Hello Cougar Nation!  Hope you are having a tremendous start to the holiday season.

As for me, well, I've been feeling a bit overshadowed, if not overwhelmed as of late.  I mean, take a quick look around planet Coug, will you??

I mean, over at the Bohler complex, we have an AD who is being championed as being maybe the best in the country!  And then on top of that, we have now just added one of the top 10 best coaches in college football!

Then, in the Blog-O-Sphere, well, we have Jim Moore talking about National Championships. We have Cougfan.com pumping out premium story after premium story about really interesting things that I can't read about because I'm too cheap to pay for their service....

And then over at Cougcenter.com, well, Nuss is donating millions of dollars to the Athletic Department, Craig is reliving the top 10 Cougcenter moments of all time (Which is pretty cool, since all of my "moments" are things I wind up paying people to cover up), and Brian Floyd is hobnobbing with BigWigs at the "Exclusive" invite to Cougar (media) Insider-Dom.  And then, this week, Mike Leach started to follow them on Twitter???????  Are you fricking kidding me????

And then there's me.....Which begs the question:

"What have I been doing while everyone else has enjoyed the spoils of national and international stardom?"

Well, as my old Grandpappy used to say, "Son, its never to early to start thinking about what things might be like if you were popular." 

And so today, I ask you, Dear Nation, to come along with me as I do my best to replicate the success of Bill Moos, by trying to become the most popular blogger outside of Jim Moore, the guys at Cougcenter, as well as Lucas, Longball, Huddy and Victory Bell.... (click on the Jumpa-Vegas, won't you?).

Hello Followers. Hope you're having a great week.

Well as the Khan works toward making his big announcement tomorrow (what that means, I have no idea), I thought I'd bide a bit of my time by providing you with a few choice notes to start your morning.  Click on the old jumperoo.

Good morning and happy hump day, Cougs (and Red Raiders)! Last week in this space, I wrote the most quickly dated article in the history of dated articles when I lamented the Wulff firing and demanded a Mike Leach hiring mere hours before the latter actually happened and turned WSU Athletics upside down. I didn't fully understand the need to fire Paul Wulff based on the trajectory of the program, but the NATIONAL reaction to the hiring of Coach Leach established that Bill Moos is infinitely smarter than me (at least as it pertains to being an athletic director; I've still got him beat when it comes to Saved by the Bell knowledge and places to eat in Skagit and Whatcom counties. So there.) The hire got national pundits talking and sent the WSU fan base into an absolute ticket buying, donating, pirate loving frenzy. Admittedly, I thought the pirate thing was slightly overblown and would get tired quickly, but then I saw this video. Now I'm all in on pirates. Ahoy matey! Perhaps the strangest thing in this frenzy is that the 2011 football season has been essentially lost in the shuffle. The Apple Cup ended, a firing report surfaced and it was as if the whole thing never happened. While this was probably for the best, I like to live in the past and wanted to hand out some awards to put the 2011 season to bed before we move on to assistant coach hiring, recruiting and eventually Spring Ball and everything else. So let's hand out some hardware after we jump around. Jump around. Jump up, jump up and get down...

As I sit on my laptop in Mayor Glenn Johnson's Broadcast Management class, I can't help but feel excited about the direction of WSU athletics.  I just returned from Leach's well-publicized press conference in the CUB Senior Ballroom, where the atmosphere was electric (as far as press conferences go). Butch, the WSU marching band and the Crimson Girls :) were there to welcome a bona fide celebrity to Pullman.  To learn my thoughts on Leach's initial statements and my early impression of the WSU basketball team, click on the jump.

So today's the day - we finally get a look at the new WSU coach, as the locals head to Pullman to take a look at none other than Mike Leach.  It seems like an eternity since early last week, when reports started to surface that 1) Wulff was out, and 2) Leach was candidate number one.  And in the world of these here internets 'n such, a week is a flippin' LIFETIME.  Anyway, here we are, and the wait is over.

Per Howie Stalwick, the Leach tour starts with a public press conference in Pullman at high noon, and then he'll hit the Seattle media tonight at 6:30 for more interviews.  Our own Adam will be in Pullman for the press conference today, and we're looking forward to some first-hand accounts of how things go. 

So stay tuned for, well, a really huge day for WSU football!