Jake Dickert Named 34th Head Football Coach at Washington State - Washington State University Athletics
A formal press conference introducing Jake Dickert will be held next week.
wsucougars.com
Dickert Officially HC
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Certainly not as lazy as Bill Moos bringing in his old buddy Ernie Kent for 4 insipid years of Cougar basketball.
I'm really happy to have Jake Dickert as the permanent head coach of WSU football. What he was able to do under such adverse conditions was outstanding. You have to wonder what the reaction from players & alums would be had Dickert not been given the job, especially after such a pounding of the UW in the Apple Cup.
Glad Cougar
I don’t think it’s a lazy hire. Dickert coached himself into a job. He gave Chun little choice. All of the boosters wanted this to happen.
Don’t gloss over the job he did this season. USC and UW, conference blue bloods, completely imploded with their interim coaches. Dickert coached nearly half the season and lost two competitive games to the two best teams on the West coast.
Not sure if he’ll succeed or not, but for now, it’s a beautiful story. I’d rather pay Dickert and set up him and his family than pay Jimmy Lake $9M to go away.
So we recruit on the youth and energy of our staff. We sell JDL hard to every kid in the portal looking for a good landing spot. It’s time to work.
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Bad take, this was a no-brainer. Low risk high upside. Whatever retread leftovers we’d have been in on probably would have carried significantly higher risk. And we keep the best DC we’ve had since Doba.
Basketball could've hired Wulff and it wouldnt matter as much as a bad FB hire.
Dickert was the obvious choice. Chun should have pulled the trigger on this after the ASU game. It was obvious the team would play hard for him.
Doba was a completely different scenario. He never set out to be a head coach and he always seemed happy to have the job as a capstone to a good career. Doba was never going to grind on the recruiting trail and he was never going to push his staff to do the work for him. Dickert has always seen himself as a future head coach. I don't think he's satisfied with this job and sees himself as a guy who is in the mix for the NC someday. He's young enough to spend a decade here building up his resume before parachuting into a powerhouse program.
Doba was a completely different scenario. He never set out to be a head coach and he always seemed happy to have the job as a capstone to a good career. Doba was never going to grind on the recruiting trail and he was never going to push his staff to do the work for him. Dickert has always seen himself as a future head coach. I don't think he's satisfied with this job and sees himself as a guy who is in the mix for the NC someday. He's young enough to spend a decade here building up his resume before parachuting into a powerhouse program.
This is spot on as far as doing some portal shopping Patrol. After that AC it shouldn’t be hard selling this offense, playing/catching passes from JDL. I think they will nab an impressive portal/JC receiver or two. The D loses some dudes but you’ve got all your interior guys back and a bunch of secondary guys. Dickert being a defensive coach he can probably plug some holes at LB/Rush pretty quickly too. It’s too late for this to be any type of banner recruiting class but Dickert can do some serious poaching right now with all of the movement.
This is a powerhouse program. WSU has had more success than you give it credit for. Shame on you.
"All of the boosters" & media clowns were the Wulff defenders. And the biggest fans of Tracy Ford and "Ran the damn ball"
On the cynical front (which you appreciate), Dickert posting his tweet of getting the jab months ago showed more ambition and stealth than June Jones snitching on Rolo.
Let's hope there is no Seattle Pub crawl.
Is hiring Dickert a bad FB hire? If you believe so, please come out and explain why instead of these references to coaches past.
Glad Cougar
He better hire some ace recruiters. Since we are saving $$ on the hc, I want to see how much how much $$ they are giving him to form a staff. He needs to hire some guys who can recruit Southern Cal much better than we are now. I really would like to see him go out and find some assistants w Pac 12 experience.
It is probably the best we can expect out of Chun in a "pandemic".
If he couldn't convince Rolo to get the jab, how is he going to convince anybody good to come?
You are the guy after Game 3 of Wulff (66-3 loss to Cal) who came out on Brand X and said (as polite as you could) that Wulff's staff was trash and probably would get him fired.
Boy did you take sh** for that. Kudos
Cleaning house may not be the best thing to do right now. There is value in stability for the team.
Well We have the following spots open...
Cb, OL, DT, QB, DC/LB so we have an opportunity to find some coaches with more recruiting connections. I assume Cooper and Banker will stay. Does he retain Smith as Rb coach/OC, WR coach stay?? Will he promote Malone permanently as CB coach. Lots of quality assistants are available immediately who have year long recruiting relationships w hs seniors. Even Omura and Cverko are vulnerable.
Cb, OL, DT, QB, DC/LB so we have an opportunity to find some coaches with more recruiting connections. I assume Cooper and Banker will stay. Does he retain Smith as Rb coach/OC, WR coach stay?? Will he promote Malone permanently as CB coach. Lots of quality assistants are available immediately who have year long recruiting relationships w hs seniors. Even Omura and Cverko are vulnerable.
Great news- hire a hot young coach that is already our coach and led us to our two biggest wins since 2018. The players play hard and we don't beat ourselves. Last night WSU was the team that looked like they had won 7 ACs in a row and were playing with confidence and maturity. UW looked like the desperate team hoping for a miracle with their freshman QB. This hire was a no brainer, and we don't really need to overthink it. I haven't heard a plausible name yet that has won as many P12 games as Dickert has already.
I don’t know that any of the offensive coaches should be secure. Our O has been inconsistent all season, and frequently failed to cash in when they should. For most of the season, they faded in the second half. I haven’t been impressed with Smith as OC, or at least not with playcalling duties. He was better the last 2 weeks, but that was against the 2 worst teams we played this year. I don’t think we want to simultaneously experiment with a head coach learning on the job and the OC doing the same. I think we hit the market for an experienced OC and let Smith go back to RBs. If he walks, so be it.
I also think we need a proven QB coach. De Laura needs that. Maybe the OC could double as QB coach, but i like the idea of having someone on the sidelines for JDL.
Defense has improved, and is our better performing unit. Maybe there are some upgrades that could be made, but I’d focus more on the offense.
Saw someone mention Tedford. That might be an interesting idea. Known commodity with connections in NorCal and SoCal, and if he’s willing to OC/QB, he could be a sounding board for Dickert. Won’t be cheap, and it would probably create stories of how he’s waiting to take over though.
I missed the national championships we've won. Assuming next goal is a conference championship or two. After that, he's gonna start eyeing the Natty which is a tough task here.
Said it in the other thread, but very lukewarm right now on this hire. Will wait to see how the staff is filled out.
Chun has missed on two great opportunities to nail great football hires (especially after the first time). This hire may end up being fine, but I don't see a ceiling greater than fine. Sorry, I'm the downer.
Chun has missed on two great opportunities to nail great football hires (especially after the first time). This hire may end up being fine, but I don't see a ceiling greater than fine. Sorry, I'm the downer.
I feel like the Cougs just hired their version of Jonathan Smith. I think it's fair to expect more.
I'm ok with the hire. Not overwhelmed, but fine with it. He's proven he can coach. Now we find out whether or not he can recruit enough talent for that to really matter
It was inevitable. No matter the UO game...if he won out otherwise - that he'd be the next HC at WSU. I believe he earned it as well.
That's not true. Smith is a fine head coach.
Dickert will be around Pullman much longer than Chun. So at least Chun didn't hamstring the program with a big name big buck hire and Ernie Kent like contract (presumably).
Dickert is the right hire at this time and won't break the bank if he isn't.
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I like the run n shoot but like another poster said I don’t know if Smith is the right guy leading it. Would be fine with him as RB coach. Any hot offensive coaches out there with RnS experience? Wish we could bring back Stutz….
If Dickert is no better than Jonathan Smith, I won't be overly disappointed. Smith will get consideration for coach of the year in the Pac-12.
Also, is it worth considering retaining Morrison as QB coach? I know he was a late fill in coach in desperate times, but de Laura seemed to really play well these past couple of weeks under his tutelage.
Glad Cougar
First of all we have to determine the offense we want to run and hire coaches around that. We have a QB coach, Dan Morrison, look at his resume, knows the run n shoot, which I hope we stick with, seems to be the best of both worlds running and passing. Not sure if Morrison was a temp fill in or wants to stick around, but JDL did improve over the last 4 games, not sure Morrison deserves credit, or it was JDL getting better with experience. I think everyone agrees we need to add great recruiting coaches to this staff,
If Coach Dickert can put as much energy into closing the deal in recruiting as it is clear he does in coaching, we will be in great shape. Recently listen to Drew Bledsoe recount the efforts Price went to in recruiting him, including a staged Greek row send off. It has become apparent we have had a series of less than enthusiastic recruiters since. Like Price, Dickert has "nice guy" down, but can he sell mothers and massage young egos, all of which we need to bring "guns" to a "gun" fight.
de Laura is the most improved player on the team. He went from the "weak link" on O, to Petros waxing that he was the best QB in the conference. That doesn't happen in a vacuum. The patient de Laura, is post Morrison.
Maybe more importantly Dickert taking over. Dickert knows what is hard to defend and went with a huge mix of RUN and shoot.
I think keeping a defensive head coach while still running the run and shoot will be tough for opposing DCs. Dickert will attack the weakness of the D. That is part of the reason play calling looked better I believe. Dickert attacked weaknesses rather than than just thinking we do what we do. Leach was stubborn. Dickert is more strategic and nuanced.
Glad to see you're behind this hire. You wouldn't have got "value in stability for the team", if we would've hired a new to Pullman outsider with existing HC experience.
Run always takes the pressure off the QB and gives you the passing game more options. As with any defense based head coach, you wonder whether Dickert will be too conservative for his own good. We saw that conservatism creep in, as the red zone offense became less effective. de Laura did not throw a single ball into the end zone against the Dawg as I recall, which is the correct "read" against a drop 8, but sometimes the correct "read" might not be the right call. Doba's efforts to "manage the clock" with offense to help protect the defense, may be why we invariable came up short during his era, despite some pretty talented teams. As Price said, it very hard to string 10-12 plays together without something bad happening.
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