View from Seattle

[AFTiger 282]

Until the game started, the WSU fans I spoke to felt somewhat confident, thinking the Cougs would at least move the ball. Coach Bill Doba did, too, but said later that the Tigers “were better on defense than I thought they’d be.”

There were even those who thought that Washington State would win the game, but most of them were drunk, moderately impaired or overly intoxicated with all things Coug.

Link

[stoic-one 1,548]

Asked about Auburn’s David Irons and Jonathan Wilhite, Hill said: “They’re OK. I don’t want to take anything away from them, but I’ve faced better corners in the Pac-10.”

Irons and Wilhite don’t want to take anything away from Hill either -– they just took everything away from him.

This is a real jewel...

[bigsixfive 328]

I think they'll have a decent season. They had some athletes on their team. That #80 TE was a big guy, he should get the ball more. I was surprised at their running backs - pretty quick. Brink and Cox's stats were almost identical last year, so they'll probably be ok sticking with him and not the backup. I really hope they make a good run in the PAC10 to up our SOS by the end of the season.

[tigerfan1234 0]

"We're going to come back and hit somebody in the mouth." Ha!, Just not Auburn.

[bigsixfive 328]

"We're going to come back and hit somebody in the mouth." Ha!, Just not Auburn.

I'm hoping USC.

[eagle76 1]

Another view from Seattle. I used to like M Price just a little but never more.........

Notebook | Southern mentality no shock to Price

By Bud Withers and Craig Smith

Seattle Times staff reporters

PREV of NEXT

Mike Price is in his third season at Texas-El Paso.

AUBURN, Ala. — Mike Price can't really do anything about Auburn — or Alabama — now, but he went into Saturday night's game hoping his good friend Bill Doba might accommodate him.

Price is the former Washington State football coach, Doba his successor. Price announced in December 2002, as the Cougars prepared for the Rose Bowl, that he was leaving to become head coach at Alabama.

There, he ran afoul of an awful night at a strip club in Pensacola, Fla., in April2003, causing him to lose his job. Now he's starting his third year at Texas-El Paso, and talks frequently to his close friend Doba.

A part of Price, maybe a big part, believes that somebody from Auburn set him up on that fateful night at Arety's Angels in Pensacola. Still, he said last week by phone from UTEP, "I don't have a vendetta or anything."

Price settled out of court last fall with Sports Illustrated after suing the magazine for its coverage of his downfall at Alabama.

With Alabama a couple of years in his rearview mirror, Price said this about football in the state:

"People down there kind of think they invented the game of football, that nobody really knows anything about football from the Pacific Northwest."

The mentality for football, Price said, is fanatical here.

"It's different from the state of Washington," he said. "There, it's 'Get an education first and play football second.' "

In these parts, football takes huge precedence over other sports.

"They don't give a crap about anything else but football," Price said.

Price said he sees it as a hopeful sign that WSU was close in many games last year, noting that it in those years when he was with the Cougars, they usually blossomed the next season.

WSU lost an overtime game to Washington in 1996, then went to the Rose Bowl in 1997. The Cougars lost three in OT in 2000, then put together a 10-victory season in 2001.

Well, they've both been called a "cow college" ...

One Northwest native with an outsider's perspective on football in Alabama is Krista Saari, a Centralia High School graduate who went to Southern Oregon (Class of '93) and worked five football seasons for the ABC affiliate in Birmingham.

"I'm from a state where people love college football but they let it go after the season," she explained. "Down here, people talk about college football 365 days a year. And people are either on one side or the other when it comes to Alabama-Auburn. If you grew up here, you can't be neutral.

"I see similarities in the Alabama-Auburn rivalry to Washington-Washington State but it's more serious down here. But one similarity is that Bear Bryant once called Auburn a 'cow college' and Cougars certainly have heard that phrase before."

True or false, battle cry makes for a good story

The Auburn battle cry is "War Eagle!" and is seen on T-shirts, banners and signs everywhere. The legend is that an Auburn student fighting in the Battle of the Wilderness in the Civil War was left for dead but awoke with a baby eagle next to him. He brought the eagle back to Auburn, eventually became a faculty member, and took the eagle (now named "War Eagle") to the inaugural Auburn-Georgia game in 1892 where it broke from its master and flew above the field and died after the 10-0 victory.

As the Auburn media guide puts it: "The facts of this legend cannot be authenticated but it makes a good story."

Notes

• Cougars star receiver Jason Hill was held to four catches for 18 yards and one touchdown, a 2-yard pass from Alex Brink in the first quarter.

Hill was defended by star cornerback David Irons much of the game and Hill gave himself "a solid B" for his performance against the defensive star. Hill said often found himself double-teamed by a safety and wasn't always open. Some passes were off the mark.

Irons, brother of Heisman candidate Kenny, is a notorious trash-talker, but Hill said he responded in-kind and both enjoyed it.

"I was out there jawing with him," Hill said.

• The sellout crowd of 87,451 was bigger than all but four cities in Alabama. About 3,500 Cougars fans were present.

• Brink, held to 67 yards passing, conceded it wasn't one of his better games, saying Auburn's early rush might have set a tone. The Tigers sacked Brink on three of WSU's first four plays from scrimmage.

"It had us kind of off-balance," Brink said. "We didn't start very fast, and as a result, we were going uphill against a really, really good football team."

• Defensive coordinator Robb Akey unveiled a 3-4 scheme for part of the second half.

• The Cougars received $850,000 for playing the game plus about $267,000 from ESPN because the game was telecast on ESPN2.

• The new time-reducing rules were in effect and as a result the game took only 3 hours, 2 minutes to complete.

• New Cougars punter Darryl Blunt had a solid first game, averaging 42.1 yards per punt with a long of 59. The longest Auburn punt return was 8 yards. Blunt also gained 24 yards on a fake punt.

• Ex-Cougars coach Jim Walden, now the color commentator for Cougars broadcasts, spent the week in his native Mississippi, but Alabama media found him and he appeared on at least one radio or TV show daily talking about the Cougars and West Coast football.

• Auburn and WSU are land-grant schools, created under an 1862 law to create colleges to teach "agriculture and the mechanical arts" even though both institutions outgrew that role.

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company

[damabama 15]

A part of Price, maybe a big part, believes that somebody from Auburn set him up on that fateful night at Arety's Angels in Pensacola. Still, he said last week by phone from UTEP, "I don't have a vendetta or anything."

wimp sanderson picked price up at the airport and showed him arety's angels on the way to the motel. i dont know a whole lot about the layout of pensacola, but i've been to arety's. from what i could tell, it's nowhere near the airport. didnt see an air plane in the sky the whole time. and i spent some time in the parking lot before i went in, looking for airplanes. it's nowhere near any 4 star marriott, or whatever, hotels. its in a part of town that made me nervous even in the daylight. pretty much in a shooting gallery. all this would suggest too me that a side trip had to be made for price to be shown aretys angels on the way from the airport to his hotel. his dumb old ass was set up, alright. but auburn didnt have a thing to do with it. seems like alcohol has clouded that poor old mans mind.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

Set him up how? Did an Auburn fan handcuff a stripper to him so he had to bring her back to his room? Give me a frickin' break. Be a man and own up to your stupid decisions.

[keoson7 28]

I think Arety's is right on Fairfield which is one of the main streets thru Pcola..

[damabama 15]

I think Arety's is right on Fairfield which is one of the main streets thru Pcola..

you're probably right. but if you've ever been there, you'd also know it runs thru a pretty bad part of town. definetly not what you see in the tourist brochures. like i said, i dont know a whole lot about pensacola. but i do know where arety's angels is.

[tiger88 934]

WSU was tougher than I expected them to be.

[AFTiger 282]

"It's different from the state of Washington," he said. "There, it's 'Get an education first and play football second.' "

In these parts, football takes huge precedence over other sports.

"They don't give a crap about anything else but football," Price said.

Which is why he was motivated to follow in the footsteps of the Bear. Ron White says it best "You can't fix stupid."

[tigernt'town 4]

people outside the state of alabama need to get their priorities straight.

[Boonan 0]

I think I detected a hint of bitterness in his comments.

Maybe.

Possibly.