Five
questions facing the Washington State Cougars heading into fall football camp
Originally
published August 3, 2018 at 10:50 am
With fall practice starting Friday, the Cougars are more
than ready to put distractions aside and focus on actual, live football. Here's
what to watch for.
By Theo
Lawson Spokane Spokesman-Review
PULLMAN – Good luck trying to find a college football team
in the country more eager to slip on pads and strap on helmets this week than
Washington State.
OK, well, maybe Ohio State. But that’s it.
If there is a word that encapsulates the Cougars’ offseason
– one that endured the tragic loss of a beloved quarterback, the departure of
six assistants and a mid-June Twitter feud involving the head coach, among
other things – we haven’t found it yet.
On Friday, the Cougars open preseason training camp in
Pullman with a 2 p.m. practice at Rogers Field/Martin Stadium. Then, WSU
players will jam into yellow school buses for their annual jaunt to Lewiston,
Idaho, where the Cougars will spend six more days training in triple-digit
weather on the natural grass fields of Sacajawea Junior High, and bunking in the
dorms at Lewis-Clark State College.
Before the Cougars do any of that, though, we address five
questions for the team leading into the 2018 season.
Who’s throwing it? And part two of that question: when will
we know? The two weeks that encompass “fall camp” and the two weeks that follow
basically amount to a 25-part audition for three, or perhaps four, Washington
State quarterbacks aiming to replace Luke Falk as the Cougars’ starter. It
would’ve been a coin flip between redshirt juniors Trey Tinsley and Anthony
Gordon coming out of spring camp, but last week at Pac-12 Media Day, Leach
noted that Cammon Cooper “had a really good offseason,” and it makes you wonder
if the four-star freshman from Utah has progressed enough to pull back into the
competition.
Still, those three could be glaring up at another name on
the depth chart come Sept. 1. Gardner Minshew brings 17 games of FBS experience
to the Cougars and has a pretty good track record in QB competitions like this
one. Minshew didn’t spend the spring with the Cougars, but perhaps that isn’t
as much of a handicap as it’s perceived to be. “He came in and it was almost
surprising me – he came in as if he’s been on that team for three years,”
senior receiver Kyle Sweet said last week at Pac-12 Media Day. “But that’s
something we desperately need.”
Nonetheless, Leach will spend much of the next month
identifying his fourth starting quarterback at WSU (Jeff Tuel, Connor Halliday,
Luke Falk) and for the first time since the coach arrived in Pullman, it’s not
inherently obvious who that is.
Where will the sacks come from? It’ll take an, err,
Herculean effort to overcome the loss of a player who led the Pac-12 last
season in quarterback takedowns, tackles-for-loss and finished his career as a
consensus All-American. Don’t look for Hercules Mata’afa 2.0 on the 2018 roster
– you won’t find him. Junior defensive end Nnamdi Oguayo rebuilt his body in
the offseason – and it wasn’t in bad shape to begin with, either – and should
be able to succeed Mata’afa as the sacks leader. Nonetheless, WSU may have to
take a more balanced approach to the pass-rush this year.
And not that it’s something they aren’t accustomed to, but
the Cougars will once again have to be productive despite a major size
disparity. Nick Begg, Logan Tago and Oguayo – the three D-linemen who finished
camp running with the No. 1’s – average just 250 pounds, so they’ll have to
lean on their quickness and pre-snap movement in order to generate their
pass-rush.
Will the receivers be the deepest position? On this WSU
team? It sure looks like it. In the Pac-12? Don’t rule it out just yet. Leach
typically employs an eight-man receiver rotation in his Air Raid offense. The
challenge facing the WSU coach this fall is not finding eight capable bodies to
fill those spots, but whittling the rotation down to eight.
The Cougars return a handful of proven pass-catchers: Renard
Bell, Kyle Sweet, Dezmon Patmon, Tay Martin and Jamire Calvin all exceeded 30
catches and 300 receiving yards last season and combined for 15 touchdowns.
Easop Winston looked like the best wideout of the bunch at times during spring
camp, Robert Lewis was granted an extra year of eligibility and early enrollee
Rodrick Risher was Martin’s primary backup in spring ball. Then there’s the
influx of junior college transfers/high school signees – among them Last Chance
U star Calvin Jackson Jr. (Independence Community College) and four-star
prospect Drue Jackson, who picked the Cougs over Texas Tech, Wisconsin and
Utah. Pay attention to Kassidy Woods and Travell Harris, as well.
What will the offensive line look like/how will it change?
At this point last year, the Cougars’ front five was being touted as one of the
country’s best. With just 39 starts between the five projected starters, the
offensive line will be one of the least experienced in the Pac-12 this season.
That doesn’t seem like great news for a team with even less clarity at the
quarterback position and one that’s pretty thin at running back, but if the
Cougars can give up fewer than 44 sacks (a Pac-12 low in 2017) and rush for
more than 884 yards (also a Pac-12 low), it’ll probably be considered a more
productive year for the O-line.
Left tackle Andre Dillard, left guard Josh Watson, center
Fred Mauigoa, right guard Robert Valencia and right tackle Abraham Lucas made
up the first team in the spring – and Leach has indicated those will be the
starters heading into the fall – but the Cougars also need to establish depth
and locate 3-5 more players who can step in at a given time.
Can the secondary build some depth? During spring camp,
first-year defensive coordinator Tracy Claeys repeatedly deferred to the
defensive backfield when asked which position group had the most room to
improve. No, he wasn’t talking about All-Pac-12 safety Jalen Thompson – or any
of the starters for that matter.
Claeys’ concern is that his first flight of defensive backs
will have to overexert themselves because the secondary can’t establish depth
or build a rotation that’ll allow the backups to spell the starters. So it’ll
be important for players such as Marcus Strong, George Hicks, Deion Singleton
and Grant Porter to grow this fall and ensure that the Pac-12’s top passing
defense from last season can stay competitive in 2018.
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Spokane S-R Cougars beat writer Theo Lawson and SWX's Rob
Jesselson break down Washington State's first practice of the 2018 season.
Click on link below:
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WSU football
Transcript: Washington State coach Mike Leach pre-fall camp
conference call
Thu., Aug. 2, 2018, 3:59 p.m.
Washington State Cougars head coach Mike Leach reacts late
during the second half of a college football
By Theo Lawson S-R of Spokane
Washington State coach Mike Leach held a conference call
with reporters to preview the Cougars’ preseason training camp. Leach talked
about the quarterback competition – he’d like to name a starter at least 10
days before fall camp – addressed the team’s depth at wide receiver, spoke
about the importance of getting Robert Lewis and Peyton Pelluer back and talked
about returning to his home state of Wyoming for the season opener.
Below is a full transcript of the conference call.
Q: What does the QB depth chart look like right now?
A: Well, it’s pretty deep. I guess that’s where the finesse
comes in. We had Trey Tinsley who did a good job in the spring. I’d have to say
he probably did better than I expected. Then in the spring we also had Anthony
Gordon who also did a really good job. Arguably maybe the biggest eventual
talent of the group was Cammon Cooper, who’s only been here since January, but
he has a bigger, strong arm, good feet. The whole thing. Then Gardner Minshew
transferred from East Carolina and has had a great offseason too. So we’re
going to habve to pair them up and there will be a lot of evalutation at that
position. I do feel good about probably four guys, so we’re going to have to
sort it.
Q: What is the time frame for you to name a starter?
A: I’d like it several days before so we can put some reps
in him, because in all cases the guys aren’t terribly experienced on the field
here. Gardner probably has the most game experience. And then so we would like
to get it 10 days or so before the game so we can get a lot of reps. And I do
think it’s important for everybody.
Q: How tough is it for a transfer to come in and pick things
up in just one camp?
A: Well, I think it varies. I think it depends on the
individual. I think it varies. I haven’t had a ton of experience with that. But
picking a quarterback is easy from the standpoint of, regardless of how good
they are, you figure out who the best one is. And in the end, the most
important thing is who moves the offense the best. Who elevates the play of the
guys around them. But he’s a smart guy, in high school he played in a system
somewhat similar to ours. He’s been training in that direction prior to being
here, to the point he can kind of recite plays and reads and things like that.
And a smart, mature guy so we’ll see.
Q: How will you divvy up the reps between the QBs?
A: I doubt it’ll be equal. We’ll look at all four of them
and keep an eye on the others as well. We’ll look at all four of them but we’re
going to try to channel it toward the top two as quickly as we can and then go
from there.
Q: Other than QB, what are some other positions you’re
looking at as camp starts?
A: Well always it’s all of them because something’s
improved, somebody’s gotten better. They’re all moving targets, generally to
the positive, occasionally to the negative. We have all our receivers back, so
we’ve got quite a number there. So there it’s kind of again channeling who’s on
top, but we play with eight of them. Then running backs, we’ve got a good group
there and I guess one thing is to see how much Max Borghi’s improved because we
thought he had an impressive spring. And then James and Keith have played
before here. Then offensive line wise, we need to develop some depth at that
position. Leaving spring, we had a pretty good first group. Robert Valencia
kind of entered the lineup in particular at right guard. Josh Watson had a
really good spring, too, at left guard and then Abraham Lucas had played at
right tackle some. So the first group right now going in based on spring is
Dillard, Watson, Fred (Mauigoa), Valencia and then Lucas. After that, we’re
going to try to develop some depth. You try to always have 10. Most of my teams
have had seven or eight. Then of course the freshmen, too, at all positions
there’s some freshman scattered in there and we’ve got to see where they’re at.
Then defensively, we’ve got a lot of the secondary back. We’re looking for one
or two guys there, then linebacker we’ve got a few back there. And not all of
them are back or heavily featured guys that the outside is familar with, but we
are. We’re excited about them and think there will be some cases they’ll be
better than the guys before. Then we still have some good quickness on our
defensive line. I’d say in partciular some big guys in the middle, we need them
to develop. Some of those big guys inside.
Q: You’ve said the receiving corps will be your deepest at
WSU. What stands out about them?
A: Well they’re deep. They’re young, though. They’re young.
We’ve got Robert Lewis back and then Kyle Sweet’s a senior. You’ve got Tay
Martin who played significantly last year, who is big, explosive, strong for a
wiry guy. Then Rodrick Fisher, then we’ve got freshmen and we’re excited to see
what they can do – (Kassidy) Woods and (Drue) Jackson. Then the inside receivers,
Jamire Calvin had a really good spring and had a good offseason. Then Renard
(Bell) and he played some last year. Brandon Arconado played last year and then
Travell Harris had a really good spring. Then Dezmon Patmon played some last
year and a guy that really had a good spring, this spring, we redshirted him
last year, was Easop Winston. Just a very crafty, knows all the tricks.
Elusive, slippery guy.
Q: How important was it to get Robert Lewis back for a sixth
year?
A: Well, if you know him, he’s one of the greatest kids
there is. Tough background, all the stories about the neighborhood and all
that. Has a great father who’s really pushed him, supported him and really
provided a lot of guidance there. Then Robert’s just a really fantastic guy
who’s played before and played successfully. Robert Lewis, in my opinion, on
any given year he played, was the best blocker of the receivers even though
he’s a small guy. The most famous block I guess was, as we’re coming back
against Utah, we hit Vince Mayle on a post and we didn’t have that much time
left. And Robert Lewis peels back, blows up this safety. And I mean he just
smokes him. Then of course Vince scores a touchdown, but Robert Lewis had as
much to do with that play. It was the right thing to do and such an unfortunate
deal he got injured early last year. Just been a real solid guy here so it’s
great to have him back.
Q: What are you looking in particular for this team to
achieve during fall camp?
A: Well we’ve got to evaluate where everybody’s at, get them
in the best position we can to get their talents on the field. We have a few
wrinkles we want to install and get those either solidified or cast them off if
we don’t like them. You know, the plays. And just really put together a
cohesive unit that operates together, then from there go out there and win one
game a week.
Q: It seemed like a long offseason. How excited are you to
get started?
A: A little of both. I think it’s definitely time and we’re
all anxious because now it’s time. But those offseason are important. And we
had a really good offseason. It’s one of the most important periods for the
development of your team. We needed it, I think we really got the most we could
out of it and it’s an important period that you can’t just circumvent and get
right into it. Although if they let me reset football, we’d go year-round. We’d
expand the roster, we’d go year-round, we’d have to have a varsity season in
the fall and then we’d have a season in the spring where we work younger guys
that didn’t play as much. Get them some games. Everybody would have a great
time and of course they’d televise the games and it’d be great for everybody.
They’re probably not going to do that but that way I’d get to coach year-round
and then of course the offseason for the guys who played in the fall would be
in the spring and the offseason for the guys who played in the spring would be
in the fall. Great fun would be had by all and for those who want football
year-round it’d be fantastic.
Good idea…
A: Yep, maybe someday they’ll do it.
Q: Will all the guys you signed in the spring report to
practice tomorrow? Is there anyone who won’t be there?
A: Not that I’m aware of. Not that I’m aware off. And
they’ve all been through the offseason.
Q: On defense, how important was it to get Peyton Pelluer
back?
A: Great leadership, very instinctive, by example if nothing
else. Fantastic example for the entire defense, very intense. Literally grew up
in football with his fathers and uncles and all those guys having played. He’s
one of those guys that all the intangibles, he knows those. And I happen to
believe if you’ve got a guy like that, that rubs off on the others.
Q: Have you had a chance to watch any film on the Wyoming defense?
A: Well I can see why they’re confident, they’ve done a lot
of good things and they do a great job of coaching over there at Wyoming.
They’re an intense group, they have a game before we play them, which I think
is beneficial. At this point, we’re pretty much worried about ourselves and
being the best we can be and then as we get closer, then we’ll more tightly
tailor it to them specifially.
Q: You grew up in Wyoming. Is there anything more special
about returning home?
A: I wish I could say so. The time you have down there is
awfully limited. You fly in, you spend the night, you play, you fly back.
There’s not just a ton of time to go down memory lane. And obviously there will
be some people that I know who’ll be at the game and will show up, because I
went to high school with a lot of Wyoming graduates and know a lot of Wyoming
graduates. So I think there’ll probably me more of that with them, because
there’s a point to where, the Cowboys themselves out there on the field running
around kind of occupy your time and your thoughts and things like that. Where
I’m from specifically is quite a long ways from Laramie. I’m from Cody and now
a lot of my high school went to school there and I’ve been to University of
Wyoming. Laramie’s probably about 380 miles from Cody.
Q: Have you given much thought to the Urban Meyer situation
at Ohio State or read into it much?
A: I haven’t read any articles about it, I’ve gotten
fragments of texts. It’s a tough situation and I can’t really deal into it.
Obviously it sounds like they’ve got a lot of issues to work through and things
like that, so they’re more equipped than I am from over here. But I wish all
the people involved the very best, as far as getting to the bottom of it and
putting everything in the best fashion they can.
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Celebration of life for Kelly Ward set for Aug. 4
July 31, 2018 from WSU Insider
In memoriam of Kelly Ward, 1963-2018.
PULLMAN, Wash. – A celebration of Kelly Ward’s life and
legacy will be held 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 4, in the M.G. Carey Senior Ballroom
in the Compton Union Building. A reception will follow at the Lewis Alumni
Centre, also located on the WSU campus.
Ward served as vice provost for faculty development and
recognition, and was a dedicated faculty member in the College of Education.
She passed away following an accident that occurred on July 3.
Gifts in memory of Ward can be sent to the “Kelly Ward
Legacy Fund” at the WSU Foundation. The fund has been established for the
advancement of WSU women faculty. The Office of the Provost will work with the
Association for Faculty Women and the Commission on the Status of Women to
ensure that Ward’s legacy continues in perpetuity.
For grief related resources, faculty and staff are
encouraged to contact the Employee Assistance Program at 1-877-313-4455. The program
can be reached 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. More information is available at
EAP website.
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Ten years of painstaking archival detective work
August 3, 2018
A Historical Detective Story featuring the book cover of
'Madeleine’s Children'.
By Sylvia Lindman, WSU Vancouver
VANCOUVER, Wash. – Sue Peabody’s seventh book has been
called “a meticulous work of archival detective work” and “both biography and
global history at their very best.”
It took 10 years of painstaking research for Peabody to earn
that high praise. The result is “Madeleine’s Children: Family, Freedom,
Secrets, and Lies in France’s Indian Ocean Colonies,” published in 2017 by
Oxford University Press. It is the first full-length biography tracing the
lives of slaves in the Indian Ocean world, and it affirms her reputation as the
world’s foremost expert on the law of slavery and race in the French Empire.
The narrative brings many dramatic moments to life as
Peabody uncovers intimate relationships and legal disputes between slaves and
free people in the Indian Ocean world that have been hidden for two centuries.
Big picture through one family’s story
Peabody, Meyer Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and
History at WSU Vancouver, calls the book a “microhistory.” That is, it follows
one family’s story to paint a broader picture of society in their time. The
individual histories of family members illuminate the types of labor slaves
performed and the varying nature of their relationships with society and
plantation owners.
Madeleine was a girl from Bengal who became servant first to
a French mistress in the 1750s and subsequently to a planter couple who brought
her to the Indian Ocean Isle Bourbon (now Réunion). Madeleine had three
children, one of whom, Furcy, has become an important symbol of human rights in
his homeland. Furcy battled relentlessly for his freedom in the courts for more
than two decades. Finally, after losses in colonial courts, he appealed to the
Court of Cassation in Paris and won. Ironically, his former master died before
the court’s ruling on May 6, 1840.
Furcy believed he should be free because his mother, freed
by her mistress 19 years earlier, had been tricked out of the back wages owed
to her upon her mistress’s death. His mother had planned to purchase his
freedom with that sum. Furcy’s lawyers, recognizing that his assertions could
not hold sway in court, concocted other legal grounds: that Indians (as opposed
to Africans) could not be legally enslaved, and that his mother’s brief
residence on France’s “free soil” (in Europe) was sufficient to free her. It
was the free soil argument that finally secured his status as a freeborn man,
making him eligible for reparations.
The core document for Peabody’s research was a legal
pamphlet that publicized the outcome of Furcy’s case in 1844. In addition, her
sources — drawn from archives in France, Mauritius and London — included “three
grocery bags of documents the archivist in Réunion brought to me in 2008,” she
said. “I was the first historian to look at them. They had hardly been sorted.”
In addition, she pored over census, parish and notary records, letters and
newspapers. “I didn’t realize how long it was going to be when I began the
project,” she said. “It took me to the very antipode of Washington state.”
Decades of struggle
In the book, Peabody writes, “Furcy’s appeal did not really
further an antislavery agenda in France.” In fact, it reaffirmed that France
had two distinct legal regimes — the civil code for France and a slave code for
the colonies. “However,” she writes, “there is no question that Furcy’s appeal
to Paris had taken him quite literally into a new realm. Having met some of
France’s most powerful men in the great capital, he had become a man of the
world.”
The story she had expected to find differed in important
ways from the story she actually found. Furcy — who had fought for his freedom
in court for 25 years and finally won — soon became a slave owner, a master,
himself.
“It was a disappointment to me to learn this,” said Peabody.
“But it was not unusual for free people in the Indian Ocean world. Furcy was in
a system and he made use of the system to advance himself.”
A story that needed to be told
If Furcy’s story did not prove to be the inception of a
political movement against slavery, it vividly describes slaves’ vulnerability
to the master class, including the many ways those who owned slaves sought to
keep his story hidden.
“Careful attention to Furcy’s legal battles reveals the
hypocrisy, contradictions, and outright fabrications deployed by planters,
colonial legal officials, and metropolitan authorities to maintain slavery, as
well as idealists’ efforts to reform corruption and exploitation,” she writes
in the book.
Furcy’s life has been celebrated in a novel, two plays and a
song by the Indian Ocean musician Kaf Malbar; and to a group of contemporary
activists, Furcy is a symbol against oppression. Peabody has met with members
of the group “Liber nout Furcy [Let us free Furcy],” and while they too
expressed disappointment that Furcy is not the same hero they had initially
thought him to be, they believe it is nevertheless essential to honor and
memorialize his long fight for freedom, which, as Peabody writes, “meant
belonging to family, acknowledging the debt to ancestors, and preparing a
legacy for generations yet to come.” As Kaf Malbar says in his song “L’Or de
Furcy [Furcy’s Gold],” “We need this story to tell to our children.”
History as interpretation
One advantage of a microhistory is that it can enliven a
sweeping chronology with the story of a few individuals. Peabody’s book covers
more than a century of slavery and abolition in a space covering half the
globe. The microhistory approach is likely to have wider appeal among readers,
and Peabody is excited to start using it with students.
“I think this will be great in the classroom,” she said.
Whereas a more standard history tells of the rise and fall of nations, the
microhistory format forced her to carefully consider how to fill in the gaps in
the archival record. “For the classroom, that’s really fun because it does
reveal some of the interpretive process, which is so deeply part of the
historical enterprise,” she said. “If you have curiosity and are willing to go
out on a limb, this is where we make historical discoveries.”
Peabody’s next project will rely on similar investigation of
life stories, but the subject matter is closer to home. She is principal
investigator of a Humanities Washington grant to explore the stories of how
Clark County residents have migrated into the region (she has lived in Clark
County since she joined the WSU Vancouver faculty in 1996). Working closely
with the Clark County Historical Museum and the Fort Vancouver Regional
Library, Peabody and WSU Vancouver alumna Donna Sinclair will lead “a series of
facilitated workshops encouraging people in the community to recover and tell
their stories of this place,” Peabody said.
“How did we all arrive here in space, but also how have we
collectively arrived at this moment in Clark County history where development
is so rapid and changes are happening all around us?” she continued. “One of
the critical things we need to do now, here in Clark County, is to share our
stories with one another and come to understand how our presence is affecting
the very land we live on.”
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