|
Articles
|
The latest UW ironies and conundrums By Malamute, Posted 14 April 2005 The latest set of ironies and conundrums surrounding the UW football program involves some interesting characters: Tyrone Willingham, Lorenzo Romar, Rick Neuheisel, Nate Robinson, Carl Bonnell, Brian Tawney, and Casey Paus. So what do Ty, Lo, Neu, and Nate have in common? Are Bonnell and Tawney related or am I just daft? Will the real Casey Paus please stand up. Irony: The latest news from Montlake has coach Tyrone Willingham throwing passes to head basketball coach Lorenzo Romar in an effort to film a TV commercial aimed at selling more season tickets for Husky football. Forgive Romar for muffing a few passes since a football isn’t shaped like a basketball. The 3-D shape of a football has been likened to an ellipsoid and a prolate spheroid, while a basketball is simply a sphere. Ironically, successes on the basketball court are now propping up declining football revenues via TV commercials, and Romar, who is doing the most of the heavy lifting, owes much of his success to the 2002 football program which gave a scholarship to Nate Robinson to play football. The Huskies’ hoopsters never would have made it to the Sweet Sixteen without Robinson this year. And Robinson arguably would have never enrolled at the UW without Rick Neuheisel, who recruited him. Yet, the fallout from Neuheisel’s gambling foray is blamed as much as any other reason for the collapse of the football program, which went 1-10 in 2004. And that collapse is most likely the reason for the downturn in season ticket sales for 2005. Also, subtract from the UW coffers the $3.7 million that Neuheisel's lawsuit cost, which includes estimated legal fees, and the $800 thousand, as reported by the media, that former coach Keith Gilberston's buyout cost. So, Robinson, who played cornerback on the football team in 2002, arguably saves a sagging basketball program, which is put on NCAA probation for two years, starting February 10, 2003, a year after Robinson signs his letter of intent to play football. And now the residuals from Robinson’s magical days on the hardwood are being used to reshape a sagging football program and, in effect, are attempting to turn a sphere into an ellipsoid. It’s no wonder people call Robinson, “Nate the Great.” Conundrum: In my last article, “Paus-A versus Paus-B,” I originally posted a photo of walk-on linebacker Brian Tawney and misidentified him as Carl Bonnell. One of my readers caught the error and e-mailed me of that fact. The day I photographed Tawney (Picture Day 2003), he was wearing a jersey with an 11 on it, the same number that Bonnell wears. Like Bonnell, Tawney has short, blonde hair. Yet, Dawgman’s roster for 2003 lists Tawney as number 45. On that same roster, cornerback Chris Hemphill wears number 11, along with Bonnell. I know Hemphill, since I've met him in person. Help, someone, help!
Conundrum: Will the real Casey Paus stand up. In my article, "Paus-A versus Paus-B," I pointed out that Paus carries two different sets of statistics, one in which his pass efficiency (PE) is 101.23 and the other where his PE is 59.08. In the two comparison periods, Paus threw about the same number of passes. In the Huskies' first 5 games in 2004, Paus completed 54 out of 116 passes for 661 yards, with 3 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. His PE was 97.78 at that point, as contrasted with his final PE of 81.2. Adding his 2003 stats to the stats from the first 5 games of 2004 gives him a rating of 101.23, this over the course of 11 games (6 in 2003 and the first 5 in 2004). In his last 6 games of 2004, Paus's PE was 59.08. During those 6 games, he passed for 2 touchdowns and surrendered 14 picks. He completed 62 of 158 passes (39.24%) for 628 yards. Although the photo I took of Paus in August 2004 seems more determined than the kid I photographed three years earlier, which of the two photos represents Casey Paus, version A, the one with the higher PE? Table 1. Casey Paus' stats: 11 games (6 games of 2003 plus first 5 games 2004) versus the last 6 games of 2004.
Richard Linde (a.k.a., Malamute) can be reached at malamute@4malamute.com |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
