Bear Down Wildcats

TheCatInTheHat

Here's a stab at SDSU's lineup, based on last year's stats and their first game with NMSU at their temporary rent-a-site soccer stadium in Carson. NMSU is terrible, so the Aztecs just pounded at them for a 28-10 win. Frankly, from a personnel and experience standpoint, I'd say San Diego St looks a b...

TheCatInTheHat

From McCarran... Nothing much to add on the game itself. Considering the new staff, new players, and a challenging environment, it's encouraging, and we'll improve more from playing BYU there than if we'd played NAU at home. LV did a great job putting on the game in a terrific venue. Better than any...

TheCatInTheHat

From Allegiant Stadium...

LOTS of BYU here...pretty much a home game. Enough Arizona fans to make some noise; kind of like a really decent turnout at a road game. Both bands are here. Great stadium with giant picture window views of the Strip. We'll see how it goes.

TheCatInTheHat

Well, they certainly weren't at the pool party/concert last night by Devilution. Their bass player shook the windows right up to midnight.

TheCatInTheHat

Quickie Vegas report. Certainly some Cat fans here, along with some kind of paranoid looking family groups clinging closely together who I assume will be rooting for BYU tomorrow. Won a little at slots, so I put $100 of it on the Cats to cover. They close Hacienda at 2:30 on Saturday to make it a pe...

TheCatInTheHat

My hope/expectation is to cover the current 12 point spread and be respectable. I think there are a few factors to consider: o Covid set the college football world on its ear, and many 2020 outcomes really should have an asterisk next to them. o From a personnel perspective, we hung in fairly well w...

TheCatInTheHat

No, this isn't the official announcement, although maybe we can keep roster changes through the season here. This is mostly my gripe about putting out a two-deep with a long list of specialty positions and copping-out with "OR" all over the place. The NFL has a 53-man roster. Is it asking too much f...

TheCatInTheHat

Forgive me if this comes off as stream-of-consciousness, but just a few thoughts from stories somewhat related to our game that I've stumbled across... There's a story in a SLC paper about BYU's "brand" in Vegas. Well, they certainly turn out there. 57,000 tickets sold for the game, and I doubt more...

TheCatInTheHat

YESSS!!! Now let's just hope SB3 doesn't get stuck on too much cactus trudging through all that beautiful natural desert along Hacienda Ave. and the 15 Fwy on his way to Allegiant Stadium.

TheCatInTheHat

I assume (and hope) we'll go with the white/white/navy uniform combo as the visitors at Allegiant Stadium next Saturday. BYU is going all blue. In a word...eesh. Here's a (good single malt scotch) toast to tradition.

TheCatInTheHat

I'll just say that I agree Lev does a great job, and it's worth listening whenever and wherever he's on. I skip around a lot, depending on guests, and to avoid commercials. But I thought I might have heard part of a conversation the other day that 1490 might be looking in another direction. Don't kn...

TheCatInTheHat

Sparky was designed by Bert Anthony, ASU alum and former Disney animator. Rumor has it that Sparky is based on Walt Disney. What's never mentioned is that Anthony had been FIRED by Disney, which is why he had time on his hands to do the freelance work for the then Arizona State College, and which w...

TheCatInTheHat

I was looking up the lineup of Week 0 NFL pre-season games for the weekend, when I stumbled across the college football kickoff games. Nebraska at Illinois is on FoX at 10 am Saturday, and Hawaii at UCLA is on ESPN at 12:30 Saturday. That's kind of a "meh" lineup. Oh, well. NEXT week there's a prett...

TheCatInTheHat

The only thing I'll throw out there is that you absolutely have a different mix of plays you call to play to the strengths of a given player. Stay in their comfort zone, and follow the statistics to let them each run the stuff they do best. To some extent, the QB battle is to find the optimal perfor...

TheCatInTheHat

It's a new school year, so I'll stick this here (I believe last year's was on the basketball board.) Just a place to comment on awful sports announcing (and writing), critiques of east coast media (F-ESPN) and other bias, and also kudos when warranted. To kick it off, he's a broken record, but the "...

TheCatInTheHat

All things considered, that sounds like a decent guess. You figure Fisch's more complex offense will struggle in a first game, and we may have a bit of deer in the headlights effect with a game in Vegas on ESPN right out of the chute. So, if we shoot ourselves in the foot with a couple of turnovers ...

TheCatInTheHat

The "there had been" comment about Conover (past), versus the "this tells me" (present) about the QB decision by Sitake was a response to your first re-tweet of the speculation yesterday, as confirmed by Lev today, along with what I view as some of the impact of that decision. Sorry if that was conf...

TheCatInTheHat

There had been some discussion of hotshot freshman Jacob Conover coming in and throwing the ball all over the yard, although the talent and depth of their WRs is debatable. This tells me they're going the safer route, at least in Game One. They've got a big, physical defense, a very good kicking gam...

TheCatInTheHat

As an old entitled person (translation: relatively experienced and successful), I'll admit I never heard of Vassar, or many other country performers. But the way Fisch seems to be getting involved in all aspects of the football environment (DJ at the games, etc.), I think the evolution and outreach ...

TheCatInTheHat

With the announcement of the latest transfer arrivals, I took a look at (what I consider to be) the depth chart. It's kind of amazing to me that we would be capable of fielding a somewhat credible offense and defense using only transfer types who started out somewhere else (counting JCs.) TWENTY-ONE...

TheCatInTheHat

The rain this morning didn't help the turnout, as it was a sparse crowd in the stadium, where they moved practice from the Tomey Practice Fields with the soggy grass there. Not impressed with the QB play. Seems like a two man race between Cruz and Plummer, and I'd give Cruz a slight edge, but the QB...

TheCatInTheHat

I think we can guess fairly accurately where BYU fans' heads are at. The last they saw us, we didn't get to play any non-conference games, and our team gave up on an ineffective and lame-duck coaching staff and got slapped all over the field. Meanwhile, their #2 pick in the NFL draft had lit it up a...

TheCatInTheHat

Nobody's ever going to come out and say "I am the one who caused something to happen that nobody liked", and ultimately the responsibility is always with the AD & President. But I have heard Byrne and Heeke in radio interviews respond to criticisms of our football uniforms with comments about havin...

TheCatInTheHat

Well, come what may, today begins the 9th new "era" for me. https://i.imgur.com/vfovtxz.jpg I remember very clearly waiting for the movie at the old Prince Drive-In and reading a Corky Simpson column in the Tucson Citizen, talking all about new coach Jim Young and the fancy new uniforms the team wou...

TheCatInTheHat

Nobody's ever going to come out and say "I am the one who caused something to happen that nobody liked", and ultimately the responsibility is always with the AD & President. But I have heard Byrne and Heeke in radio interviews respond to criticisms of our football uniforms with comments about having...

TheCatInTheHat

One interesting angle is that it's kind of a big F-You to Nike. For about the last 15 years, the athletic department made noises that inferred the deal with Nike paying for our uniforms meant that their designers got to determine what they looked like, and the university only had marginal input. Eit...

TheCatInTheHat

Lots of rumors and speculation right now, but regardless of whose opinion is quoted, that's all it is at the moment. As far as Schulz talking to Wilner, my grain of salt suggestion is to change the names to Bobbie Robbins brainstorming with Greg Hansen and consider how that would be received by most...

TheCatInTheHat

But why? Embrace pessimism so as not to be disappointed? So what if I get disappointed? Nothing happens. I've survived a whole lot worse heartache than that. I'm not getting "I heart Fisch" tattooed on my willy or anything, but I've seen enough to spend less than 20 bucks per seat per game and get ...

TheCatInTheHat

For any long-time Arizona fan, it's worth going to the game just to see what our team looks like. BYU will be solid. They lost their QB to the NFL, and their record last season was inflated by cupcakes who were willing to play them in the year of COVID. This year, their schedule swings way back in t...

TheCatInTheHat

As a resident of northern Santa Barbara county, have to say it would be pretty hard to give up living in such a pretty city with a great climate. But doubling his salary in a town with half the cost of living is really tempting. The Lute house and similar are fantastic, what he probably pays for a ...

TheCatInTheHat

Just BS about pinching yourself for being the coach at Arizona. Hope he chokes on a crawfish Well, yeah...the obligatory "this is my final destination dream job" speech by every coach we hire gets a little old sometimes, but it's all part of the show. I will say, in terms of the truly elite coaches...

TheCatInTheHat

OK...first, there's no crying in baseball. That said, I believe Wildcat baseball is about the environment of Hi Corbett Field, just like Wildcat Basketball is about the environment at McKale Center. Can a horrible coach screw it up? Of course. But, just as Lloyd will likely do roughly equal to the l...

TheCatInTheHat

My response to Republic red stapler guy (loved him in Dodgeball ) is to have more taste than to mention some poor old guy with sadly misplaced priorities, and just remind him of the phrase: "No Pity From The Committee." Meanwhile, based on the Creighton precedent, we may be in relatively good shape ...

TheCatInTheHat

The problem with prediction this year is people want to base a lot of it off how we finished last year. By the end of the year we were down to about 50 scholarship players due to injury, Covid, and opt outs. I think we'll be better than a lot of people are predicting. Basing very much on one of the...

TheCatInTheHat

Hansen missed one in today's Sunday Follies. He listed ASU's NCAA violations, which by his tally puts them one behind SMU. His starts in 1954 with paying impermissible expenses to recruits. But, in 1952, NFL HOF player John Henry Johnson played one semester at ASU. He was paid the equivalent of abou...

TheCatInTheHat

I keep waiting for the plane to land so my ears will pop and I won't have that over-driven speaker sound of his voice. But it's like that old bit where you can't understand the guy at the drive-thru speaker, but when you get up to the window, he sounds exactly the same in person. He trashed us at th...

TheCatInTheHat

As the most penalized school in NCAA history, covering 5 or 6 sports and dating to the 1950s, I'd say they're pretty much self-taught and anybody else would look like a piker compared to them.

TheCatInTheHat

Speaking of ASU butt-sniffers, obsessed red stapler guy at the Republic finally wrote something on the ASU recruiting violations. As you might expect, it wasn't exactly something to make Edward R. Murrow proud. With a major scandal in his own backyard, the guy just sat around sucking on his juice bo...

TheCatInTheHat

I'll give Kent Somers full credit for his bit today in the Republic. But, I don't expect the usual ASU butt-sniffers on that beat to do anything more than repeat the ASU narrative. And tone-deaf ASU bleats out their self-serving narrative in a manner that most self-respecting institutions would be e...

TheCatInTheHat

Pretty minimalist coverage of the latest ASU recruiting violation charges in the Republic so far. I mean, that's the third biggest sports story in Phoenix this year (I'll give the Suns season to date and firing Smith priority over it.) Statewide, you'd have to add the tournament runs by Adia, Candre...

TheCatInTheHat

So wait...after all those stories in the Republic and planted in the various preview magazines...are you telling me Herm's a total hypocrite?

Huh.

TheCatInTheHat

Regarding JJ, considering that he's checked every box this season to date, as well as the situation with Adia and the three new major coaches, we need to show an appropriate level of appreciation, and not just say, "well, sorry...but your big success was last and we're out of money...we hope you und...

TheCatInTheHat

I have spent a ton of time trying to figure out how to add shade to Hi Corbett, going back to my days watching the Indians there. I got nothing. But, I’m no architect either. But shade would help tremendously. OM fans weren’t wrong on their assessment of the park, but I think they were a little wro...

TheCatInTheHat

All I can say is screw Mississippi, from the stupid faces some of their pitchers make, to some pretty vile stuff on their message boards, to the unjustified arrogance of some of their fans. Hope they enjoy their off-season.

TheCatInTheHat

TheCatInTheHat

I'm just going on what came up on a quick Google search. Maybe it's an artifact of an old rule, or maybe it's just wrong, but that's what I found. Split the first two games, flip for the third.

TheCatInTheHat

Irvin just had a bad outing...simple as that. He pitched the game of his life previously, and the odds are against you doing it in back-to-back games. We needed to hold them to 3 or 4 runs when going against their ace pitcher, and that went out the window early. But, nobody will remember the margin ...

TheCatInTheHat

I'd guess he'll do about like Esmay and Smith. UofAlum05 questioned whether CSUF is considered a destination job any more, which is an interesting observation. Think of the titles and history between Fullerton and USC and look at how irrelevant they both are now. You can certainly make a case that A...

TheCatInTheHat

Well, nothing against Bloomquist, but I sure wouldn't be overly worried about him, for many of the reasons you mention. This is totally an Anderson playbook move. An alumnus with some name recognition, so no criticism from fans, and the guy just has to accept more money and change his office destina...

TheCatInTheHat

JJ's a pretty West Coast guy (NorCal & San Diego), and he's coaching at arguably the best baseball situation in the Far West. He makes $335K, which is near the top of the Pac-12 salary structure for baseball. Elite coaches at schools with SEC football money can make hundreds of thousands more than t...

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