Win one, ya bums

There is no such animal as the Knute Rockne Dyin' Guy Locker Room Whip Up The Boys Soliloquy Award, so far as the Blob knows. (Though it would be cooler if there was.) But if there was, Washington State coach Mike Leach would not have won it yesterday.

This after Utah floor-waxed his Cougars 38-13 in Salt Lake City, which prompted Leach to channel his inner Doug Niedermeyer and call his players "fat, dumb, happy and entitled."

This was not quite "you're all worthless and weak," but it lives across the street. And Leach expanded on that, because that's what Leach does. A strange football mad scientist who never met a fleeting thought he wouldn't vocalize -- Pirates? The emoluments clause? The history of bread? Leach will go there -- he was perturbed because his team didn't put up much of a fight a week after blowing a 32-point third-quarter lead in an epic 69-63 loss to UCLA.

This, and the Utah laydown, led Leach to explain that his was "a very soft team" that believed its press clippings as the nation's top passing team, and that folded like a cheap lawn chair every time it got challenged.

"I think we've got a bunch of free agents running around there that think they're pretty special, and then as soon as something doesn't go their way, they want to pout," Leach said. "I think that at some point they have to embrace the effort themselves."

Now, some of you out there might regard this as mean-spirited. But as a former card-carrying, pressbox-buffet-stained sportswriter wretch, the Blob heartily endorses coaches like Leach. We don't want some bland automaton telling us "We just weren't good in any area today." We want the goods.

Like, you know, "Our offensive line couldn't block a sunbeam."

Or, "Our running backs are yellow as butter."

Or, "We couldn't guard that door over there."

Which a certain high school basketball coach actually said to me once, with a rich disgust in his voice that was absolutely priceless.

God bless the man. Made this sportswriter's job a whole lot easier that night.

Being, you know, fat, dumb, happy and entitled occasionally, too.