Happy Tuesday Cougar Fans!

A couple of quick things before we get started.  First and foremost, as former WSU All American Paul Sorensen pointed out over at Cougfan yesterday, a lot of the 2011 success could be determined by the depth on both our OL and DL.  Well one of our hurdles to building depth along the DL was cleared up last night when DT Brandon Rankin was cleared by the NCAA academically.  Seeing that Rankin has seen mostly action on the Second Team, this should mean we have an experienced, sound football player to lead our DT rotation!

Secondly, don't forget to check back to the blog on Friday morning for each contributor's analysis of the Pac 12 weekend ahead.  Our picks will be the same picks each of us register over in the Yahoo Pick Em Leagues.  If you have failed to do so, make sure to get registered, details for the pool can be found here.

Click the jump to take a look at some of the interesting Week One lines coming out of Las Vegas and what I like about each.

Happy Monday and Happy Game Week, Cougs! That's right, folks. Fall Camp is officially over. This afternoon when Coach Wulff and his crew get to work they'll be focusing only on the game THIS SATURDAY!! I've openly said or subtly referenced multiple times that I think this is the season that the bowl drought ends and today I'm going to break down the season game by game to figure out just how it is the Cougs will get to 6-6. I plan on spending the remainder of the season backtracking on everything you're about to read. Just kidding. I hope. In reality, I just want to give a general idea of where I think our team stands relative to our opponents looking at things today. Obviously, predcitions can change for various reasons over the course of the season. Let's make some picks...

So as we head into the final week before, you know, actual GAMES start being played, it's time for the pre-season Blog Poll to hit these fine world wide webs. If you aren't familiar, in years past we have participated in the Blog Poll process, where each week different blogs vote in their own top-25 poll, and we're going to stick with it again this year.  You can check out the weekly polls here, over at SB Nation. 

In our own voting, weeks we will go stricktly "chalk", which is basically taking the AP or coaches poll and going lock-step with their choices.  I mean let's face it, some weeks there just aren't any upsets and they pretty much nail it in the media and coaches voting.  But other weeks, well, not so much.  Every Monday this season we will post out own ballot, so you can call me/us complete morons (highly likely) or pat us on the back for a JOB WELL DONE (highly unlikely)!  And hey, if you don't like our ballot?  Feel free to fire away in comments....

Anywho, here's the preseason version of our Top-25.  Yeah, it's a lot of crapshoot right now, and quite frankly the polls are hard to guage for the first month of the season.  Things start really settling in once we hit October, but for now, here's our best guess at the Top-25, pre-season style.....

What's up Cougs? Last night I set aside my desire to celebrate "Thirsty Thursday" for a few hours to attend WSU's 7:30 football scrimmage at Martin Stadium.

Roughly 100 spectators scattered throughout the stands witnessed WSU's first team offense square off against the second team defense and vice versa. Click on the jump to read my recap of the scrimmage bullet point style ala Jeff Sullivan at lookoutlanding.com.

Happy Thursday Cougs! 

Last week I gave a shot at grading the Cougs' depth, and as Longball put it got "raked over the coals by more than a couple commenters for having the audacity to suggest we may have decent depth this year." All I have to say is thank you! That was, hands down, the most commented article I've ever written.  If you think I'm full of mularky, always feel free to let me hear it.  

That being said, I stand behind my "homer" assessment of the current depth in our program.  I'll admit, I began to second-guess myself a bit after publishing the article.  I thought to myself, "How dare I have the audacity to dole out A's and B's to a team that has done nothing yet to deserve them."  Then I looked over the same roster I used to assimilate the depth grades, and was reminded of why I was so optimistic the night before.

Consider this...