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Coach Jake Dickert and his staff are furiously working to fill out the Washington State football roster with talented student-athletes. With that in mind, another defensive standout for the Nevada Wolfpack will be heading to the Palouse. All-Mountain West safety Jordan Lee is using his final year of eligibility to play ball at Wazzu. The Cougs are beyond thin at the safety position so the addition of Lee promises to shore up a bit of that problem. Here's more details on the newest member of Cougar football:
https://www.nbcrightnow.com/sports/washington_state_university/nevada-transfer-safety-jordan-lee-commits-to-washington-state/article_096ae0ed-b726-5606-8049-4c77791ef160.html -
Barry Bolton reported on one of the untold stories of special teams problems which may have cost the Cougs another victory in the Sun Bowl. Nick Harberer played half the season with a broken ankle and torn ligaments. You read that right. The Cougs punter was literally playing on one good leg for the final six games of 2021. Despite that significant injury, not only did Harberer play through pain, there really wasn't a significant dropoff in his punting performance. Some would say he's one tough Coug. Others would say he's an idiot for risking permanent damage. That's your call. We'll fall on the side of inspirational effort that doesn't go unnoticed in the locker room. And as Harberer is only a freshman, we'll be fortunate to watch him punt for Wazzu for another three years.
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Back to revitalizing the Wazzu football roster. It's noteworthy that Coach Dickert has verbally committed to Jayden de Laura as the quarterback of the future. However, it's noteworthy that in the early LOI signing period Dickert didn't get the signature of another QB. Four QBs traveled to El Paso for the Sun Bowl, but it seems that only two were really ready to take the field. When de Laura went out with an injury at halftime, the offensive reins were turned over to walk-on Victor Gabalis. It must be mentioned that he turned in a nice performance coming off the bench and leading the Cougs to three touchdowns and a chance to win the game. Though it hasn't been made official, Gabalis will likely be given a scholarship in the near future. Xavier Ward was less-than-impressive in the Crimson and Gray game last spring. He is the only other scholarship QB at the moment. A scholarship has been offered to Cameron Ward of the Incarnate Word. Not a surprise there. New offensive coordinator Eric Morris was the head coach at Incarnate Word last season. Southpaw Cammon Cooper has entered the transfer portal looking for playing time elsewhere. He has one year of eligibility left. Highly touted Adryan Lara initially verbally committed to Wazzu but has since reopened his recruitment. If nothing else, it's clear Dickert needs more depth at the quarterback position for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is having someone ready to step up when the first-string guy goes down.
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 ...
