up, the Lewiston Tribune’s Dale Grummert wrote about Martin Jr. and Johnson-Mack, who are from the same high school in Florida. His stuff is normally behind a paywall, but the Tacoma News Tribune is running his stories during camp, and I highly recommend you take advantage of that.
• On the injury front, Marcellus Pippins did some 7-on-7 work, but stayed out of 11-on-11, according to Stefanie Loh. Nnamdi Oguayo and Dylan Hanser were still limited. Robert Lewis missed his third practice in four days, presumably due to the illness Mike Leach mentioned on Saturday, but we don’t know for sure what’s going on there.
• Leach was mad at the second team offensive line on Monday, but he didn’t actually shake things up much yesterday. Seems like it was more of the “send a message” sort of message.

More practice video

Interviews