How did WSU’s Jake Dickert keep roster turnover to a minimum? ‘It takes a team’

Jan. 19—OAKLAND, Calif. — Weeks before Washington State’s football season ended, before the Cougars played their final game in the Pac-12 as we know it, Jake Dickert went public with one assertion.

“It’s going to be open-target season on our players,” Dickert said.

By that he meant the way representatives from other schools would surely try to lure his players away, using lucrative name, image and likeness (NIL) offers to ransack his team through the transfer portal. Dickert believed in his program, he said, but retaining players in this day and age isn’t always so simple.

So all the Cougars did was hold on to nearly all nongraduating seniors and maintain nearly their entire staff. Starting wideout Josh Kelly hit the portal and transferred to Texas Tech. Quarterback Cam Ward declared for the NFL draft, then veered course and committed to Miami. Those were the only WSU starters to hit the portal and transfer elsewhere.

In total, 18 Cougars hit the portal, which closed earlier this month. Outside of Ward and Kelly, the Cougars’ costliest loss might have been backup cornerback Javan Robinson, who transferred to Arizona State. After that, running back Jaylen Jenkins and wideout DT Sheffield each hit the portal, but both departed the program during the season, long before transfer season begun.

On the coaching staff, WSU lost only a couple of support staff employees. No major assistant coaches took jobs elsewhere, a change of pace from the last couple of seasons, when the Cougars lost coordinators over the winter.

It’s encouraging for the Cougars because, at least on the surface, several factors were lining up against them. They had just wrapped up a 5-7 season, missing a bowl for the first time in nearly a decade (outside of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season).

They may have scored a giant victory in court, securing the…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/did-wsus-jake-dickert-keep-030100684.html

Author : The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.

Publish date : 2024-01-20 03:01:00

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