Good afternoon and Happy Hump Day, Cougs! Sorry once again for a delayed post this week. For some reason, my employer has decided it's a good idea to send me around to meet with clients so I've been on the road a bit lately and only seem to travel during times when I should be writing about our Cougs. I hope to get back to meeting the standards you've come to expect from me in the very near future. That's not exactly setting the bar very high, but hey, it's all about expectations management. After a much needed bye week to give us a reprieve from a frustrating season, it's time to gear up for the home stretch. Now that the team has been freed from being distracted by the menace that is Twitter, they should also be 100% focused on getting this off-the-rails season back on track. The schedule isn't particularly kind in that regard with a tough Stanford team waiting in their house for the Air Raid to arrive. I've got some thoughts on this game in the form of 7 bold predictions. Why 7? As always, I have no idea.

The Vandal Atheltic Department

Sometimes you think things are tough around your house, then you look outside and your neighbor’s house is on fire. No matter how you feel about the problems facing Cougar football, they are like a couple burnt out lightbulbs compared to the structure fire down the road in Moscow. As you have probably heard by now, the Idaho Vandals have given Robb Akey his walking papers and have promoted Jason Gesser to interim head coach while they conduct their search for Akey’s successor. All this is happening as the Vandals prepare for their first season as a football independent in 2013, a status they hope to only maintain for a couple years as they search the ever changing conference landscape for a new home. Constantly looming over all of this is the very real possibility that the only viable option is for the Vandals to return to the ranks of the FCS and the Big Sky Conference they used to dominate. These are tough times to be a Vandal. As a true legend and icon of the Palouse I just cannot let Akey ride off into the sunset without adding a few thoughts of my own, after the jump...

Happy Monday to you, Followers.  Hope you had a great weekend.

As for me, well, I'm a bit upset.  For less on that--as well as other semi-related Cougar news--read on.

Rest easy, its a bye week!

No rest for the weary here at the WSU Football Blog. While the Cougs get a bye week, we just keep on keepin on with our Football Friday on a Thursday picks. The last couple weeks I have clearly demonstrated an aptitude for picking the opposite of what is going to happen, so please keep that in mind as you read Longball’s Locks. Even though our Cougs are on the shelf this weekend, there are still four really interesting conference matchups (and one stinker) that left me flipping coins and consulting a ouija board. One thing is for certain, five Pac-12 teams are going to be defeated this weekend and we ain’t one of them. Halleluja! Read on to see who we think they will be...

Bye weeks are the worst, except when they're not.

Good morning and Happy Hump Day, Cougs! Normally I hate bye weeks, but this season, I'm relieved to have a week off. I'm not sure what I'll do with the extra three (or four) hours normally reserved for shaking my head, saying, "Damn it", and all the other frustration that has come with the first 7 weeks of this season. Ideally I'll play some golf, but it's more likely that I'll end up watching a bunch of college football and living vicariously through the fans of programs who see their teams look competent for more than a few minutes at a time. I don't want an entire post to be a bunch of whining. We've all seen what's been happening and there is no need to point out all the failings of this team for the umpteenth time, as cathartic as it may be. So, with no game to talk about this week and a steadfast refusal to re-live the past, what does that leave? Well, my friends, it leaves a bunch of semi coherent rambling. Let's do this.

I am sensing... someone... who is in desperate need of a do-over.

Last week we had a little fun reviewing my pre-season predictions for the College Gameday Locations. This week, the excitement continues with an in depth look at some of my bold upset predictions for 2012. Will I find redemption for my dismal performance with the Gameday picks? Will I finally be able to show my face in public again? Will Huddy finally get that pipeline installed from the Bridgeport Brewery to his living room? Read on to find out...

Hello Followers.  Hope you had a great weekend.

As the Cougs slipped to 2-5 and 0-4 in Conference on Saturday, I found myself asking the following question:  Where do we go from here?

Nearly two days later, and after having thought about that question for nary a second, I think I have an answer.  So, read on.

Lots of available seats on this bandwagon.

In front of a sparce home crowd tonight, the Cougar corpses and basset hounds fell flat against the resurgent Cal Bears. The game featured some embarassing announcing, a season's worth of replays, and more drops than AT&T. Glad we could breath a little life into Jeff Tedford's career and once again, play possum with our "Air Raid" offense which is clearly just rope-a-doping the Pac-12 for a big explosion... NEXT YEAR. If you are still following this team, go ahead and sound off in the comments below...

Hello Followers.  Hope you’ve had a great week.

As today’s title indicates, I had the great fortune of going under the knife yesterday, and in so doing, officially completed my ascent into middle age.

So, as I sit in front of my computer tripping out on a healthy dose of Hydrocodon, the question in my mind is as follows:  “Will our Cougar offense find a way to step out from the Middle Ages this weekend?”

"Where the Banchees Live and They Do Live Well."

For more on that, read on.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a very special edition of Football Friday on a Thursday. It is “very special” because we have a guest picker who is going to kick things off for us this week. Joining us on his whirlwind tour of the internet after getting a little front page time on ESPN.com for calling our seniors a bunch of empty corpses, please welcome head coach Mike Leach! Coach Leach, go ahead and give us your picks in this weekend’s Pac-12 matchups...

Leach’s Leanings:

Arizona State @ Colorado

Well this is the Devil against, basically, a big mean cow. I guess I'm not sure if it’s “the” devil, or just “a” devil, but either way I think with the pitchfork and the fire its probably going to be able to take care of that buffalo.

Utah @ UCLA

So here we have a Native American tribe against a bear. What you gotta ask yourself is this... how many bears have you seen wearing a Native American? Gotta think the Utes are gonna come out on top against a bear.

Oregon State @ BYU

So here we have a beaver against a Cougar. Both these guys bring a serious set of teeth to the fight and the beaver basically has the world’s deadliest fly swatter for a tail, but then the Cougar, see, he has claws and he’s bigger, so I am going to go with the Cougar. Plus I met my wife at BYU, so there’s that.

Stanford @ Notre Dame

Ok, I don’t know how anybody is supposed to be afraid of a color. I mean unless its a real ugly color like periwinkle, or mauve, I guess. But you’d still be more grossed out than scared. Here we have “Cardinal” which is a fancy name for red, so we’re not talking anything real threatening here. But then we’ve got this Leprechaun who is probably drunk and can’t see straight anyway. Who knows, I guess lets give the nod to the Leprechaun since he can probably throw a punch at least.

USC @ UW

This might be the easiest one. I mean a Trojan is a warrior with armor and a sword, and a Husky is a furry dog that pulls sleds. This should be a pretty lopsided win for a Trojan. Now these guys aren’t the smartest warriors since they fell for that damn horse trick, but they should still be smart enough to stick a sword in a dog and twist it once or twice.

Cal @ Wazzu

A lot of people think that a bear maybe has some advantages over a cougar with size and strength and stuff, and thats just what we want them to think. Truth is the bear may be bigger and stronger, but he is slower and the Cougar can just get a lot more shots in with his claws and teeth without the bear being able to lay a paw on him, just by being quicker and sneakier. This one goes to the cougar all the way.

Thank you coach and good luck this weekend! Click the jump if you wanna see how the blogfather’s picks stack up this week...