Anyone who is a fan of Washington State University football — and even those who aren't — will want to spend 24 minutes to hear Ian Furness' interview Tuesday on KJR 950 AM with Jim Walden.
Walden, analyst for WSU football's radio broadcast and a former WSU head coach, gave an impassioned plea for the school to stay the course with Paul Wulff as head coach of the Cougars.
Furness, a WSU grad and former voice of the Tri-City Americans, asked Walden for his thoughts regarding Wulff and his coaching staff after WSU's demoralizing 44-21 loss in Seattle to lowly Oregon State. (The Beavs didn't punt until the final minute of the game.)
Walden began by saying WSU President Elson Floyd and athletic director Bill Moos are “too smart to make a coaching change. ... There’s been too much work put into this thing to change horses now."
Later, Walden took several shots at Wulff's detractors and pointed to starting quarterback Jeff Tuel's injury-plagued season.
"Why do I keep having to explain to the stupid why we need to keep the guy who’s been having to clean the mess up?" Walden said. "He’s had nothing but tough times. In his fourth year, when we all thought he was going to win some games and get to that 5-6 plateau, our coach loses the guy that runs the train. Why are we having to even mention a coaching change?"
Walden added that Wulff shouldn’t have to “sell” himself or the way he runs the program to fans, boosters, bloggers and the media.
"The Cougar fan base doesn't give (money), Ian. That’s a figment of imagination. The Cougar fan base is all clack and no checks,” Walden said. “Don’t go there. We have no big donors in the athletic department. We have big donors in our university, but they aren’t going to quit giving because of our football program. Do we have a T. Boone Pickens (Oklahoma State) that you know of? Do we have a guy that runs Nike that you know of?”
There were a litany of inaccuracies in Walden’s rant, and blogger Kyle Rancourt points them out in this entertaining post on CougCenter.com. Perhaps Rancourt's most insightful comment is that WSU will have more money to spend on a head coach after the Pac-12 Conference's massive TV contract kicks in.
Will that money make the program more attractive to someone other than — as Walden offered — "an assistant coach at West Virginia"?
The folks at KJR came out of the commercial break and had some fun playing John Blutarsky's rambling motivational speech in Animal House, but Walden’s segment did provide some grist for the mill. He did it with his homespun flair. And you can’t say the guy doesn’t care.
