In season of change, optimism reigns for WSU football: ‘Always us, never them’
Scott HansonAug. 29, 2024 at 7:00 am Updated Aug. 29, 2024 at 7:00 am
By
Seattle Times staff reporter
PULLMAN — In a season in which so much will be different for Washington State football, starting with the teams it will be playing, things seemed no different at fall football camp.
It was business as usual on the practice field, enthusiasm around the city for the start of the season certainly doesn’t appear to have diminished and players said they are unfazed that the majority of their opponents will now be from the Mountain West Conference and not from the Pac-12.
Rather than focusing on what is new, Washington State coach Jake Dickert brought up some things that hadn’t changed.
“The head coach is back, so is the offensive coordinator, the defensive coordinator, the special teams coordinator and the head strength coach,” Dickert said. “I bet we’re one of maybe 10 FBS programs in the whole country that has that type of consistency, and I think that matters to player retention. We had some guys seek other opportunities to play. But for the most part, to maintain this roster the way we did, is a proud moment for our staff, because I think it takes everybody. But it also means that they’re sharing in our vision.”
Dickert pointed out that among WSU’s 12 opponents, nine have new coaches this season.
That could be an advantage for the Cougars.
They are certainly looking forward to flipping the page on the 2023 season, which started with four straight wins, including two over ranked teams, but ended with losses in seven of their final eight games.
Dickert has spent plenty of time reflecting on the Cougars’ slide after rising to No. 13 in the national rankings, intent on learning from not only the good times but also the bad.
“It’s one of those things where you have got to learn from it, but you can’t dwell on it,” Dickert said. “I’ve learned a lot about success adversity. Everyone talks about how hard it is when things go bad. Well, we faced success, and I don’t know if we handled it the best way that we could have.
“It was one of those things where we won some great games early, but we went into a stretch of some really powerful football teams, and then the hard part was not getting out of that [slide] when we had an opportunity to go out and win some games late. We had the ball four times with under three minutes to go to win football games and didn’t do it one time.”
Dickert said because of that, the focus has been on finishing.
“The focus is on those moments, feeling like we’ve been there a million times and practiced those situations so we know exactly who we can count on,” Dickert said.
What will the coach do differently if the Cougars get off to another great start?
“I think everyone follows me — and I wasn’t distracted by it — but I think I tried to take on too much, you know, the Cougs versus everybody with what was happening to us in the conference,” Dickert said. “It was a lot and I tried to be the rallying cry for not just the community and the campus, but for everyone who didn’t have a voice. So it would be just staying focused on us, staying focused on the daily, knowing that each game deserves our absolute best, and the ownership that we all have in that.”
The Cougars lost 27 players to the transfer portal, most notably two-year starting quarterback Cam Ward (to Miami) and receiver Josh Kelly (to Texas Tech), but the vast majority of those electing to transfer were players who saw little or no action last season at WSU.
Washington State quarterback John Mateer runs a play during fall football camp, Aug. 13, 2024 in Pullman. (Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times)
Job one for Washington State was selecting its quarterback. Redshirt sophomore John Mateer prevailed in a battle with Zevi Eckhaus, who transferred to WSU after three prolific seasons at FCS Bryant.
Dickert said he has confidence in both quarterbacks, but he believes in picking one person for that job and said Mateer has great potential.
For Mateer to reach that potential, the offensive line will need to perform better than it did last season. The Cougars struggled to run all season and Ward was often under duress.
But Dickert is bullish on that unit, with four players back who started at least eight games (Brock Dieu, Fa’alili Fa’amoe, Christian Hilborn and Esa Pole) and another who started twice (Rodrick Tialavea).
Washington State offensive lineman Fa’alili Fa’amoe (79), during fall football camp, Aug. 13, 2024, in Pullman. (Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times)
“It’s been the No. 1 thing we’ve invested in since I’ve been the head coach,” Dickert said. “I think we took over a difficult situation in that position, and it’s the one position where you just can’t fix immediately. These guys go on the slow cooker. But now it is Year 3, and I think they can be the foundation of our offense.”
Dickert said he is confident that the offense will be productive overall.
“That is because of my belief in the offensive line, in our quarterbacks and what they can do in [offensive coordinator Ben] Arbuckle’s offense, and his vision for how we want to play football,” he said, “But it starts with running the ball, and we struggled with that mightily last season. And it just opens up all the doors.
“Once you can run the football, the physicality piece, they have to respect it, and you’re no longer getting drop eight [in pass coverage], and then everything else opens back up. So it will still start from that standpoint. That doesn’t mean we’re going to run it 40 times a game. But when we do, we have got to be extremely effective and, occasionally, explosive.”
When it comes to defense, Dickert said the strength of that unit has changed.
“The core of our defense is way better, and that’s interior defense, at tackle and linebacker,” he said. “It’s kind of flipped. We were a perimeter defense last year, and I think we struggled in the core.”
Kyle Thornton, a sixth-year senior who led the Cougars in tackles last season, leads the linebackers. They will play behind three defensive tackles — David Gusta, Khalil Laufau and Ansel Din-Mbuh — that Dickert said are the best since he arrived at WSU five years ago.
“So the core is much better. We love the athletes of the edges, which are very unproven,” Dickert said. “But being young won’t be an excuse. Those guys got to be ready to play. And it starts with communication and having confidence in their abilities.”
The Cougars open with a game they will be expected to win against Portland State, but then come much tougher tests against Texas Tech and Washington.
“The last two years, we played Wisconsin in Game 2 [WSU won both], and Game 4 was Oregon in 2022 and Game 4 was Oregon State last year,” Dickert said. “So we’re used to playing good opponents early. We have played good football early in September, so I’m fired up about it.”
The Apple Cup will have a hard time living up to last season’s game when Washington needed a win to earn a spot into the College Football Playoff and the Cougars needed a win to become bowl eligible.
Washington State played perhaps its best game of the season against the undefeated Huskies, with UW prevailing 24-21 at Husky Stadium with a field goal on the final play of the game.
It certainly will feel different with the game in September and at Lumen Field instead of one of the two campuses.
“I’m interested to see the environment of the game,” Dickert said. “Because every Apple Cup I’ve been in has been with the coolest environments I’ve ever been in.
“I talked a lot about last year’s game to recruits and families, saying I’ve never seen anything like it. What was on the line for both sides, the crowd, the game and how it ended up being. It was one for the ages. I know we fell short, but that’s what we need to have early in September. And anything short of that isn’t good enough for either side.”
Much of the rest of the schedule is against Mountain West opponents, who might not have the reputation of last year’s Pac-12 foes but won’t necessarily be easy to beat.
“We have a few teams in the Mountain West who could beat a lot of teams in the Pac-12,” said Gusta, a starting defensive tackle. “I don’t think it matters much. We’re all Division I players.”
Dickert was an assistant coach at Mountain West school Wyoming for three seasons.
“I know the target we will have on our back playing those teams,” Dickert said. “When we got an opportunity to play Power Five teams when I was at Wyoming, it was a big deal. Not comparing teams, but the environment, and it’s tougher to play in Boise than it is at Stanford. It’s tougher to play in Fresno than it is at Cal.”
Washington State will play at both Boise State and Fresno State this season. Those games will be challenging, but Dickert, who likes to break down the schedule into 12 one-game seasons, said the Cougars are good enough to go 1-0 each week.
“Our motto this year is, ‘Always us, never them,’” he said. “The outside noise doesn’t matter. The things we can’t control do not matter. It’s just about what we do and how we perform on those 12 given Saturdays.”
Scott Hanson: shanson@seattletimes.com;