Hey, Jim Walden, who will win the Alamo Bowl:
Iowa State or Washington State?
By Randy Peterson Des Moines Register 12:59 pm CST December 21,
2018
SAN
ANTONIO — A memo to anyone expecting to hang out with the person who best
bridges the Iowa State and Washington State football teams that'll play in the
Dec. 28 Alamo Bowl:
Jim
Walden’s not in town, nor will he be.
“Oh my
gosh,” the likable former head coach at both schools told me. “If I was in San
Antonio, I’d have to go to everyone’s table and sing the fight song of both
schools.
"I
don’t know if my liver could take it.”
So instead
of attending the 8 p.m. game and all its lead-up festivities, Walden plans a
safer — and less rough on his liver — approach. He’ll watch on TV, while
occasionally reflecting on his days first as a Cougar, and then as a Cyclone.
“Only guy
crazy enough to coach at both schools,” he said with a chuckle.
If you
know Walden, you’ll know he wasn’t serious. He enjoyed his time in both Pullman
and Ames, where he met many people that he still considers friends.
“My only
regret is that we didn’t have great and consistent success at either school,”
Walden said. “The downside was my boat was only about half-full when I got (to
Iowa State). I didn’t have enough people to put the kind of team on the field
that I wanted to.”
He was
44-52-4 in nine seasons at Washington State between 1978-86, then 28-57-3
during the next eight seasons at Iowa State. He’s since been a college football
television analyst, shared the “Jim and Jim” weekly radio show with former Iowa
broadcaster Jim Zabel, and he still does a weekly radio show during the
football season in Spokane, Washington.
“Mostly, I
sit back and watch football and talk about something I still love to talk
about,” said Walden, now 80.
He can
verbally engage with anyone, those who know him will confirm. His opinions
about his days at Iowa State and Washington State are based on reality — 188
games of coaching programs that weren’t exactly at the top of the tradition
landscape in their respective conferences.
Pick a
topic, any topic. The former coach has an opinion.
So let's
try it out ...
TOPIC: Who
wins the Alamo Bowl?
OK, so he
didn't go quite there. But he offered unvarnished opinions about this fun
matchup.
“I will
warn Washington State people to not underestimate Iowa State, because Matt
Campbell’s team has played at least four 'Air Raid' offenses,” he said.
Washington
State boasts the nation’s top passing offense. A total of 82 percent of the
Cougars’ yards are via the air, and 70 percent of the plays are passes. That’s
roughly the ratio the Cyclones faced in victories against West Virginia, Texas
Tech and Oklahoma State, and in a loss against Oklahoma.
“Advantage
to Iowa State, based on that,” Walden said. “I don’t see Washington State
bringing anything to the game that Iowa State hasn’t seen.”
TOPIC:
Iowa State's infrastructure
Walden
attended this season's Texas Tech game in Ames. He saw facilities, some of
which weren't even on the drawing board back when he was the Cyclones coach
from 1987-94.
“That
stuff is marvelous. What a wonderful thing they’re doing for Matt,” Walden
said. “He needs that.”
There’s more
coming.
The Iowa
Board of Regents has given Iowa State and athletics director Jamie Pollard the
OK to proceed with fundraising for what is anticipated to be a $90 million
sports performance center that not only will benefit Campbell’s football
program, but also athletes throughout the school’s sports programs.
“I hate to talk about the arms race, but
you’re never going to compete in that aspect with Texas and Oklahoma,” Walden
said. “All you have to do is make sure what you’ve got is really, really good —
and that’s what Jamie is doing.
“No kid
comes to visit at Iowa State anymore without being impressed.”
That’s
changed from back when Walden’s teams couldn’t even fit into a snug team
meeting room.
“I
couldn’t meet with my whole team unless we stood outside in the rain or the
snow,” he said.
TOPIC:
Washington State quarterback Gardner Minshew
The
nation’s passing leader was transferring from East Carolina to Alabama, until
Cougars coach Mike Leach asked him if he wanted to lead the nation in passing.
And who
doesn’t want to do that?
The
Mississippi native flipped his commitment to Wazzu last March.
“I love
him,” Walden said of Minshew. “He’s from Mississippi. It’s hard for us to be
humble, you know.”
Walden, in
case you couldn’t piece together, also is from the Magnolia State.
“Not only
has he filled an emotional gap, but his whole personality of how he plays has
been an absolute cheery on top of the sundae,” Walden continued. “He’s had a
greater impact in one year than some guys have who’ve been someplace for five
years and are three-season starters.
“The whole
Cougar nation was in a real downer (following Washington State quarterback and
CTE sufferer Tyler Hilinski's suicide in January), before Minshew showed up.
Had you told the Cougars in August that they have a chance to go to the Alamo
Bowl ... their advice to you would be to check into a psychiatrist.”
TOPIC: And
about Brock Purdy ...
Iowa State
true freshman quarterback Brock Purdy threw for 16 touchdowns (and just five
interceptions) with a passer rating of 172.7 passer rating in seven starts.
Walden's a
big fan.
“He’s
brought an entirely different dimension to the offense,” Walden said of the
Cyclones’ Wonder Kid. “I’ve seen freshmen have impacts before, but this guy’s a
true freshman ... he’s done an incredible job.
“He’s good
right now, but just wait to see what he becomes, as Matt and his guys continue
to coach him.”
TOPIC:
Cougars coach Mike Leach
Mike Leach
has Washington State back as a Pac-12 power, which wasn't the case when he
arrived after Paul Wulff's 9-40 tenure there. (Factoid: Wulff was later on Paul
Rhoads' final coaching staff at Iowa State for part of the 2015 season.)
“(Leach
is) a little quirky,” said Walden, who some would say has a bit of quirk, too.
“It’s taken me a little bit of a while to get used to him.
“He’s
opposed to what I believed in. I was a run-first, and a throw-when-you-had-to
guy. That was my era.”
TOPIC: What's the tougher job: ISU or Wazzu?
“It’s Iowa
State, for one reason — because of the lack of Division I football players in
its garden,” Walden said, mostly referring to recruiting back when he was
running the Cyclones’ program.
“Iowa
State has to go too far to get the best food out of other peoples’ gardens.
Matt and his staff — they’re doing an extremely good job robbing people of
their good fruit. And don’t forget about that football program sitting on your
eastern shore.”
Back when
Walden was coaching, there weren't as many major-college recruits available in
the state of Iowa as there are now.
And
finally ...
“I’m going
to make a declaration right here and now,” Walden said toward the end of our
entertaining and rambling conversation. “One of my three favorite teams will
win a bowl — Wyoming, where I played, and whoever wins the Alamo Bowl.”
::::::::::::::::::
WSU MEN’S
BASKETBALL in Las Vegas
Continental
Tire Las Vegas Classic
WSU vs.
New Mexico State University on Sun. Dec. 23, 2018, in Orleans Arena
Cougars lost
75-72.
(The teams
played each other at NMSU/Las Cruces, New Mexico, on Dec. 1, 2018, with New
Mexico State winning, 69-63.)
(In Las
Vegas on Dec. 23, WSU lost to San Diego, 82-75. On the same day in the same
place, New Mexico State lost 66-63 to Drake.)
:::::::::::::::::
Men’s Basketball WSU Cougars' Comeback Falls
Short Against San Diego
WSU’s Robert
Franks reaches 1,000-point plateau in the game.
LAS VEGAS
(AP) Isaiah Pineiro scored a career-high 30 points and Olin Carter III added 18
to help San Diego hold on for an 82-75 win over Washington State on Saturday
night Dec. 22, 2018, in the Las Vegas Classic.
Pineiro
was 11-of-16 shooting, including 3 of 4 from 3-point range and grabbed eight
rebounds. Isaiah Wright had 11 points and Tyler Williams scored 10 for San
Diego (10-3). The Toreros have won five of their last six.
Ahmed Ali
slipped a bounce pass to Robert Franks for a layup and, after a USD turnover,
Ali drove the lane for another to pull the Cougars within one. After Pineiro
missed the front end of a 1-and-1, Franks made 1 of 2 free throws to make it
74-all with 2:29 left but Pineiro answered with a dunk that sparked an 8-1
closing run as WSU missed its last four field-goal attempts.
Franks had
22 points for Washington State (7-4) and CJ Elleby added 13 with nine rebounds.
Franks has 1,002 career points, becoming the 37th player in program history to
top the 1,000-point plateau.
:::::::::::::
Men’s
basketball WSU: Ali shines and Franks joins 1,000-point club, but Cougs lose
By Dylan
Haugh
Cougfan.com
LAS VEGAS
– Cougar point guard Ahmed Ali played his best game of the season against San
Diego on in the Las Vegas Classic on Saturday night.
But Ernie
Kent noted the pendulum swung for good after Ali picked up his fifth foul late,
with the Cougs trailing by two points. Ali’s exit, turnovers and
"selective defense" all resulted in an 82-75 loss, spoiling a night
that saw Robert Franks join a historic club as Washington State fell to 7-4 on
the season.
Franks
finished with a team-high 22 points, becoming just the 37th Cougar to reach the
1,000-point club.
Meanwhile,
Kent’s been very forthcoming about his point guard play this season -- it's
been up and down with neither Ali nor Jervae Robinson seizing the starting job.
Robinson started Saturday but after picking up two quick fouls, Ali came off
the bench and finished with 12 points and six assists in 27 minutes, but the
Cougs needed him to play a couple more. He fouled out with 1:19 remaining.
“I thought
when Ahmed Ali did such a great job in the last eight minutes of that game and
when he fouled out, it just changed the dimensions of the game … he was the one
guy that I thought was keeping us, calm, and making plays going to the bucket
and breaking them down,” said Kent.
Wazzu
trailed by as many as 12 points in the second half but clawed back over the
final seven minutes led by Ali. He corralled loose balls, drew a charge and as
Kent noted, broke San Diego down with some lightning moves to the bucket.
But
Washington State didn’t score a bucket over the final 3:19 after Ali’s layup
narrowed the deficit to 74-73. And as
Ali committed his fourth and fifth fouls in crunch time, San Diego scored seven-straight
and closed out on the game on an 8-1 run.
In the
deciding stretch, freshman C.J. Elleby settled for a contested 3-pointer with
the Toreros in the double-bonus. Postgame, Franks said the Cougs wish they had
some of those possessions back.
“That’s
what Coach Kent just said -- our last two contested jump shots, we should have
drawn something up going to the basket and trying to get an easy bucket or get
to the free-throw line.” Franks said.
In
addition to Franks and Ali, three other Cougars reached double-figures: Elleby
(13), Marvin Cannon (10), and Carter Skaggs (10).
WSU had
two other things that didn’t go its way late.
Franks, the man you want at the line with the game tied 74-74, missed
his second free-throw which would have given the Cougs the lead with 2:29
remaining.
And with
the Cougars trailing 76-74, Cannon saved what looked like it would be an errant
pass to the Cougar bench and drove the baseline, only to see his up-and-under
roll around the rim and out. Cannon’s reaction indicated he thought he was
fouled but no whistle came.
“Crucial
mistakes, they kill us,” Franks said.
WSU IS
NEARING the end of its busiest stretch on the schedule, San Diego was WSU’s
third game in six days. Kent said
postgame the offense held up fine, it was the D and energy that cost the Cougs.
“It’s our
defense that I thought that got away from us,” Kent said. “When our energy was
there, we were really good on defense … we took a good veteran team and were
able to neutralize them. As soon as our energy went away, that team just picked
us apart.”
The Cougs
shot 50.9 percent from the floor, including 47.4 percent from the 3-point
line. The Cougs also hit 12 of 14 free
throws. But 16 WSU turnovers led to 23 San Diego points. Still, Kent said he can live with the
turnovers when the offense is still putting up points. What he said the Cougs
can’t live with is playing “selective defense.”
For the game, San Diego shot 30-of-59 (50.8 percent).
:::::::::::::::::::
WSU
football
School.
Football. Fortnite. One video game has infiltrated Washington State’s locker
room … and isn’t going away anytime soon
Sun., Dec.
23, 2018, 5 a.m.
By Theo
Lawson of Spokane’s Spokesman-Review
PULLMAN –
These days, it’s hard to spend 30 minutes in any quadrant of Washington State’s
locker room without hearing the F- word slip out at least once or twice.
No, not
that F-word.
Not
football, either.
Fortnite.
Next to
their books and playbooks, nothing else has infiltrated the lives of these
Pac-12 football players, and football players elsewhere – just about every
football player, it seems – like the cooperative video game that gained
notoriety when it was introduced in 2017, and has since registered more than
200 million users worldwide.
“It’s
school, football, Fortnite,” WSU safety Jalen Thompson insisted.
Just to
give you an idea of the mania: Hunter Dale, a starting nickel by day and
Fortnite whiz by night, admits to ignoring text messages – no, text messages
from girls – on multiple occasions to complete a mission.
“Yeah,”
Dale said, shrugging. “No doubt.”
And he
probably isn’t the only one.
Five on
the WSU football team all estimate that 50 percent of the roster, if not more,
has been infected by the Fortnite craze. The other 50 percent is comprised of
players who either haven’t been persuaded by a teammate to take it out for a
spin, or have played and retired, realizing it was getting in the way of life’s
other priorities.
The reason
the game has become so hot, so quickly? Mainly because picking up the
controller is much easier than putting it down. Some WSU players have spent up
to 12 hours a day staring at their screen, steering a personalized character
through the virtual world that is Fortnite.
Over the
summer, with a much lighter workload, Dale stuck to a consistent routine: from
8-9 a.m., football conditioning; from 9 a.m.-1 p.m., Fortnite; from 1-6 p.m.,
weightlifting/7-on-7 scrimmages; from 6 p.m.-bedtime, another dose of Fortnite.
While some
caution against too much Fortnite consumption, this particular group of
student-athletes sees the benefits. Team chemistry, for one, has improved in
2018 – something coach Mike Leach has stated multiple times this season – and
there’s no question the game brings players together unlike any other
nonfootball activity.
“I may
just hop on and be like, ‘Marcus (Strong), Molt (Darrien Molton), get on real
quick,’” Thompson said. “Just hop on, play a couple of games. I love it.”
“You get
together with a few of your teammates and talk about whatever while you’re
playing,” left tackle Andre Dillard said. “Just kind of exciting moments within
the game. Kind of brings you together a little bit, just a fun thing to do with
your friends.”
And there
isn’t much evidence to suggest the adverse effects of too much Fortnite – at
least not in this instance, with this football team. On the field, the Cougars
have matched a program record with 10 regular-season wins. They also just set a
PR in the classroom, with a record 12 players named to the Pac-12’s
All-Academic team.
Among
those is starting nose tackle Taylor Comfort, who set the team’s highest mark
with a 3.33 GPA. He, too, is a Fortnite buff who may spend hours at a time next
to his console, plugged into the game that’s captivated just about everyone in
his generation.
Interrogated
about his Fortnight usage earlier in the season, Comfort responded: “You can’t
ask me that. No comment.”
Fortnite
fever
On a hot
afternoon in late July, the two players representing WSU at Pac-12 Media Day
are taking a lunch break from interview obligations at the Hollywood &
Highland Entertainment Center.
In between
bites of roast beef and vegetables, Thompson, the Cougars’ All-Pac-12 safety,
explains how Fortnite offers three modes to users. There’s a solo option in
which one brave player can go head-to-head with 99 other solo players. You can
also form a duo, or a squad of four to accomplish the same mission. In each of
the three modes, the goal is to be the last man standing.
Sitting a
few chairs away, wide receiver Kyle Sweet perks up.
“You guys
talking about Fortnite?” he asks. “That is the most popular thing in the world
today.”
Bogged
down by football questions all afternoon, this is one topic Thompson and Sweet
don’t mind elaborating on. Sweet guarantees any of the 24 players in attendance
at Media Day would entertain a Fortnite inquiry, and would be willing to carry
on a long, detailed conversation about the game.
“If you go
up to any player here and talk about Fortnite, (they’d know),” he said.
And their
coaches? In most cases, it’s still a bit of a foreign language, though most at
least know their players indulge.
“I don’t
know how to do that,” Leach says from the other side of the table. “You have to
be good at pushing buttons. If it’s slow. If it’s slow button pushing.”
A popular
live streaming video platform called Twitch allows players to broadcast
themselves playing the game in real time – sometimes in front of hundreds of
thousands of viewers from all over the globe. Viewers have the option to chip
in money – yes, real money – to the streamer if they like what they’re seeing.
The only thing more surprising than that is that some actually do.
“I’m
telling you, if you do a live stream – a bunch of gamers stream themselves
playing Fortnite – if you get coach Leach on there, that thing would get a
million followers,” Sweet said.
No fewer
than two weeks later, between 20-30 Cougar players huddle around a screen in
Lewiston to watch one of their comrades take on 99 virtual opponents.
At
Lewis-Clark State College, WSU’s makeshift home during fall camp, there’s a
game room with multiple televisions, a pingpong table and a foosball table. But
even with plenty of multiplayer activities at their disposal, the Cougars would
rather form a barricade around kicker Jack Crane and watch him make a run at
Fortnite immortality.
“Down in
Lewiston, when you have 15-20 people crowded around you, it’s kind of cool
because they’re all like rooting for you, hoping you get the win and
everything,” said Crane, a redshirt sophomore who was used on kickoffs this
season. “Expecting you to win. It’s cool in the sense that everybody’s together
and just cheering you on and everything like that.”
On this
team, it’s widely acknowledged Crane wears the Fortnite crown. He has more than
1,100 wins under his belt – a puzzling number when you consider at the start of
every game, each of the 100 players theoretically have the same 1 percent
chance of winning.
“Jack’s
insane,” Dale said.
But if
there’s anyone who can hold a candle to Crane, it’s Dale, the senior from
Louisiana.
And
sometimes they’ll join forces, unlocking a new level of dominance.
One-two
punch
From the
second floor of a two-story condominium in Pullman, Dale and Crane are
stationed in separate bedrooms, and entrenched in their separate Fortnite
worlds, winding down from another taxing day of fall camp in mid-August.
Crane, who
doesn’t live in the condo and has stopped by for a night of gaming, is playing
on Corey Magdaleno’s account. Magdaleno shares the living space with Dale,
Dillard and quarterback Gardner Minshew.
Crane
points out Magdaleno’s character is outfitted in a unique skin – “probably the
rarest skin in the game,” he said. Fortnite is offered free to its users over a
variety of gaming platforms: Xbox, PlayStation, PC, iPhone, Android. You name
it.
But some
have estimated Fortnite’s developer, Epic Games, could reach a net worth of
more than $8 billion, largely because of the money users spend within the game.
Each week,
new items are available for purchase, allowing users to make fashion statements
with new emotes, character models and skins (outfits). Fortnite recently struck
a deal with the NFL and offers team-themed uniform skins for all 32 clubs.
“I did get
to that point,” said Dillard, a Fortnite retiree. “I spent like $30. It’s
almost purely cosmetic things you buy on the game. It’s not like you get an
advantage. You just look cool, basically.”
Dillard
sighs as he talks about the money Fortnite sucked out of his wallet. But he’s
not quite the spendthrift Crane is. The kicker estimates he’s dropped around
$300 since downloading the game last November. And Dale?
“If not
$300, more than that,” Dale said. “They come out with new stuff every day at 5
on the dot for Western time. So people spend money, no matter what.”
Crane was
lured to Fortnite last year by a roommate, who insisted he take the game out
for a spin. There was some skepticism initially … and then addiction.
“I was
terrible at first and everything and so I started playing, so I was like, yeah
I don’t know how I feel about this game,” Crane said. “He’s like, all right,
well, I’m going to go to the gym, I’m going to work out. Then two hours later
he comes back and I’m still playing.”
Peering
over his buddy’s shoulder, Magdaleno points out the field of players in Crane’s
game has been whittled down to seven – including Crane.
“And I’m
about to die,” the kicker sighs.
But he
escapes, hollering to Dale in the next room, “Yo, Hunt, I’ve got six people
left.”
Of the
original 100, it’s down to five. Then four. Three. Two …
“You might
want to record this,” Magdaleno said. “He’s about to win.”
Finally,
Crane eliminates the last of his foes to seal the victory.
“Hey,
Jack, did you win?” Dale bellows. “Hell, yeah!”
It’s
suggested to Crane that the sensation of outlasting 99 other players in
Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode might be comparable to kicking a winning field
goal.
Not
exactly, he said.
“But at
the same time it’s cool, just different feelings, different nerves. Maybe if it
was my first time ever playing and I ended up getting a win, it would be
amazing and everybody would go crazy and everything like that. But everybody
expects me to win anyways. If I don’t, everybody’s like, ‘Ah, why didn’t you
win?’”
Now Crane
and Dale will test out their chemistry and form a two-player team. Although
they’re about a first down’s distance apart from one another, they’ll
communicate through headsets. Their characters descend, or “drop” onto an
island together, and extinguish other duos until they’re the ones eliminated.
“We just
died in that game,” Dale said. “We’re going to drop again.”
Dale’s
eyes are fixated on a computer screen that’s set up no more than a foot away.
Behind that, attached to his wall, is a flat-screen TV used to monitor other
live streamers through the Twitch app.
The second
game for Dale and Crane goes more smoothly. Nearly one-half hour has elapsed –
on average, games take 25-30 minutes to complete – when Dale comes to life,
blurting out, “Hell, yeah. Woo! That’s how you do it, Jack,” and a few other
words not fit for print.
The
release of snatching a Fortnite win is part of what makes the game so
appealing. Or often in Crane’s case, the release of not losing.
“You get
chills and everything. Your blood starts pumping, you get nervous,” he said.
“Now since I have so many wins, it’s like normal. It’s like, if I don’t get a
win then it’s kind of frustrating. A ton of people all ages play it and I think
just because it’s so addicting in a way – it’s kind of like gambling, I think.
You don’t win, you feel like you need to play another.”
But that’s
also a double-edged sword.
Peeling
back
Dillard, a
senior, is an Associated Press third-team All-American and, by most accounts,
projected to be WSU’s highest NFL Draft pick in April.
After
stints of World of Warcraft, Call of Duty and Halo, Dillard was tugged into the
Fortnite world. He’d play between six to seven hours a day, often with wide
receivers Brandon Arconado and Dezmon Patmon, running back Max Borghi and
fellow offensive lineman Liam Ryan.
“It keeps
us here, occupied, out of trouble, if you want to put it that way,” Dillard
said. “It’s a fun pastime, but it can take a lot of hours without you realizing
it.”
That’s
when Dillard diagnosed his addiction.
“I’ve seen
it happen and I’m afraid of it happening to myself, so that’s why I hopped off
of it,” he said. “It’s just a frustrating game. It stresses me out, but I kept
playing for some reason. When you get eliminated from a match, you think so much
about what you could’ve done different. Then you’re like, ‘OK, one more, one
more.’ So it stresses you out like no other, but it makes you keep going.”
WSU
coaches are aware of the game’s presence, and its influence, and a few of the
strength trainers encouraged players to “peel back” on their usage during the
academic semester, Dale said.
#
