You see ESPN putting out these under-the-radar player lists and it makes me think about what we used to do with the option game. Remember the 1992 Copper Bowl when we ran that veer option with Drew Bledsoe? Defenses had no clue what was coming. We would pull a guard and let the fullback read the end man on the line of scrimmage. That is football. Not this spread stuff where everybody just stands in the pocket waiting for NIL money. The option offense taught kids how to read defenses and hit h...
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You see Houston putting undrafted guys into NFL camps and it reminds me of the walk on culture we used to have at Wazzu. Mike Price would find some kid from a wheat town who never got a single scholarship offer and three years later that kid was starting on the Palouse. Now ev...
You walk into Martin Stadium today and it's all fancy club seats and suites. Reminds me of the old days when we'd show up two hours early just to get a spot on those aluminum bleachers that would burn your legs in September and freeze you solid by November. The concrete concourse where the steam would rise off the hot dogs and you could hear the band warming up from a mile away. That place had soul. Now they've polished it up nice but something got lost along the way. I miss the rattle of those old stands when the crowd got going on third down.
Just saw the 2027 NFL Draft big board and all I can think about is the old Holiday Bowl trips we used to take. Remember when we'd go to San Diego in December and actually enjoy the city for a week? Now bowl games are just glorified transfer portal tryouts.
Remember when the Pac-12 was the Conference of Champions and we'd go toe-to-toe with USC in the Coliseum under the lights? Now I'm supposed to get excited about watching us travel to Maryland or Rutgers in November. This Big Ten move robbed us of every rivalry that mattered. The Apple Cup used to mean something because we shared a conference, a history, a fight for the same trophy. Now it's just another non-conference game scheduled out of obligation. Realignment killed the soul of this progr...
You see what's happening at Oklahoma State? Fifty transfers in one offseason under a new coach. FIFTY. That's not building a program, that's running a hotel. Back in the Mike Price days we'd bring in maybe three junior college kids and a transfer from a community college and we called that a busy winter. These kids today treat commitment like a Netflix subscription, cancel anytime with no penalty.
The portal killed loyalty dead and buried it. I remember when we had guys like Rueben Mayes who bled crimson his whole career, never once looked at another sideline. Now a kid has one bad practice and his name is in the portal before the equipment manager finishes washing his jersey. We've got quarterbacks bouncing from Nebraska to Oregon, from Tulane to Miami, from Florida to who knows where. It's musical chairs with eligibility.
And don't even get me started on the spring window being eliminated. The NCAA finally did something right and it's still not enough. The damage is done. The whole culture is rotten. You can't teach a kid to play for the name on the front when he's already planning his exit strategy for the name on the back of someone else's jersey. The 1997 Apple Cup team would look at this mess and laugh.
You want to know what that Yahoo piece on our defense dominating the spring game actually tells me? It tells me we still have a coaching staff that understands how to develop players the hard way, through real competition and spring reps, not by raiding the portal for mercenaries who will cash a check and leave after one semester. That defensive line getting into the backfield, those linebackers showing depth, that is what haappens when you build a program the old-fashioned way. But you know what is going to happen? Some SEC program with a bag full of NIL cash is going to come poach our best defensive lineman the second the winter window opens because loyalty means nothing anymore. The 2001 Rose Bowl team had defensive players who bled crimson for four years, who would have never dreamed of leaving for a bigger paycheck. Now we are just a farm system for the Alabamas of the world and it makes me sick watching us develop talent that will never wear the uniform in November.
Saw that ESPN poll about Dante Moore being the early QB favoorite for 2027 and all I can think about is how we used to develop quarterbacks the old way. Remember when Jason Gesser walked on in 1998 and sat behind Steve Birnbaum for two years before he ever took a meaningful snap? That kid learned the system, learned to read defenses, learned to lead. Now these kids transfer twice before they even start a spring game. Oregon has two five-star quarterbacks fighting for one job and one of them is...
Michigan State lands a 4-star defensive lineman and everybody acts like that's the secret to success. Tell me something I don't know. Remember when we pulled Marcus Trufant out of Tacoma and nobody outside the state even noticed until he was locking down receivers in the Apple Cup? Recruiting momentum means nothing if you can't develop them once they get there. That kid will be in the transfer portal in two years anyway.
Saw that list of schools with the most number one draft picks and it got me thinking about the 2003 Rose Bowl squad. We had Jason Gesser slinging it all over the field and that offensive line just mauling people. Three of those guys played on Sundays but you know what they did first? They stayed four years and built something together. That 2002 team that went 10-3 and took Oklahoma to double overtime in the Rose Bowl was full of kids who started as freshmen and grew into men in Pullman. Now it's all about who can cobble together the best rental roster. The portal window just closed for good and I still cannot get used to the idea that a kid can suit up for three different programs before he turns 21. When I see USC sitting on top of that number one draft pick list with all those Heisman winners it just reminds me that those programs built dynasties on continuity not on transfer shopping sprees. The 97 team that went to the Rose Bowl had Ryan Leaf and that was a kid we recruited out of Montana who committed to us because he trusted the coaching staff not because of some NIL package. I will take a four-year starter who bleeds crimson over a one-year mercenary any day of the week and twice on Saturday.
Back in the 80s we found kids at Spokane high school games and watched them develop for three years before they ever saw the field. Now it's all about who flashes for one spring practice and jumps in the portal.
ESPN list all these "contenders" with their portal questions just proves they don't understand what builds a team. The 1997 Cougars, the ones who went to the Rose Bowl, were built on grit that you can't find in a transfer portal shopping spree. That kind of toughness takes years to forge, not 15 practices in the spring. These new guys coming in have no idea what it means to wear the crimson and gray for the long haul.
I haven't seen in a decade? A real, honest-to-goodness option offense. The kind that makes linebackers look foolish and grinds a defense into dust over four quarters. everybody is out there running these gimmicky spread systems with a thousand transfers, and they call it innovation. It’s not. The real innovation was a coach like Dennis Erickson in the late 80s, with a quarterback who could make a read and a fullback who would lower his shoulder. That was football. Now it’s just a track meet with helmets.
I read that list of teams with post-spring questions, all these “CFP contenders” with their portal-heavy lines and quarterback competitions, and it’s the same story everywhere. They’ve traded identity for a collection of rented players. What was our identity in the glory years? Toughness. You knew when you played a Mike Price team, you were going to get hit in the mouth for sixty minutes. The option, when run right, is the ultimate expression of that. It’s a mentality. It says we are going to be more disciplined, more physical, and we are going to break your will. It’s not about having the five-star athlete at every spot, it’s about having eleven guys who know their job better than you know yours.
Look at the mess now. Oklahoma State brings in fifty transfers. Fifty! That’s not a team, that’s a convention. How do you install an offense with any complexity, any soul, when half the roster has been there for three months? The option required repetition, trust, timing that was built over years. Ryan Leaf didn’t learn his offense in a spring portal window. Drew Bledsoe didn’t master the playbook by watching clips on a tablet. They put in the work, with the same guys, season after season. That’s how you build something that lasts.
The beauty of it was its simplicitty and its brutality. It didn’t matter if the defense knew it was coming. Could they stop it? The dive, the quarterback keep, the pitch. Three simple choices that demanded perfect execution from everybody. It created legends out of hard-nosed kids who would never get a look today because they don’t have a flashy “NIL valuation.” It was the great equalizer. It’s why a program like ours could go into Autzen or Husky Stadium and come out with a win. We didn’t out-talent them. We out-schemed them and out-toughed them.
Now, the game is played in space by athletes who are basically professionals, and I get it, the world moves on. But something fundamental was lost. The chess match between the quarterback’s eyes and the defensive end’s leverage. The sound of a pulling guard and a fullback’s pads popping. The entire stadium holding its breath on third-and-two, knowing exactly what was coming, and being powerless to stop it. That was art. What we have now is just commerce. A soulless transaction of talent, where the system is secondary to the star rating. They’ve forgotten that the scheme, the true identity of a team, used to be the star.
Saw Mel Kiper’s list and he mentioned Kyle Louis as a favorite prospect. That’s a walk-on story. It takes me back to the kind of program we used to be, the kind Coach Price built. You’d have a kid show up with nothing but a duffel bag and a dream, and four years later he’s the heart of the defense, leading the team onto the field for the Alamo Bowl. That culture is what made us special. Now, with the portal, a kid like that gets a good spring game and he’s shoopping himself to the highest bidder by dinner. The walk-on used to be the soul of your team, the ultimate proof that development and heart mattered more than stars. Now it’s just another transaction waiting to happen, and we’ve lost something you can’t put in a NIL collective.
Can someone explain why we need 16 teams in the playoff? Eight was already too many
They're talking about the NCAA's five-year eligibility idea like it's some revolutionary fix. It's a band-aid on a bullet wound. The real problem is that nobody cares about the team anymore, they care about their personal brand for a year before hitting the portal. This "structural shift" they're hyping up won't bring back what we lost.
I remember when a senior class meant something. The 1997 team that went to the Rose Bowl was built on guys who grew up together, who bled crimson and gray for four or five years. Now, with this free agency every offseason, what are you even building? A roster, not a brotherhood. They think giving a kid a fifth year to play somewhere else is progress. It's just more chaos.
The tradition of a program used to be passed down in the locker room. Now it's wiped clean every December. You can't have bowl tradition nostalgia when your entire roster turns over. The Holiday Bowl, the Alamo Bowl, those trips meant something because you were celebrating a journey with the same group. This new proposal just institutionalizes the mercenary culture. It's sad.
They talk about Oklahoma State bringing in 50 transfers like it's some kind of innovation. It's just a symptom of the disease. Conferences used to have an identity, a soul. The old Pac-8, then the Pac-10, meant something. Now we're just a collection of mercenaries in a league with a name that sounds like a video game tournament. They killed the fabric of the sport for television dollars.
Watched a clip about the 2026 draft and saw names like Jermod McCoy and KC Concepcion getting first-round hype. It just reinforces the year now. A kid plays well for a season, gets a good NIL offer, and he's gone to the highest bidder before you can even learn how to spell his name. We used to have guys who were Cougs for life, who bled crimson and gray for four or five years. Now the locker room feels like a bus station, with everybody just passing through on their way to what they think is a better destination. You can't build a program culture on mercenaries. Coach Price built the '97 Rose Bowl team with players who grew together, not who shopped around every offseason. This whole system is a betrayal of what college football was supposed to be about.
Watched that list of teams with the biggest NIL war chests and it just makes me sick. We used to build teams with guys like Jason Gesser and Drew Bledsoe who grew into the program. Now it's just a bidding war for mercenaries every winter, and programs like ours get picked clean. The soul of the game is gone.
Just saw that ESPN way-too-early list. They have Washington in the top 20 but not us. That’s the kind of disrespect Coach Price’s teams used to feed on. They built something real, not this portal rental nonsense.
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