It's Wazzu Hate Dislike Week, a.k.a. the only week of the year I don't root for Wazzu. Since my parents met as students at Washington State, I owe my very existence to the school, so find myself rooting for them more often than not.
Oregon State only has all-time winning records against two conference foes: Colorado (OSU leads 4-2) and Utah (11-6). WSU is the next closest, with OSU only trailing in the series 46-48-3, although Cal is not far behind (31-34). A win this year and next would bring the series even, so it's possible in four years we'll have a 4-7 all-time record against conference foes.
After a stellar first 5/12 of the season, two previously unrecognized Beavers have been added to award watch lists. Sean Mannion is now on the Maxwell Award List for the nation's best player, and Steven Nelson is on the Bednarik watch list for nation's best defensive player.
Victor Bolden isn't having quite the impact he was hoping to as a freshman, although things are still looking good.
Vegasinsider.com shows WSU as a slight favorite in this weekend's game. Although the line opened at 3 yesterday morning, and has moved to 1, so it would appear the money is coming in on OSU.
Lindsey Schnell offers a sneak peak at this weekend's game. The Cougars began preparation for Oregon State on Sunday night. The current weather forecast for this weekend's game calls for party cloudy skies, temperatures in the 40's, a 10% chance of rain and very little wind. That's good news for everyone. In a Canzano podcast, Mike Leach has some thoughts on the Beavers, as well as a rant about the government shutdown.
The Beavers are nearing full strength at this point, so we should see some consistency, especially on the offensive line. Ten Beavers are from Washington, so this weekend's game is a bit of a homecoming, of sorts.
This article, from Sunday morning's Oregonian, talks about how a lot of Mannion's confidence comes from an offseason conversation between the quarterback and offensive coordinator. More about Mannion from the Gazette-Times. Oregon Sports News ranks the top 5 QB's in the Pac-12; no surprise at #1, but #2 is going to come as a surprise, particularly to Bruin and Husky fans.
Despite having the week off, Mannion still leads the country in passing TD's, passing yards, total offense, passing yards per game, points reponsible for, and points responsible for per game. Steven Nelson is still tied for the lead in interceptions with 4, although at only 0.8 per game, he's in second place. Brandin Cooks still leads the country in receiving yards, receiving yards per game, and is tied for first with 9 receiving TD's (although the guy he is tied with has played 6 games). Of note -- Washington State has given up 843 yards passing in the last two games.
ESPN's Pac-12 blog Power Rankings has Oregon State at #6, ahead of everyone not in the rankings and Arizona State, although I have to imagine the gap between #5 and #6 is much smaller than it was two weeks ago. Their bowl projections leave Oregon State's position unchanged, still up against BYU in San Francisco. The Beavers did pick up one additional vote in this week's Coaches' poll, meaning their eight votes is good enough to be ranked #32. Seems reasonable; personally, I won't be putting them near my Top 25 until after I see how they do against Stanford. The Pac-12 blog also does a good job of summarizing team statistics. Athlon's stats feature of the week has become a favorite of mine this year.
With last Friday's scrimmage, the baseball team is beginning another shot at a title.
Stanford beat the mens' soccer team, 2-1, to drop the team to 7-4, 0-2 on the season. Womens' soccer continues to come up short, falling 1-0 to Utah, dropping the team to 2-8-2, 0-2-1 on the year. Volleyball isn't doing much better, losing to Arizona in four sets to drop to 0-4 in conference play. That's a combined conference record of 0-8-1 between those three sports. Makes football look a lot better by comparison. Womens' cross country finished fifth at the Inter-Regional Jamboree in Sacramento last weekend. Mens' golf finished 7th at the Erin Hills Intercollegiate in Erin, Wisconsin.
I linked this last time, but wanted to plug it in here. I put it on play in the background on my PC at work the other day, and greatly enjoyed listening to the play-by-play of the last Beaver team to go to the Rose Bowl.
Your unrelated, relatively short video of the day is one way to make someone think twice about pouring pig's blood on the prom queen.
Witch. Got Satan's power.
As always, vote in the poll below. I'm leaving Mannion out of the poll because I have a sneaking suspicion how it would go otherwise. If you've got anything I have missed, post in the links below.
Late Addition: The Heinrich Tailgater podcast, Illegal Participation, just had their new episode posted this morning, as well, a day later than normal (just like this column).