| 40. Washington State Cougars |
| #6 in Pac 12 |
After a 12-25 start to his career on the Palouse, the Washington State brass was awarded for their patience as Mike Leach went 26-13 over his past three years, including 19-8 in conference play. That ties a school record for conference wins over a 3 year period, and is only the second time they've had three straight winning Pac 8/10/12 seasons. That said, Cougar fans can't help but feeling a little empty after last year. Coming off a Friday night win over #5 USC, and a blowout win over Oregon in Eugene, Washington State reached #8 in the rankings, before a stunning home blowout loss to Cal, followed two weeks later by a blowout loss to Arizona. So they picked up wins over ranked teams in USC and Stanford, beat Boise State, beat Oregon and Utah on the road. But those two upset losses to Cal and Arizona derailed the season. Losing to Washington and Michigan State is entirely forgivable. Now it's time to rebuild. The fact that I have Washington State still in the top 40 in a rebuild year tells you where Leach has elevated this program to. They knew all along they were going to lose Luke Falk to graduation, but losing three players early to the NFL Draft was a surprise, and something that you don't plan around at schools like Washington State. Something no program can plan around is what happened during the offseason when presumed starting quarterback Tyler Hilinsky took his own life. It feels callous to even attempt to discuss that from a football angle, but that's what this is, so that's what I'll try to do. Falk was going to be tough to replace, but he had his faults, he was way too turnover prone, particularly for a 5th year senior. He was benched on two separate occasions for Hilinski, who also started the bowl game. So while there was probably going to be a dropoff, on at least two separate occasions Leach thought last year that Hilinski may be the better option. So the Falk graduation was looking like maybe a wash. Now the quarterback position is in flux. The fortunate thing is by this point lots of quarterbacks would like to play for Mike Leach. He added Gardner Minshew as a grad transfer from East Carolina, who was down to Washington State or Alabama. He also has 4* Cammon Cooper coming in, although in a rare twist for high profile quarterback recruits, particularly ones with a great shot at winning the job right away, Cooper did not enroll early. He didn't turn down offers from schools like Georgia, Tennessee and Louisville to go sit on the bench in Pullman though. Whatever quarterback "competition" occurred in the spring felt fake, the two best quarterbacks on the roster won't be there until the fall. So while they lack experience in the system, there's actually a chance LEach will have two quarterbacks on the roster more talented than the two he lost. Ideally Minshew wins the job and Cooper gets some seasoning and takes over in 2019. Whoever gets the job has a ton of weapons to work with. Losing top receiver Tavares Martin to the draft hurts a bit, but the air raid offense, maybe aside from one year with Michael Crabtree, is always going to spread the ball around, and the Cougars return six players who had over 300 receiving yards a year ago. While the season ending thuds against Washington and Michigan State were disappointing, they may have found a new stud receiver in rising sophomore Tay Martin, who had 12 catches for 121 yards and 3 touchdown over the two games.
Key Players| RB | | James Williams, Junior |
| WR | | Kyle Sweet, Senior |
| T | | Andre Dillard, Senior |
| . | |
| LB | | Jahad Woods, Sophomore |
| LB | | Jalen Thompson, Junior |
| S | | Hunter Dale, Senior |
