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PULLMAN – As he prepares for his final season of college football, Tucker Large walks a fine line. He is Washington State’s starting free safety. When the Cougars’ season kicks off this weekend, he’ll be playing in front of the most fans he ever has, giving him an opportunity to show them something.
The question he wrestles with: Does he need to? Does he need to prove to others that, after spending the previous four years at FCS South Dakota State, he belongs at the FBS level, at a school with such a storied history like WSU?
When he weighs the question in his head, the first words that come to Large’s mind are yes and no. He remembers back in 2021, when he felt the pressure, “like I’ve had to prove people wrong my entire life,” he says. He was undersized at 5-feet-11, and out of high school in South Dakota, he didn’t exactly get much recruiting attention. So, he took a chance and walked on at South Dakota State.
“But I don’t know if it’s more of me trying to prove other people wrong, it’s more so just proving myself right,” Large said. “At the end of the day. I’ve always known I could play at any level I wanted to if I put my mind to it.”
The question applies to a lot of players on this WSU roster, which includes a whopping 74 newcomers, many of whom are moving up from the FCS, Group of 5 and even the Division II ranks. Sixteen former SDSU players followed coach Jimmy Rogers to WSU, and in the spring and summer months, Cougar coaches pulled up others from lower levels, including two separate FCS transfers and one from Division II.
WSU no longer belongs to a power conference the way it used to – after collapsing two years ago, the Pac-12 was stripped of autonomous status by the NCAA, which is where the “power” moniker comes from – so from a technical…
Source link : http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2025/aug/26/it-means-everything-do-wsu-transfers-from-the-fcs-/
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Publish date : 2025-08-27 02:05:00
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