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Here's an update on the story that reportedly Eric Morris was about to become the next head coach at Texas State. The rumor now is that he's staying in Pullman. The Texas State job is supposedly going to G. J. Kinne. There's a twist to this story in that Kinne is the head coach at Incarnate Word. Sound familiar? Yes, Incarnate Word is the program Morris left behind to take the job at Washington State.
Having said all that, there's plenty of time for the coaching carousel to snap up an assistant coach from Wazzu. Time will tell about that.
https://247sports.com/college/washington-state/Article/Eric-Morris-WSU-football-emerges-as-frontrunner-for-Texas-State-job-199225026/ -
Wazzu football got some good news yesterday when EDGE rusher Brennan Jackson announced he would return for a sixth season in Pullman. Jackson is one of the premier EDGE players in the Pac-12 and will bring a load of experience to Coach Jake Dickert's defense for the coming season.
"I'm planning on coming back," Jackson said. "I think one more year here is what I want to do. I want to finish out as a Coug and finish what I started. Really looking forward to it and it's going to be a great last one." -
Surprisingly, the WSU defense was hit with a dose of harsh reality on Friday. Lineback Travion Brown has entered the transfer portal as a graduate transfer. Brown has played solid football for the Cougs this season and will be tough to replace given the lack of depth on the current roster at linebacker. It's likely that Coach Dickert will be looking at both the transfer portal and the JC transfer ranks to add depth to the position for the coming year.
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The second half of Wazzu men's hoops opener was a disaster. Oregon used their size and quickness to dominate the final fifteen minutes of the game. Mouhamed Gueye poured in nineteen points, but seventeen of those were in the first half. The Ducks used double teams on Gueye to either deny him the ball or force him into numerous turnovers. There are a couple of days before the next conference game, Utah, in Pullman. The game will be televised on ESPNU. Watch this one at your own risk. Only stout-hearted Coug fans will make it through forty minutes of another potential train wreck. Facts are facts and the Cougs are just too short-handed because of injuries. One way to measure how things are going is if Jack Wilson, 6'11" and 325lbs gets more than a minute of playing time, the game will go in the loss column.
- 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 ...
