Greetings Coug fans, and a happy humpday to you and yours.  In today's edition of the Morning Drip, we'll take a look around at what's out there for today, plus some real appreciation for a certain player who really seemed to grow up in 2012.  So with that, let's get rolling.....

If your family is anything like mine, the holidays are basically a big Cougar schwag exchange, with everyone getting a complete overhaul of their Wazzu wardrobe and countless new crimson nick nacks to add to their growing piles of crimson nick nacks. With black friday in the rearview mirror it is finally safe to go shopping again, so lets take a look at what gift ideas are out there this year for the Coug fans in your life as well as what to avoid. Also, If you are pretty certain you will be on the receiving end of some Coug gifts this season, be sure to share this with the necessary folks to ensure you get more than an errand to run to the local Goodwill. After the jump, we’ll go shopping...

Stay Classy

Greetings Cougs, and a happy Tuesday morning to you and yours.  Now that we're all fully back in the saddle and all that good stuff, something dawned on Sutra and I the other day.  If we are going to do morning links-n-such again, we need to roll with a cool title or tagline or something, know what I mean?  Our good friends at CougCenter have "Hot Cougar Action", and if you are up early on Twitter and you see a post with that title?  You know what it is.  ESPN has Pac-12 Lunch Links, SI.com has AM/PM Hot Clicks, etc.  So we need to come up with something like that around here (not COPYING our good friends at CC, but, you get the idea!).  Some ideas that came up:

The WSU Morning Grind
Cougar Morning Grind
The Coug Daily Reader
The Cougar Morning DRIP
WAZZU MORNING DRIP
STAY CLASSY PULLMAN - Morning Links Edition
GOOD MORNING PULLMAN!  (not really)
WAKE UP PULLMAN!  (also, not really)

Anyway, any thoughts or ideas, please share in comments.

On to the links-n-such for a Tuesday.....

"It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like X-Mas!"

Happy Monday Cougs, and as you can see we're back in the saddle again with your morning links.  But first, a little explanation of what went down, and what's going to happen moving forward.

First and foremost, as Sutra announced last night the blog will continue.  See, we all kind of felt we had reached a crossroads of sorts with this thing, now 8+ years in existence and a helluva lot of losing along the way.  And we're all busy with the blah-blah-blahs of real life, you all know that, and our postings the last few months just weren't up to our normal amount of quantity that we used to churn out.  But this season, this 2012 season of Cougar football, it just really zapped a lot of "juice" from us as a group, and especially yours truly.  It's not so much that we lost, but it was the way we lost and the self-imposed promises of better things immediately with the hiring of Mike Leach that made it that much more difficult to swallow in year one.  

And in real life, things changed a little bit for me as my wife and I really attacked the idea of running the Seattle half-marathon.  That took a lot of dedication and a strict training schedule so we could make it, but it also ate into my window of opportunity to post, which is basically between 5:30 - 6:30 weekday mornings.  But the half-marathon is now over (we made it by the way, myself a little over 2 hours, my wife at 2:30 or so!), and now it's back to our regular morning routine of writing and exercise a little later in the AM.

But enough of all that.  I wrote about it earlier in the season, asking the question "Why do we fall?", with the obvious answer that followed - SO WE CAN LEARN TO PICK OURSELVES UP AGAIN.  And you know what?  We are picking ourselves up, right here, right now.  The last thing we should ever do is quit when the going gets tough, know what I mean?  I mean I just wrote about picking yourself back up again after you take a spill, so wouldn't it be a little hypocritical to take a knee because things went south??  The Cougs didn't quit when it was 28-10 in the 4th quarter of the Apple Cup, so we sure as hell can't quit either! 

Going forward, I will continue to write in this morning window with links-n-such, but really just to get the ball rolling on the day ahead.  It might not always be about the Cougs - in fact, I can guarantee it WON'T always be about the Cougs - but it will be something worth reading.....I hope?  Longball, Huddy and Sutra will continue to do their thing as we have all reaffirmed our commitment to content.  And LucasCoug might not write on the blog much anymore, but he will continue to run our Twitter account.  So there you have it.

On to the morning links!

Siesta Motel, Colfax, WA (Reuters)-

After four weeks of tense negotiations, the WSU Football Blogfathers emerged from a dark, smoke filled room to issue their statement about the future of the WSU Football Blog.

The group’s lead negotiator, Coug-A-Sutra, guarded closely by his agent,  Skippy Dupree....

sauntered up to the mic to make what was initially billed as a "brief and concise" opening statement.  He said:

“When we entered into tough, deliberate negotiations with Bloguin four weeks ago, we had a difficult decision to make…. On one hand, we all really wanted to resign...."

"But even with our overarching need and desire for confidence, correspondence, continuance, and dare I say in the Jeffersonian sense "good continence", we also all knew that the current path was not sustainable.  And so we came here today conjointly joined; armed with a common purpose...Yes, we came here today to pursue that one course of responsible action that fit the needs of Cougar Nation--- not only for winning football, but for a winning cybercenegenic spirit....

....Yes, dear nation, on this day of reckoning, it is with a very heavy heart that I stand before you today at the Siesta Motel, in beautiful downtown Colfax, in the grand state of W-A, to make this final, penultimate announcement,  And that announcement is to say that we, the WSU Football Blog, together will all of our dearest friends, foes, allies, enemies, and clandestine lovers have decided to.."

(Read on)

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

In case you missed it, Mike Leach conducted his final official press conference for hte 2012 season.  And with that, the ribbon is officially tied on 2012 Cougar football. 

For a few, post press conference thoughts and a bit more, read on.

So much cuter when they lose.

First of all I would like to say to the gentleman in front of us at the Apple Cup who began talking mountains of trash even before kickoff and didn’t let up until Furney’s kick sailed through the uprights in overtime... HA HA HA HA HA! F YOU! Sorry, but you got out of there so fast, I didn’t get a chance to tell you that. I would also like to commend the group of Coug fans sitting in front of this gentleman who were as drunk as you can be and still be awake (They actually left at halftime and returned even more drunk. How the hell did they find their seats?) Extra kudos to the lady who was so drunk that she climbed onto the bleacher in front of us, turned to Amieable and I and asked “Where’s that Husky guy who was sitting right here?” Yeah, she was sitting right next to him. None of them were younger than 50. An even better Apple Cup memory and a glimmer of hope for 2013 after the jump...

Hello Followers.  Hope you had a great post-Apple Cup Weekend.

As for me, well, I spent part of the morning on the treadmill..

...watching the 60 minute rewind of the Apple Cup on the Pac-12 Network.

And, as I watched the game with a little lest angst, I thought it appropriate to hand out about 17 game balls to players that I thought were especially deserving.  For more on that, read on.

Cougs win 31-28 in an instant Apple Cup Classic.  Congrats, Seniors!!!!

NOW, CELEBRATE COUGAR NATION!!!!

Hello Followers.  I hope you had a terrific Thanksgiving.

As for me, well, time is once again short.

But, because this is Apple Cup Friday and Senior Day, I thought it important to remind the faithful about a few key dudes who are playing their last game for the Crimson and Gray.  And those guys are:  Jeff Tuel, Carl Winston, Daniel Simmons, and Travis Long.

Each of these guys has contributed to Cougar Nation in their own way,  I mean,  Jeff Tuel has given us class:

Carl Winston has given us grit (Man, will I miss watching him):

Daniel Simmons has given us perserverance (Most improved player in my book):

And Travis Long has given us heart, starting every game of his career leading up to today:

And so, while I expect the final score to be UW 38 WSU 10, I will be watching our seniors today with a whole lot of pride.  To be sure, the results have not been what they wanted or deserved.  But, in the final analysis, each of these young men have shown themselves to be terrific ambassadors for the Unviversity we all love.

And man would I love to see them emerge victorious today!!!!!

Go Cougs.  And Go Seniors!