CougZone.com - The Cougar Lounge

September 13, 2009

The Lounge

"I'm obviously delighted with the win."

- Wazzu head soccer coach Matt Potter, after his Cougars defeated 18th-ranked BYU at home coming off a big loss to fifth-ranked Florida State on the road.

"I took down everything and put a photograph of a monkey smoking a cigarette on the web site."

- Bryan Norris, the former proprietor of FireMikeRiley.com, after the Beavers beat USC for a second time last year.

"We find that our customers like more live sports."

- Comcast spokesperson Alana Davis, explaining why Comcast began offering ESPNU last month to their subscribers.

"He had a funny mother, which helps, and a father who loves jokes."

- Comedian Carl Reiner confirming that recently deceased comedy writer, Larry Gelbart [co-creator of the television series M*A*S*H], had both a mother [a funny one] and a father [one who loved jokes].

The most laconic response to the Cougar football team's loss to Hawai'i at WSU's "home" turf of Qwest Field in Seattle is "Huh?". That is, "Huh?" as in "there was a football game in Seattle on Saturday? Well, not really, more like a couple posts on any social media site of your choosing. One so-called game had Washington winning their first game in 187 years - while failing to cover the spread - over a juggernaut Idaho team while the other supposed game had the Cougars tripping and falling into Puget Sound in the first half before figuring out they were there to play a game of football. The SEC and ESPN recently got in cahoots to form their version of a college football Gestapo unit and try to prevent fans from being fans and sharing information about games in progress. After Saturday's games, such Gestapo-like tactics should not be necessary with the Huskies and Cougars, but if they keep playing like that, LeGarrette Blount might come up from Eugene, having achieved inner peace after punching out his yoga instructors and Buddhist teachers, and show them what really works in getting publicity. But the good thing, especially if you find yourself surgically attached to social media umbilical cords is that there is MTK.

The Lounge was just glad that all those teams were able to escape without contracting the swine flu. In case you missed it, there was an outbreak where thousands of people contracted the flu?well, except for the fact that they did not, you know, technically have, you know, that swine flu thing. Turns out, "we've only had two confirmed cases in Whitman County?" reports Pullman Regional Hospital Community relations Director, Josh Harmon. Picky, picky - two, 2000, what's the diff? It's only a few zeroes. Besides, that kind of accuracy calls for research and hey! come on, you expect people embracing social media to conduct extra research during college athletics season!? What buttermilk are you swigging? They are too busy updating their status. The Lounge has the obvious solution - just have Blount punch the staffs at Facebook and Twitter as well as everybody in the media.

We would like to see Blount go after the BCS Taliban but figure it might be too early in the year to do that - they need some more time to mess things up - you know, before they crown Southern FlorTexahoma State as national champions in January in place of that actual silly playoff format like the NCAA has in all their other sports. So, to make it easy to keep track of how much they mess things up this year, Fourth And 5 will keep the record straight in the ongoing "playoff" throughout the year.

Blount wanted to go after Caster Semenya but first he had to figure out if she was a female or a male and evidently, the answer to that question is - yes, all of the above. Semenya, who won the women's 800-meter race at the World Track & Field Championships last month, preliminary tests have shown, is a hermaphrodite, having both male and female characteristics. But it is the male characteristics, primarily that pesky testosterone - which, in the case of Semenya, is three times the normal output for a female - that gives her an advantage over other competitors and brought her the gold medal in Berlin last month. Expect the IAAF - track & field's world governing body - to allow Semenya to keep her gold medal but disallow her from entering future competitions unless she has surgery to address the extra testosterone.

"What the hell was that!?" yells Mrs. Sequitur about the Cougars' football game against Hawai'i, to which her husband, Mr. Non-Sequitur, answered - "I distinctly remember telling you to get sour cream at the store, dear".

The Cougars might want to have some Semenya's extra testosterone after their 38-20 loss to Hawai'i in Seattle. The good news is that the Cougars improved by eight points upon last week's 26-point margin of loss to Stanford. The bad news, well, there is too much of that to list here and not be in danger of contracting carpal tunnel syndrome. The most glaring, of course, is the five first half turnovers which, effectively ended the game for the Cougars. Well, that and the fact that they could not stop Hawai'i's quarterback nor their offense from doing mostly what they wanted for the majority of the game. Hawai'i was one of the 2009 season's winnable games for the Cougars and now, with this unexpected loss, it is a giant step backward for the 2009 Cougar football prognosis. The only cure will be in defeating SMU [35-33 winners over UAB last week] and improving enough so that they can somehow pull off an upset later in the season to restore the confidence of Cougar fans and well-wishers that they can actually win a football game against a team that is not a Division I-AA [now FCS] team nor a winless Division I team. The answer to that should come this week against SMU.

"How long can they go undefeated?" wonders The Man From Next Tuesday about Wazzu's currently undefeated volleyball team.

Well, that is a good question, TMFNT. Definitely through this week because they have a winnable match against Gonzaga followed by a practice match against the Wazzu alumni before they begin Pac-10 play at Oregon State and Oregon next week. They defeated Oregon State in Corvallis last season, so the smart money says they can do that again now that they are on a gigantic roll to open the 2009 season. Oregon -that may be a different matter. The Nikes are ranked and will be a challenge to defeat in Eugene. However, Wazzu did defeat then 17th-ranked Utah in the state of Utah [not their home court but still in the state] earlier this month and have shown they do have the capability to pull off such a feat. If they do earn at least a split in Oregon next week, the Cougars get the Arizona schools at home - both of whom they beat at home last year - so there is a very good possibility that they could begin the Pac-10 season either 4-0 or 3-1. If that is the case, the Lounge fully expects them to be able to get at least - at least - three or four more conference wins along the way and earn their first NCAA tournament berth in seven years.

Now that the 2009 college athletics season is well underway for Cougar football, soccer and volleyball, maybe it is a good time to consider getting a poster that speaks to the season each is currently having?and the place to find those are at Yee-Haw Industries. We would suggest "Amateur Hour" for football, "Lumpy Gravy" for soccer and "Season's Beatings" for volleyball.

The Lounge Scientists know that many Cougar fans and well-wishers chose to drown their sorrows in beer after the football team's loss in Seattle this weekend and they hesitate to rub salt in that wound - but there is even more bad news - particularly if anybody has a fondness for hops that produce the distinctive pilsner lager taste. The global climate change is decreasing the quality of those hops as higher global temperatures have risen from 1954 to 2006. Those rising temperatures translate into less alpha acids [which are responsible for the bitter taste] and that translates into a lesser quality beer [which will surely be branded under a different name, knowing how beer companies operate].

"The famous hop-growing regions of eastern Germany and central Slovakia are facing the same situation," says Lounge Scientist #5, Francesco Tubiello, a crop specialist in Europe, who reportedly immediately drowned his sorrows in pilsner afterward.

The scientists were working on a way to help everybody drown their sorrows simultaneously via social media but then LeGarrette Blount came into their lab and punched their beakers - so, you know, MTK.

+++++++sponsored by Giant Release+++++++++

Attention COUGAR fans and well-wishers! The athletic season is almost here and advertisers are like quarterbacks - how would you like to be the quarterback who threw the game-winning pass that was caught by 30+ million unduplicated consumers in the youth 12-17 and male 18-49 demographic markets through an integrated partnership that offers entrance to top web portals? You are no dummy, so of course you would. Website owners are like the receivers who, in collaboration with their experienced online media veteran teammates at online media consultancy Giant Release, can help make that diving touchdown catch to win the game. The quarterbacks at GR can provide the advantages your website is seeking during this upcoming athletic season with their exclusive selection of genre-specific top-tier games, entertainment, male lifestyle, action and college sports content. The season is about to begin, don't to be a benchwarmer.

FEATURED PRODUCT