If he hadn't had the run-in with the press last year, he could get the benefit of the doubt (such as, he might've just been trying to show his team that he'll stick up for them). But this says there's something deeper going on here. He needs some anger management (not the TV show).

I wish I could say the Petrinos are caricatures of football coaches. Whistle-wearing grotesques. But it seems they're more and more what's to be expected out of a coach. That's a shame.

But someone else on staff should've written the story about the confrontation for the D-News. Dugar made himself the story by writing it. Another reporter could've written it, quoted him and gotten his side.

The Petrino Brothers' clownish act aside, I will say one thing: I'm disturbed by the amount of "insider" reporting required of a beat writer these days. As people want to read less and less dry, informational reporting, they want more and more (for a lack of better term) "impressionistic" stuff. While some of it is great (Arkley strikes a nice balance of facts and impressions and seems to build enough trust with coaches to be able to splice the thoughts perhaps they wouldn't want quoted into his own thoughts), it's more and more inviting people who don't coach football for a living to talk as if they do coach football for a living. And it's not the reporter's fault. That's what the reader is asking for. But here's a little problem with it: IF THE REPORTER COULD BREAK DOWN FOOTBALL LIKE A FOOTBALL COACH, HE OR SHE WOULD BE COACHING FOOTBALL.

So when coaches and players are no longer forthright and when players aren't even available to talk (like Petrino does with his star wide receiver), you're going to get impressions, innuendo, gossip, bluster, exaggeration based on teeny tiny things like vertical passing game drills.

This long, rambling post boils down to this: Maybe we should all watch the game more and demand less from inside the huddle. Maybe football, unlike actual important things in life where simple informational reporting still suffices in many ways, could be a little bit more of a mystery. I got out of sports writing recently and I really do enjoy the games more now. I'm not worried about finding an angle or stringing together narratives. Heaven knows at times I've stretched some small detail into a lede and probably made a football coach want to run across a field to read me the riot act. And I probably deserved it. But I always tried to approach an interview with a head coach as if I was a student and they were a teacher. Not in a bullying sort of way, but in the football sense. I wanted to ask informed, good questions about their teams, but I never wanted to give the impression I knew better. Or that I ever knew much at all. My job was to get their impression.

But when the coach isn't open, you're stuck with a news hole to fill. You're then grasping at what you know and that usually isn't enough to not make you look like a fool. Then you start describing the color of curtains in the post-game news conference room and gestures of their hands. Or you invent a narrative.

Sometimes in sports, there are no narratives. Sometimes a team is working on its vertical passing game in practice and the quarterback isn't connecting with receivers because...well...IT'S PRACTICE. And practice isn't perfect. To be trite, it's to become perfect.

The demands on a reporter these days trying to gain eyeballs against the flash and convenience of video and louder voices on radio and cable and the pressures on a football coach who can be scrutinized and fired for the tiniest amount of program atrophy can be a volatile pairing.

Excellent post.

I hope that the qb taking off and running is a small part of the offense. First, it exposes the qb to injury. Second, I hope that the plays we call work such that we don't have to resort to this as a fallback.

OUr offense has an interesting mix of a fair amount of experience (line, OUellette, etc) and inexperience (TE, receiver, other rb's).

That's always the argument when it comes to QBs running with the ball. It never seems to happen that way, though. When QBs get hurt, its normally because they are hit while passing. As often as Vick ran last year, he was hurt on a personal foul by Idaho while standing, minding his own business, after handing off to AJ.

The only injury I can think of where a QB was hurt on a run was where TT got hit against Marshall in 2012, and he took a shot to the ribs. I think that's because when they are running, they see the impact coming, and either brace for it, or they can slide, or run out of bounds to avoid it, while, when they get hit passing, they are either exposed, or don't even see it coming.

I agree that it's an interesting mix of experience and inexperience, old players and young ones. I'm looking for them to mesh into a good team.

You are correct. I found this article that clears it up.
http://tinyurl.com/o6pcp3z


I remembered that TT played against Marshall, but sat versus Norfolk State, so my fuzzy memory incorrectly placed the injury in the Marshall game. My apologies, and thanks for the correction.

Here are the last three that were in the top 15:
Brazill was #5 in 2011 with 72 catches (was also #4 in yards, and #3 in tds)
Foster was #11 in 2012 with 59 catches
Foster was #4 in 2013 with 69 catches (was also #3 in yards)

Wildfires playing havoc in Idaho. Probably good to be indoors since air is smoke laden

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/08/23/3952072/smoke-co...

In a different thread, speculation citing recent season opening attendance numbers.

Any insights you can share on spots to hit in Moscow for those of us making the trip? How about pregaming?

Sounds like they're off to a not so stellar preseason, media-wise. I hope we've seen the worst of that from our side. I'm trying to picture Solich going wild on Arkley or some 18 year old Posties right now :)

But hey, I learned Yuengling can be a bartering tool out west!

Duh. It's called the VANDALstore, not the law-abiding citizen store.

"What a horrible thing to have happen on "Dozen-Egg-Night" at the ballpark!" -- Baseketball

It'll be interesting to see if he's handling this internally by having the culprits sit all or part of the opener for "undisclosed violations of team rules."