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Bits, pieces, bias, formulas and grades Malamute, 5 September 2006
A. Formulas --The John Wooden (UCLA) formula for recruiting: Get the best athletes in California and, when going out of state, make sure the athlete is a first round draft pick, e.g., Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then known as Lew Alcindor, out of Power Memorial Academy, New York City. -- The Pete Carroll (USC) formula for recruiting: The same as Wooden’s formula – only get guys who can play football. -- The Charlie Weis formula: Nitrogen + H2O Rumor has it that coach Charlie Weis of Notre Dame has offered to buy fertilizer and water for the playing field at the Los Angeles Coliseum, home of the USC Trojans. The much ballyhooed Irish play the Trojans on 25 November at the Coliseum. Why is green-thumb Charlie so generous in the nitrogen/H2O department? Pete Carroll may have the answer, saying “Arguably there are eight or nine guys (at USC) who run a 10.7 (100 meters) or better in this (freshman) class alone. That’s a ton of speed. I don’t know anybody who has been able to have that many fast guys before.” After the November game with U$C, Charlie says, according to rumor, that Tiger Woods can practice his pitching shots, wedging them out of the U. S. Open type rough. Growing a hayfield almost worked for Charlie last year, when his Irish came close to beating the men from Troy at South Bend. B. The Oral tradition Yeah that’s right. Washington’s former coach Howie Odell (1947-1951) watered down the playing field at Husky Stadium to slow the Trojans down. Whoops, what about Hugh McElhenny? Did Odell want to cripple Hugh with a muddy field? The muddiest field McElhenny ever played on for the Huskies was down in Los Angeles when the Trojans and Huskies got caught in a gully washer on November 18, 1950. The Huskies won 28-13. Did Jim Owens (1957-1974) water down the playing field to turn his speedy running backs, such as Charlie Mitchell, into mudders? UW installed Astroturf at Husky Stadium in 1969. As legend has it, circa the 40’s and 50’s, Oregon supposedly watered down its grass field to slow down the speedy backs from the California schools. C. The Arkansas/USC game -- Against Arkansas, quarterback John David Booty – you guessed it – ran the bootleg most of the night. -- Three freshman tailbacks each scored a touchdown against Arkansas for Troy. The pile-driving Chauncey Washington, combining speed and power, looked the best of the four tailbacks, but he was nursing a hammy most of the night. D. Bias? -- The Pac-10 critics at ESPN seemingly needed a good showing by Arkansas against USC to prove that the SEC is a stronger football conference than the PAC-10, perpetuating a worn-out myth in this day-and-age of parity in college football. After all Tennessee was beating Cal and Auburn was beating WSU. Forget that all three games were SEC home games. One announcer declared that Arkansas had held its own against USC and that the 50-14 score was not a rout. While the outcome was in doubt, the announcers focused mostly on Arkansas – whether on offense or defense, a sure sign of bias. They didn’t give the Trojans any love until they had demonstrated their superiority in the second half. E. Grading the Dawgs’ performance in their 35-29 win over San Jose State. (OL – A) Going into the season, the offensive line was supposed to be the weakest link on the Husky squad. Against the Spartans, the OL protected QB Isaiah Stanback adequately, giving up 1 sack. The Husky running backs rushed for 300 yards thanks to the holes opened by the big guys up front. All five of UW’s trench-men played every down of the game, which makes one wonder what’s behind them. (RB – A-) Add Isaiah Stanback to the running back mix; Stanback carried the ball 17 times for 102 yards and a touchdown. RB Louis Rankin had 10 carries for 145 yards. (QB – B) Stanback missed a couple of passes he should have completed, one to WR Marcel Reece in the endzone. His passing efficiency rating of 125.65 on the day was close to last year’s rating of 128.8. (DL – A-) Washington’s defensive front seven engineered three sacks and held the Spartans to just 50 yards rushing. (Defensive backs – C-) Expecting the Spartans to run more, Washington was caught flat footed by the Spartans’ passing attack in the second half. SJSU quarterback Adam Trafalis completed 28 of 35 passes, for 323 yards, 3 touchdowns and no interceptions. His passing efficiency rating of 185.81 on the game ranks him thirteenth in the nation as of now. Last season his efficiency rating was a dreadful 108.5. There were more holes in the Huskies' zone defense than there are in a Swisscheese sandwich. Even when Trafalis was chased out of the pocket, he almost always found a passing lane and an open man. Defensive call: "Cover Swiss." Perhaps, the Huskies should have blitzed more, but that would have left them in precarious man-to-man coverage. After the Spartans’ opening field goal, the Huskies led all the way. Why throw caution to the wind in the first game of the season?
Richard Linde (a.k.a., Malamute) can be reached at malamute@4malamute.com |
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We’re all over the place in this
article, mixing some humor and pathos with some, ahem, insight and analysis.
Grading out the Huskies’ performance in their game with San Jose State was the
easy part of our analysis, as well as taking a peek at Charlie Weis and Notre
Dame, which are currying the undeserved favor of much of the sports media now.