2018 College Football Team Previews: Washington State Cougars

Washington State Cougars
Location: Pullman, WA
Coach: Mike Leach (38-38@WSU, 122-81 overall) 7th Season
Stadium: Martin Stadium (Capacity: 32,952)

CSJ Projections:
5th: Pac-12 (3rd in North Division)
2nd: Washington
38th: FBS
39th: Division I

2017 In A Sentence: In most years, a 9-4 season would be a very good season but with a very talented group of seniors last year, losing in blowouts to Apple Cup rival Washington and the Holiday Bowl to Michigan State left a bitter taste to Cougar faithful.

Biggest Shoes to Fill: QB Luke Falk rewrote the Pac-12 and school record books, finishing his career as the Pac-12’s all-time leading passer, with 14,486 passing yards and 119 touchdown passes. He finished his WSU career as the winningest quarterback in school history, with a 27-13 career record that includes a school record seven fourth quarter comeback wins. He was a 6th round NFL Draft pick of the Tennessee Titans this past spring.

Key Player: SS Jalen Thompson led the Cougars in tackles with 73 and interceptions with four in 2017. The now-senior will lead a defense that last year finished in the Top 10 in tackles for a loss and turnovers. He will hope to lead a defense that may be in a bit lower scoring games given the losses on offense.

Fearless Prediction: Washington State went from eight wins in 2016 to nine last year but with so much talent lost from a team last year, expectations will need to lowered some. Yet this team has some new talent including a strong defense that will keep the Cougars in several games and should still get to the upper half of the Pac-12 North standings and a bowl game.

Kent Schmidt

Originally from LaMoure, North Dakota, Kent is a 1996 graduate of North Dakota State University. His prior writing experience is over 15 years having previously worked with D2football.com, I-AA.org, and College Sporting News before coming to College Sports Journal in 2016. His main focus is college football in the western half of the United States– the Big Sky Conference and Missouri Valley Football Conference within the Division I FCS. And in 2017, he began also to look at the FBS Group of Five conferences of the American Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, and Sun Belt.

Reach him at this email or click below: