Interesting story coming out of Wisconsin last night.  A player named Eric Oertel from a school called Racine Lutheran High School has given WSU a verbal commitment.  Oertel is a 6-2, 195 lb running back/athlete who happens to be the leading rusher in the state of Wisconsin, already over 1900 yards and 20 TD's this year.  As the article says, he also plays linebacker, with 48 solo tackles, 32 assists and 11 tackles for loss.  As to where he'll play when he comes to Pullman?

"A lot of people ask me that," he said. "I really don't have a preference. Of course I like the glory of running the ball, but at the same time, I love just hitting people."

Nice.  Maybe he'll be in that Ron Childs type mold, where he was recruited as a speedy athlete who ended up as a hard-hitting, physical linebacker?  If he does end up on defense, it just shows the idea of the Erickson/Price philosophy, taking those fast athletes and turning them loose on defense.  He's received some good accolades as well, player of the week and all that.  And as his coach says:

"He lowers his shoulder and punishes people whenever he has the ball in his hands," Smith said. "And he's a fantastic defensive player, too, where he never leaves the field. There was one play where he went from one sideline to another and stopped a screen pass."

As ferocious as Oertel is on the field, he's just the opposite off the field.

"You want your son to grow up to be like him," Smith said.

It looks like he had Iowa State and Wisconsin on his list among BCS schools, but it doesn't appear that he had a full-ride offer from them, at least based on this profile from Rivals. 

Here's a quick highlight of Oertel from 2008:



Not sure if he's exactly a burner, at least from that tape?  And it's hard to tell based on the level of competition he's playing against, such as are there any other BCS-type athletes he's running away from?  Anyway, it's a cool story, that the coaches cast their net to the midwest and pulled him in.  The question is, in glancing at this year's commits, did they really need another running back/linebacker?  Wulff mentioned before on the radio show that they were going to try and fill up the remaining class with some linemen, but after the WR commit over the weekend and now Oertel as well, you have 16 verbals but just one true lineman.  The slots are filling up, that's for sure, so you hope there is a "run" on some hogs the rest of the way? 

Read more for other stuff....


The Seattle Times had a good read today on assistant coaches and the salaries they make per PAC-10 team.  Not surprisingly, WSU is at the bottom at a cool $1.12 million for the assistants, but not too far behind Oregon State at $1.19 million:

Washington State

Total full-time assistants: $1,120,000.

OC Todd Sturdy: $150,000.

Co-DC Chris Ball: $170,000.

Co-DC Jody Sears: $140,000.

Lowest-paid assistant: $100,000.

Of course, what is spurring on this article is the whole Nick Holt story at UW, where he's pulling down $2.1 million over a three-year span, all the while the UW defense has struggled at times in Holt's first year.  But that's their issue to deal with, not ours.  What will be interesting to see as the years go by and Martin Stadium gets Phase III done, and more revenue starts to stream in, will the assistants start to make more money across the board?  The pay of the assistants was always reportedly one issue Mike Price had at WSU, and even Bill Doba as well.  While Mikey ultimately bailed for the big payday at 'Bama, he always at least claimed to want more for his assistants, knowing the importance of keeping the staff together and how that can help recruiting. 

Speaking of Martin Stadium and Phase III....there have been some new numbers thrown around of late.  We are trying to get some sort of official word, but haven't heard the confirmation just yet.  Our own Kaddy had some updated numbers:

All 31 loge boxes ($9K - $15K) are SOLD for Phase III. 7 of 16 luxury suites are sold, with commitments for 4 others.

Don't wait to reserve your club seats - only a $300 deposit!

Sounds good Kaddy, and thanks.  There was also this, from a poster from Cougfan, as an e-mail went out to some people from the Associate Director of Development at WSU with some updated information regarding some "Town Hall" style meetings on the west side of the state:

Good afternoon all,

I just wanted to send out a quick email to let you all know that we are going to be hosting a couple town hall meetings on November 3^rd and November 4^th in Seattle and Tacoma, respectively.  Although the locations have yet to be finalized the message has been set.  We want to use this venue to call on all Cougs to come together and learn about Phase III of the Martin Stadium Renovation.  This project as you all know is absolutely critical to our success as an Athletic Department.  If we want to compete in the future, we have to get this done!  We are still ironing out some of the details but once it is all finalized you will see email blasts coming out of Pullman targeting all Coug alums.  This will be followed up with a postcard mailer notifying everyone of the dates and times.  Our goal is to get 100 – 200 people at each of the locations around the state.  Let’s do our part to make this happen.  Mark it on your calendars now.  November 3^rd at the Bellevue Hyatt beginning at 6:00p.  November 4^th at the Hub Restaurant in Tacoma at 6:00p.  Jim Sterk will be headlining each event with various members of the Athletic Department so that we can answer any and all questions.  As I mentioned not all of the details have been finalized so share this with your friends and families to mark it on calendars but please do not broadcast this to the masses until the details are set.  Thank you for your help!  GO COUGS!!!

Of course, MartinStadium.org for more. 

Finally, this week's release is out.  And the good news appears that Zack Williams is listed as the starter at left guard, without the "OR" next to his name.  I'm sure we'll get a better idea of the injury situation today and later tonight on the radio show, as some of the others like Tyson Pencer, BJ Guerra and Steven Ayers have the "OR" next to their names.  But let's hope Williams stays healthy the rest of the week and is ready to go on Saturday.  Getting a guy who has been called the most talented lineman on the team?  That's very, very good news.

That's it for now.  GO COUGS!