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WSU made it official yesterday on the naming of several assistant football coaches. Coach Jake Dickert is shaping his staff with some familiar bloodlines.
We already knew that Clay McGuire was coming back to Pullman as the Wazzu offensive line coach. Now it's official. McGuire was part of Mike Leach's staff. Last season he was in the same role at USC. He played his collegiate football at Texas Tech for Coach Leach. McGuire also served as an assistant at Tech. He's very familiar with the wide spreads of the Air Raid which will replace the run-and-shoot offensive scheme of Nick Rolovich. Eric Morris brings his own style of the Air Raid, which differs from the original version employed by Leach. Morris uses a tight end rather than four wide receivers as a base set. There are two benefits coming from this version. The first is an additional blocker for running plays. That means an additional blocker on occasion when a pass play is called. One of the disadvantages with Leach's preference to all WR's is that without a tight end on the roster, it's pretty hard to replicate a competitor's offense. It's likely that game prep will now more imitate what an opponent will run on offense, giving the Cougar D the advantage of practicing against something they will actually see on Saturdays.
Joel Filani is returning to Pullman as the new wide receivers coach. Filani was at Wazzu as quality control coach under Leach in 2015. He played his college ball for Leach at Texas Tech where he was coaching WR's for the past three seasons. Filani has the reputation of being an excellent recruiter, something sorely needed for WSU.
Pete Kaligis will be the new D-line coach along with taking the responsibility of assistant head coach. Who knows? Wazzu might lose Dickert to some individual rights issue sometime down the road. Seriously, Kaligis is a nice addition given his 13-year track record at Wyoming in the same role. If you're thinking that Dickert came to WSU from Wyoming, you're thinking straight. What makes Kaligis such a nice addition, aside from his impressive track record at Wyoming, is his coaching roots in the state of Washington. He spent a decade or so coaching at Western Washington and the UW. Kaligis has strong with high school football coaches across the state. That should serve well when Wazzu hits the recruiting trails.
Mark Atuaia will become the new running back coach after handling the same duties for Virginia the past five seasons. The name Atuaia is familiar to Cougar football fans, but the BYU version rather than WSU. He shares some of the same pedigree as Mike Leach, in that, he earned a doctorate in jurisprudence from BYU and also holds a master's degree in public administration. That said, Atuaia doesn't have a reputation for out-of-the-box interviews like Leach. Growing up in Hawai'i, perhaps he will broaden Wazzu's pipeline to the Pacific islands.
The new chief of staff for Dickert will be Brent Vernon, who was associate athletic director for football operations for the Wyoming Cowboys. Another Cowboy connection. Vernon brings over a decade of experience in coaching logistics roles and seems a good fit in Pullman.
The one assistant position that is a glaring opening would be special teams. Wazzu special teams performed poorly in the Sun Bowl. A change in leadership seemed imminent. Expect to hear some news in that regard in the coming days. For more details on the new coaching staff, here's a link:
https://wsucougars.com/news/2022/1/3/jake-dickert-adds-to-2022-football-coaching-staff.aspx -
There was hope that Travell Harris would return to Wazzu for one more season, but that's no longer the case. Colton Clark reports that Harris will be declaring for the NFL draft. No question the speedy wide receiver and return specialist will be missed. A team captain and all-purpose yardage specialist, he leaves some big shoes to fill. Thankfully, there are guys already on the roster ready to do just that.
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Some good news for Cougar Nation. Barry Bolton via Bill Stevens, WSU SID, reports that the x-rays on quarterback Jayden de Laura came back negative. That is great news in that the recovery period for de Laura's injury should be relatively brief. Eric Morris was brought to Pullman by Jake Dickert primarily to build an offense around the many talents of de Laura. The sooner the two get to work together, the better.
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 ...
