Shorthanded WSU ready to take on No. 22 Syracuse in Holiday Bowl, looking to snap three-game bowl skid

Dec. 26—SAN DIEGO — On the first day of the month, shortly after Washington State wrapped up its regular season with a deflating home loss to Wyoming, the Cougars still looked like the Cougars. They might not have been bound for the College Football Playoff, a real possibility earlier in the season, but they remained eligible for an upper-tier bowl game.

WSU is still in that position, preparing to face No. 22 Syracuse in Friday’s Holiday Bowl, slated for 5 p.m. on Fox. But the Cougs who took the field for 12 games this fall are not the Cougs who will take the field at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego. That unit will look a lot different, all the way up to the head coach, following Jake Dickert’s departure for Wake Forest.

In the transfer portal are 28 Cougars, including the players who engineered the team’s 8-4 regular season: Quarterback John Mateer, running back Wayshawn Parker, offensive lineman Fa’alili Fa’amoe, defensive tackles David Gusta and Ansel Din-Mbuh, cornerback Ethan O’Connor, linebacker Buddah Al-Uqdah, even punter Nick Haberer. Still others have committed to other programs, including Arizona-bound wideout Kris Hutson and Arizona State signee Adrian Wilson.

The Cougs will also operate an offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator, following OC Ben Arbuckle’s exit for Oklahoma and DC Jeff Schmedding’s dismissal. The absences also include a running backs coach (Mark Atuaia decamped for Utah) and a quarterbacks coach (John Kuceyeski took a job at Oklahoma).

Wide receivers coach Nick Edwards is slated to call offensive plays in Friday’s game, Dickert indicated before he left, but it’s unclear who will do so on defense. Dickert had tabbed himself to call the defense.

Either way, it’s clear some portal players will not play in Friday’s game — Mateer, Parker, O’Connor, Din-Mbuh and others are not with…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/shorthanded-wsu-ready-no-22-030300871.html

Author : The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.

Publish date : 2024-12-27 03:03:00

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