COUGARS

It's raining in Corvallis, not heavily, but enough to make life miserable for the poor folks who have to work on the field. For some more pregame thoughts, read on.
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• I've decided Bud Nameck is either the meanest man in the world or the smartest. Maybe both. With the Washington State basketball team playing in Pullman tonight – the season opener against Southern – Bud is fulfilling his obligations as the play-by-play man. That leaves the football sideline reporting in the hands of Dennis Patchin, who has a bag the size of Montana full of rain gear. Yep, it looks as if this will be the first time this year that a Cougar game will be played in a steady rain. And Bud gets to miss it. If you tune into the radio broadcast, you'll hear Bob Rob, Jim Walden and Dennis. ... The conditions today have to favor Oregon State. The Beavers are the better running team, they never fumble, WSU's running backs have put the ball on the ground way too often and the Cougar receivers have been stricken with a case of the drops the last couple weeks. Add it up and WSU will have trouble having a positive turnover margin today. ... So of course, now that I've put that down, Oregon State will lose a couple fumbles. ... The WSU defense may be without one of its better players today. And if Deone Bucannon plays, he won't be nearly as quick as he's been. The true freshman suffered a thigh bruise at Monday's practice and it's gotten better slowly. He's only run intermittently, though he looked better Thursday. Saw him yesterday and he was walking better. We'll keep an eye on that. If he can't go, Casey Locker will play in his place. Locker will not make many mental mistakes, but he lacks the speed and explosiveness Bucannon brings. Chima Nwachukwu isn't the first option here anymore after working the past couple weeks at cornerback. ... At least the Cougar linebackers should get some rest this week, now that Sekope Kaufusi (backup at Mike and Will) and Eric Oertel (Sam) returned to practice. Whether Oertel or Darren Markle spells Myron Beck is still to be seen but Kaufusi will play. However, Mike Ledgerwood won't play today after banging his head during the week and suffering concussion-like symptons. ... Other than Gino Simone (concussion), the offense is as healthy as its been in a while. The running back position should be full, the receivers are lacking Simone and Jeffrey Solomon and the offensive line is still missing Andrew Roxas (eye) from the backup ranks. That's as good as it's been for a while. The one guy that seems to be really missed is David Gonzales. The junior college transfer was really playing well at left tackle when he broke his arm against Arizona. Without him, the speed rushers have really been giving WSU trouble. In Dominic Glover and Gabe Miller, the Beavers don't have a lot of speed coming off the edge so that might bode well for WSU.

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• OK, that's all for now. We'll be back later with more. Until then ...

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