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It's not a big surprise that QB Camm Cooper has entered the transfer portal. No one in the right mind would suggest that he might be able to beat out Jayden de Laura in the spring. Cooper is running out of eligibility and yearns for some playing time. Hard to tell why such a talented athlete couldn't become a starter for WSU until you look at his competition: Gardner Minshew; Anthony Gordon and deLaura. Cooper proves once again that getting overly excited about high school prospects is a mistake. Mike Leach was able to recruit and land Cooper because he had most of the tools needed to run the Air Raid offense. However, that didn't materialize when Leach left the Palouse for Mississippi State. All that said, we wish Camm nothing but good fortune wherever he lands for a final season of college football. Once a Coug, always a Coug. Here's a link to several tweets associated with Cooper leaving Pullman:
https://www.khq.com/news/wsu-backup-quarterback-enters-transfer-portal/article_9b744702-51d5-11ec-be6b-679b01eb3954.html -
UW selected Kalen DeBoer as their new football head coach. Similarly to Wazzu selecting Jake Dickert as their new HC, this choice isn't really a head-scratcher. DeBoer excels in the area of college football that pleases a fan base and puts butts in seats. He is first and foremost an offensive-minded coach, the kind many apply the label, "brilliant offensive mind". Clearly, the Dawgs are stinging from their last choice, Jimmy Lake, who was a defensive-minded coach. There's another significant difference with this selection. DeBoer has proven himself as a head coach. Like high school recruits, you don't always know what you're getting from an untested entity. In his two seasons at Fresno State, DeBoer piled up an impressive 12-6 record placing him on almost everyone's list of head coach candidates. Two years isn't a lot of head coaching experience, but that's two more than Dickert has on his resume. If you are gazing into the future, look for the UW to put up a bunch of points on the scoreboard in the coming years. What will be interesting to watch is if they will consistently outscore their opponents.
Go Cougs!!!
- It seems fitting to put together a list of coaches who branch off of the Mike Leach coaching tree. Perspective on his football genius can easily be determined by a cursory glance:
Dave Aranda/Baylor head coach – Graduate assistant coach under Leach from 2000-02 at Texas Tech
Neal Brown/West Virginia head coach – Played under Leach in 1998 when Leach was offensive coordinator at Kentucky
Sonny Cumbie/Louisiana Tech head coach – Played under Leach at Texas Tech from 2000-03 and later served as a graduate assistant coach under Leach
Sonny Dykes/TCU head coach – Coached wide receivers and later was the co-offensive coordinator at Texas Tech under Leach from 2000-06
Josh Heupel/Tennessee head coach – Played under Leach at Oklahoma in 1999 when Leach was the offensive coordinator for the Sooners
Dana Holgorsen/Houston head coach – Coached alongside Leach as assistants at Valdosta State from 1993-95, then served as a wide receivers coach and offensive coordinator under Leach from ...
- The news of former WSU Coach Mike Leach passing at the young age of 61 is very, very sad. I had the pleasure of writing about the Cougs when Leach was at the helm. To say that he was a unique person doesn't begin to describe the multi-faceted dimension of the man.
In terms of coaching football, Leach led his teams in a way that had most other coaches scratching their heads. His offensive creativity gave a multitude of defensive coordinators ulcers. To say that his techniques for molding student-athletes into football players were unusual would be accurate. Making guys run sprints in a sand pit named "Leach Beach" is a prime example. Crazy as that sounds, his players had fewer ankle injuries over the course of the season than any team in football. Only Mike Leach could get players to hit the beach. And if you look at the coaching tree that branches out from Leach, you'd find a myriad of men who owe him for their start in the profession.
When you examine the way Leach represented the schools ...
- Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, so Wazzu's loss yesterday to UNLV by a score of 74-70 was just that, a loss. However, there were plenty of reasons to applaud both the performance and the progress the Cougs are making over the past few games. Let's get the bad observation out of the way. WSU turned the ball over a ridiculous 22 times. No one is going to beat many teams with such wreckless play, especially against a team that posted a 9-0 record going into the contest. Some of those errors might be attributed to Coach Kyle Smith going with a different lineup almost every game because of player injuries. Facts are facts and when there isn't a steady lineup, players struggle to play team ball. On the bright side, Wazzu shot a respectable 54.2% from the field, coupled with a very nice 56.5% from behind the arc. On defense, WSU held UNLV to just 30.4% from behind the arc and 50.9% overall. The Cougs outrebounded the Rebels by a margin of 33-20. Despite being down by ...
