Part 5 of the 2024-2025 football season preview
While a bit different than the others, this is the fifth installment in what has rapidly become a season preview series for the 2024 WSU football season. My fourth dream for the season can be found here.
The Good Football Manifesto: Summer 2024
Ultimately, we’re all just looking for the 2024-2025 Cougs to be fun football team, with good process, that plays some good ball.
But how will you know if there is good ball being played?
Bill Parcels says that ‘you are what your record says you are’, but we won’t know that for months and that’s no fun. So instead I’ve drug out ‘The Good Football Manifesto’, a seemingly self published, anonymous screed that I found inside the wall of my garage a few years ago. The back cover describes it as “A comprehensive, constantly evolving list of good, bad, and somehow irrelevant things that say something about the destiny of a particular football team.”
In a true ‘don’t knock it till you’ve tried it’ moment I read through it last week in the hopes of finding something worthwhile for the preview this week, and hand to god here are twenty entries that are worth looking out for against Portland State and Texas Tech.
Want to know the ultimate desitiney of the 2024-2025 WSU Cougar Football team? Then be on the lookout for the following.
1) Helmet throwing:
Usually a sign of panic, or an emphatic way to show that you care about the bad thing that just happened.
Might Indicate: A team at the mercy of momentum.
2) ‘My Bad’ Chest Thumping:
A way of communicating that you acknowledge your mistake.
Might Indicate: Good communication and accountability.
Alternatively: If done often and unacknowledged by teammates, might indicate repeated mistakes and lack of growth.
3) Wide Receiver Pancakes:
When a wide receiver blocks a defensive player to the ground. Ideally flat on their back.
Might Indicate: An exceptional winner. A great running football team.
4) Pseudo Pancakes:
Like a worse version of the Kevin Garnett ‘block the shot after the whistle’, this is a time when an offensive player runs a defensive player into the ground-but after the whistle, while falling, or illegally.
Might Indicate: Front runners. Fake Tough Guys.
5) Solo tackles:
When a defensive player brings a ball carrier to the ground by themselves
Might Indicate: A great defensive player. Especially note when this happens in large areas of space, like the flats.
Alternatively: When depended on too often, a defense that is unmotivated or out of position, or that takes a lot of risk with their scheme.
6) Free Runners to the Quarterback: Defense
When a defensive player isn’t blocked and has a clear path to the QB when he is trying to throw the ball.
Might Indicate: A well designed and called defensive scheme.
7) Free Runners to the Quarterback: Offense
When a defensive player isn’t blocked and has a clear path to the QB when he is trying to throw the ball.
Might Indicate: An unfocused team.
8) Sprinting Big Dudes: Defense
When someone over 300lbs runs at top speed; which is surprisingly fast once they get going.
Might Indicate: Great Effort; Sadness.
9) Sprinting Big Dudes: Offense
When someone over 300lbs runs at top speed; not as surprisingly fast as the defensive variant.
Might Indicate: Joy
10) Feet off the ground: Defense
When a player has neither foot on the ground.
Might Indicate: A penalty, a pancake (sad), or a small player doing everything he can to knock over someone bigger than him. Lack of discipline.
11) Feet off the ground: Offense
When a player has neither foot on the ground
Might Indicate: Pain
12) Constant screen passes:
When an offense incessantly throws screen passes.
Might Indicate: An overmatched offensive line. A coach’s attempt at solving an unsolvable problem.
13) Running backs that bounce:
When a running back intentionally runs towards the sideline in an attempt to find space and get free.
Might Indicate: A fast, explosive ball carrier.
Alternatively: A lack of run blocking, or a back too impatient to run the ball between the tackles.
14) A Quarterback holding onto the ball: Offense
When a quarterback holds onto the ball before passing long enough to read a Russian novel.
Might Indicate: A QB that is trying to do a lot.
15) A QB that is trying to do a lot:
A QB who is trying to make a play, either by picking out the perfect throw or passing up easier throws to make a big play down the field.
Might Indicate: Hero ball. Good if you’re Kobe Bryant. Bad if you’re Jerome James.
Alternatively: An offense devoid of skilled skill players.
16) A Quarterback holding onto the ball: Defense
When a quarterback holds onto the ball before passing long enough to read another Russian novel.
Might Indicate: A defense that is physically dominant in pass coverage.
Alternatively: A defense that is adept at scheme design and play calling, creating confusion in the opposing quarterback.
17) Stoic Expressions:
A look worn by players and/or coaches that would be useful at the world series of poker.
Might Indicate: A team beyond the reach of momentum
18) Depressed Face:
A look worn by players and/or coaches that is aspiring to stoicism, but sadly cannot achieve it.
Might Indicate: A team that has given up
19) Unfortunate Breaks:
Fumbles, interceptions, missed tackles, almost catches, etc. that seem unfair. Things that don’t seem like they are earned, but instead are the result of some cosmic interference.
Might Indicate: A team with a good process that is about to get some lucky breaks.
Alternatively: A talented team with bad process that is almost but not quite able to get away with it.
20) Lucky Breaks:
Fumble recoveries, fingertip pass break ups, just dodged sacks, broken tackles, etc. that seem unfair but are welcome. Things that don’t seem like they are earned, but are bestowed upon random teams and players like a ray of sunshine in a thunderstorm.
Might Indicate: If sustained across a season, and into multiple seasons, a football team with a good process.
Alternatively: The aimless fate and mocking laughter conferred upon us all the football gods.