Wednesday night update
Published 7:31 pm Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Today was the media’s day to meet with defensive players and coaches, and we all spent a few minutes picking defensive coordinator Kent Baer’s brain.
He said the biggest problem against UCLA was mental mistakes, not physical mismatches. The good news, Baer said, is that the problems are correctable.
“You can’t give up that many plays and win,” he said. “But I showed all five of them, and they’re all very correctable. I think it was kind of a mental lapse for whatever reason. It was almost to a point where you watched it and you say, ‘what?’”
He said some of the mistakes were the result of players, especially the more inexperienced ones, trying to do too much.
“That’s something we addressed the other day,” he said. “Just take care of what you’re supposed to. Guys are just sometimes trying too hard.”
As for Washington’s opponent, it looks like USC will be missing a few defensive starters, as Brian Cushing (ankle) and Cary Harris (shoulder) are both doubtful for the game.
Tyrone Willingham was asked this afternoon about the big story coming out of Oklahoma State this week. In case you haven’t heard, OSU coach Mike Gundy yelled at a columnist from the Oklahoman regarding her column about the Cowboys’ recently benched quarterback Bobby Reid.
Willingham didn’t go into great detail on the topic (shocking, I know) but did seem to agree with Gundy’s assessment that college athletes should not be treated like professional athletes in regards to media scrutiny.
“If you want to be most honest about it, they are part-time football players,” he said. “They spend as much time playing football as they do going to school, and in most cases, they probably spend more time going to school than they do playing football.
“We have kind of begun to look at them like professional athletes, and they’re not. They’re not even remotely close. It seems that there are some mediums that treat them in that manner, and I don’t think that is correct.”
For a humorous spin on the subject, check out the blog Sunday Morning Quarterback (which is always worth a visit for college football fans, as is Every Day Should Be Saturday, while we’re on the topic). Just make sure you’ve seen the Gundy clip before you read the Sunday Morning QB post, otherwise it won’t make any sense.
