Decisions

I had some great ideas for a column this week which was a carryover from last week but because of some unforeseen circumstances didn’t get written last week. Now that it is a week later the column I was going to go with probably is just as well left in the back of my brain.

So I will start with something that has concerned me for a few years and a topic I’ve mentioned on a couple of occasions I’m sure. On Friday the WSU Cougars played the Central Michigan (CMU) Chippewas at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas. To be honest it seems like every time I’ve watched this game the sun has been shining. The last two times that WSU has played in this game it has snowed and on Friday it rained.

The last time the Cougs played in this bowl they beat the Miami Hurricanes. They were scheduled to play the Hurricanes again but Covid issues in the Miami program put the game in a holding pattern. CMU was scheduled to play Boise State in the Arizona Bowl but Boise State had Covid issues. The powers that be made the contacts that needed to be made and the Chippewas were going from Tucson to El Paso by bus to play WSU. For CMU it was a much better payday than the Arizona Bowl so ‘Heck yeah’ let’s do it.

There was a time when football players came to a school to play in a bowl game. Now they want to play for a National Championship and since there are so many bowl games many that pit 6-6 teams against each other the glamour of going to a bowl has diminished. The Sun Bowl is the third oldest bowl game getting its start in 1937. Only the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl (1935) are older.

The problem that coaches deal with that aren’t Covid related is who is going to be available to play in the bowl game. In today’s game we have a bunch of kids that put their names into the Transfer Portal so they are done after the last regular season game. Then there are the kids with injuries and the ones that fear an injury will affect their draft status.

Missing for the Cougars were two high profile linemen and the two running backs with a majority of carries during the regular season. Three of these gentlemen were protecting themselves from injury for the draft and one had been disciplined for breaking team rules according to the CBS announcers on Friday.

If you happened to see the game you would have noticed that Cougar QB Jayden de Laura had little to no time passing the ball and the run game was nonexistent. The Chippewa defensive ends were exploding past the Coug tackles and de Laura took some vicious hits. He was unable to play in the second half due to an injury. The Cougars trailed 21-0 at the half.

Sophomore QB Victor Gabalis was able to bring the Cougars back in the second half but the rally fell short and the Chips won 24-21. There must have been a few blocking adjustments at halftime since the backup QB had a little more time to pass.

It is disappointing that two big time linemen and one running back decided not to play in this game because of fear of an injury. What message does that send to NFL coaches? Are you going to give it your best effort even in a game that is meaningless? Just something to think about.

What about the young QB that was under duress in the first half? Couldn’t he have gotten a career ending injury because he was depending on inexperienced linemen to protect his blind side?

How would a coach deal with something like this? Would you ask your players to sign a pledge that if the team goes to a bowl game they will play? Of course they wouldn’t. Can you imagine the backlash from the players?

If this was a playoff game with a National Championship at stake you can bet they would have been playing. So when a coach recruits how does he sell a kid on going to Pullman or Corvallis? Hey we went to a bowl game. Sure we got beat but I’m sure we would have won if those three guys would have suited up.

Decisions that are made effect an entire team and maybe you might be safe from injury but the players you protected all season may not be.