News for CougGroup 5/13/2019
BASEBALL: WSU Opens Road Trip Tuesday at Utah Valley
From WSU Sports Info 5/13/2019
WSU 19 Baseball Game Notes at Utah Valley (PDF)
WASHINGTON STATE at UTAH VALLEY
Orem, Utah | UCCU Ballpark Tuesday, 5 p.m. (PT)
COUGARS OPEN ROAD TRIP TUESDAY AT UTAH VALLEY
Washington State (10-36-1) heads to the state of Utah for a four-game road trip beginning with a Tuesday night matchup at Utah Valley (13-36) in Orem. First pitch is set for 5 p.m. (PT).
ON DECK
The Cougars continue their road trip with a three-game series at Utah, running Thursday through Saturday on the Pac-12 Network.
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Winter Wheat harvest predicted to be down from last year
Pullman Radio News
The first prediction for this year’s winter wheat crop has been released. The National Agricultural Statistics Service is expecting this Summer’s yield to be down from last year based on May 1st conditions.
Washington growers are expected to get 68 bushels an acre statewide on winter wheat. That would be down 8 bushels from last year. Idaho growers are predicted to get 87 bushels an acre on winter wheat. That would be down 3 bushels an acre from 2018.
Washington’s total winter wheat production is predicted to be down 11% from last year at 112 million bushels. Idaho’s winter wheat harvest is expected to be down 2% at 60 million bushels.
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BASEBALL
From WSU Sports Info
Cougs’ ninth-inning rally falls short
Giving up seven runs in the final three innings before recouping two of them in the bottom of the ninth, Washington State couldn’t complete the rally and bowed 13-10 to top-ranked UCLA on Sunday in a Pac-12 baseball game at Bailey-Brayton Field.
Owen Leonard, who had struck out two Cougars earlier in the ninth, induced a fly-out from Andres Alvarez to end the game.
Kyle Manzardo batted 3-for-5 for the Cougars (10-36-1, 2-21-1), who dropped the series with UCLA three games to none. Danny Sinatro and Garrett Gouldsmith added two hits apiece.
Garrett Mitchell went 4-for-6 and Michael Toglia homered and doubles for the Bruins (41-8, 19-5). Matt McLain homered and drove in four runs.
In the bottom of the ninth, the Cougars loaded the bases with no outs and Bradley Polinsky ripped a two-run double.
UCLA won 10-7 on Saturday,
Sunday game
UCLA 010 500 511—13 17 3
WSU 020 600 002—10 12 0
Bergin, Filby (4), Hadley (4), Mora (8), Powell (9) and Cardenas. White, Baillie (4), Guerrero (7), Mills (7), Mullins (8), Leonard (9) and Polinsky.
W — Hadley (8-1
). L — Guerrero (1-2).
UCLA hits — Mitchell 4, Kreidler, Strumpf 2, Stronach, Toglia 3 (2B, HR)), Pries 2 (2B), Cardenas, Kendall, McLain 2 (HR).
WSU hits — Sinatro 2, Alvarez 2, Manzardo 3, Montez, Polinsky (2B), Gouldsmith 2 (2B), Barnum (2B).
Saturday game
UCLA 220 023 100—10 15 0
WSU 000 000 000— 0 7 0
Ralston, Townsend (8), Colwell (9) and Cardenas. Block, Rosenkrantz (2), Barnum (7), Newstrom (9) and Teel, Polinsky (7).
W — Ralston (9-0). L — Block (0-7).
UCLA hits — Mitchell 2, Kreidler 3 (2B, HR), Strumpf (HR), Pries, Toglia 2 (2B, HR), Stronach 2 (2B), Moberg, Cardenas (2B), Hirabayashi (2B), McLain (HR).
WSU hits — Sinatro, Manzardo 3, Montez 2, Teel.
Brock Eager wins gold medal for Cougars track & field
TUCSON, Ariz. — Brock Eager, a Washington State senior from Renton, Wash., duplicated the hammer title he won two years ago as the weather-affected Pac-12 track and field meet moved along slowly.
Eager took the lead on his third attempt and locked down the win with a fifth toss of 228 feet, 8 inches, the best winning mark in that event since 2016.
That event took place Saturday, when a lightning delay extended action into the wee hours and forced postponements. With a heavy makeup schedule Sunday, results were again delayed.
WSU placers Saturday
MEN
3000 steeplechase — 6, Kyler Little 9:10.72.
Hammer — 1, Brock Eager 228-8. 6, Amani Brown 209-10.
WOMEN
3000 steeplechase — 8, Zorana Grujic 10:32.03.
GOLF
Pullman set for NCAA golf regional
The University of Oklahoma men’s golf team, ranked fifth in the country, is among the field for an NCAA Regional being contested today through Wednesday in Pullman.
No. 8 Georgia Tech will also be on hand for the event at Palouse Ridge Golf Club.
No Cougars qualified, but Washington State is happy to serve as host for one of six regional tournaments in the country. The school also staged a regional in 2013.
“Having the opportunity to host an NCAA event here in Pullman is a big deal,” WSU coach Dustin White said. “Not only is it great recognition for our program and the university, but the community as a whole.”
South Carolina and Texas A&M, ranked No. 17 and 20 nationally, are seeded third and fourth in the regional behind Oklahoma and Georgia Tech. Seeded fifth is UCLA, the only Pac-12 school in the field. Other top-10 seeds, in order of seeding, are Brigham Young, Colorado State, Florida, Michigan State and Purdue.
Automatic qualifiers by winning their league make up the 11-14 seeds: Kent State, Northern Colorado, Wright State and Iona.
The field features three top-20 golfers: No. 9 Peter Kuest of Brigham Young, No. 15 Andy Ogletree of Georgia Tech and No. 19 Luke Schniederjans, also of Georgia Tech.
Five individuals whose teams did not make the championship will also participate. The highest-ranked among them, at No. 74, is Thomas Hutchinson of UC Davis. Others are Zach Smith of UC Santa Barbara, Daniel O’Loughlin of Colorado, Tim Widing of San Francisco and Jake Chanen of Grand Canyon.
The 7,246-yard course will play at par 70.
The top five teams from the each regional and the top remaining individual will advance to the NCAA Championships on May 24-29 at Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Ark.
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His View: Land grant fierce? Focus on people already here
By Chuck Pezeshki
May 11, 2019
Moscow Idaho Pullman Washington Daily News
Last Tuesday, in the CUB Senior Ballroom at Washington State University, the President's Office at WSU hosted a strategic planning event, intending to give the university a direction for the next five years.
The theme of the workshop, based around author Stephen Gavazzi's book, "Land-Grant Universities for the Future," and moderated by the author himself, espoused a concept he called "Land-Grant Fierce." He advocated returning to the roots of the land-grant experience, with a strong focus on local communities around our respective campuses around the state.
I am a supporter of the "Land-Grant Fierce" concept. I've lived it over the course of my career. I've worked with over 85 different companies in the Pacific Northwest on projects directly affecting their bottom line, and students were involved in all that work. That work, and the interactions that have come with it, has changed me and evolved my perspective.
But at the same time, the university around me has changed. And with so many of those changes, there is no going back. I don't know the percentage of contingent faculty, but I'm sure it wasn't close to the 75 percent of credit hours delivered by them now. Those companies that I work with - even the smallest - all have international markets. Even the core of our land-grant roots - the College of Ag. - depends deeply on a comprehensive worldview.
We no longer can solely rededicate ourselves to local communities. What we really need is an effort to grow our now contingent faculty, as well as those on the tenure-track, to be world-class aware. All professors are smart. It comes with the job. But awareness is cultivated through experience, and without that, we can no longer do our jobs, no matter how much we rededicate to being land-grant fierce.
I agree with the need to connect with the students during this process. They'll tell us they're nervous about their debt loads, and they need to know how they're going to make a living. Asking them questions about the student experience, and being part of the Cougar Nation, is just not as important as prepping them for the next step. I've had few alumni who don't speak fondly of this giant bouncy castle we run on the Palouse. But I've heard from more than a few on the difficulty of finding a job.
One thing that rankled me particularly during the event was the repetition of the phrase "you get what you reward." Sorry folks, but mainstream economics is in freefall as far as relevance from the "rational choice" stereotype. People are more complex than a dog fetching a ball. The 400 or so people in the CUB ballroom were there because of a combination of nervousness for the future, as well as seeking future paths for meaning. Meaning is what humans want, and it changes as we age, experience and grow.
If you give them that, you'll find positive outcomes naturally emerge. Right now, we're facing a financial crisis in the bottom of our faculty ranks, as well as with students. One brave young woman got up to talk about the need for food security for students. If we want to pop people up to deeper intellectual pursuits, their stomachs have to be full.
Once we've faced up to the changes we need, we must face the need to systematize our efforts. Bettering our teaching with contingent faculty is going to require systems for all faculty to receive training. It's not enough to arbitrarily assign mentors, and hear happy anecdotes of mentor/mentee relationships. People have to be trained. And paid.
Over and over again, people on the panels alluded to their exhaustion. It's time to own up to this. Land-grant fierce needs to start by focusing on the well-being of the people already here. And then follow that with engagement. We've taken a 20-year hiatus from this principle. And those are roots I'd love to see us get back to.
Chuck Pezeshki is a professor in mechanical and materials engineering at Washington State University.
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WSU men basketball coach Kyle Smith tells CF.C one Coug signee hasn’t been announced yet
By Jamey Vinnick 5 hours ago
WHO IS MR. X? That’s the mystery that figures to occupy Washington State basketball fans for the next 48 hours or so. In an exclusive conversation with Cougfan.com, men’s basketball coach Kyle Smith tells us he’s signed a player who hasn’t yet been announced.
“Not everything is released yet but I believe we’re at 10 players right now,” Smith said. “One guy we have signed, he just wants to wait to release it. It’ll be out there in a couple days.
“We maybe will have one other guy but I can at least tell you the one guy who has signed is big. He’s a real big guy and pretty accomplished. But then, yeah, we’ll see, I don’t know if there might be one more, things have kind of gotten dragged out from all the transfers.”
Could Nigel John be reaffirming his signed commitment? The 6-9 John is the only known big with an offer from Smith. But there’s also the very real possibility the signee Smith is referring to is someone off the radar. (Smith has also shown interest in is Malik Muhammad (6-9, 235) from East Los Angeles College but it is not believed he has offered him).
Here’s how the roster shapes up, with the returnees in bold:
PG: Jervae Robinson (6-2, 185); Isaac Bonton (6-3, 185); Noah Williams (6-5, 192)
SG: C.J. Elleby (6-6, 200); Ryan Rapp (6-5, 180)
SF: Aljaz Kunc (6-8, 198); Deion James (6-6, 220); Daron Henson (6-7, 210)
PF: Jeff Pollard (6-9, 240)
C: Mr. X ???
“I want Jervae, Jaz, Jeff and C.J. to be part of the origin story that helped get this going in the right direction,” Smith said. “We’ve got Daron Henson coming from Salt Lake CC -- Deion is a good piece too, I recruited him at San Francisco and knew his JC coach really well. He’s a unique combo forward that can make plays kind of like C.J. and Noah. We’re going to be long and rangy which should help defensively.”
WHAT ABOUT THE Cougars who have entered the transfer portal – any chance some could return?
From what Smith said, there is one possibility.
“That’s part of the process really. There’s one guy specifically that there’s a strong possibility he will circle back. We (also) convinced ‘prodigal son’ Jeff Pollard to stay, but yeah there’s one guy, possibly.”
We’re speculating here but Marvin Cannon might make the most sense as the player who could circle back, to use Smith’s term.
Carter Skaggs and Chance Moore are definitely gone, and there hasn’t been any indication Isaiah Wade or Ahmed Ali are staying since they entered the transfer portal a while back. Further, out of all the Cougars who have dipped their toe in the transfer market, Cannon most held his own against Pac-12 competition this past season (and became a fan favorite with his high-flying abilities and energy). Cannon is also the most recent WSU addition to the portal.
Related: Cannon’s decision to enter transfer portal family based, say sources
THE SIGNING PERIOD ends Wednesday. After that, a player can still join the program through signing of financial aid papers, which bind the school but not the player. The player becomes official once he starts classes.
If Smith ends up announcing one more signee, and if one Cougar returns from the portal, that would put the Cougs at 11. If no further additions are made between now and when school begins in August, that would in turn likely point to Smith holding two scholarships over to the next recruiting class, when he will have had a full year to recruit to WSU.
NOTE: Smith talked extensively about Bonton and Williams and the importance of his point guard position -- stay tuned to CF.C for that and much more from our conversation with WSU's head hoops man.
Utah football adds grad-transfer OL Noah Myers from WSU
Cougs haven’t seen the last of transfer OL Noah Osur-Myers
By Cougfan.com
WASHINGTON STATE hasn’t seen the last of former offensive lineman Noah Osur-Myers (6-4, 310). Sources tell CF.C that Osur-Myers, who entered the NCAA transfer portal last month, will be staying in the Pac-12.
Osur-Myers is headed to Utah and will form
ally join the Ute program at the end of this month, the sources said.
UteZone, the 247 site covering Utah, reported Osur-Myers visited Utah this past weekend.
"Then Friday night, I talked to Harding and Whittingham and told them this place just felt right for my final two years," Osur-Myers told UteZone.
Osur-Myers was listed as a fifth-year senior on WSU’s roster but he could still have two seasons to play – he missed all of last year after shoulder surgery and indications from WSU a few years back were that he was injured his true freshman season.
The NCAA has seen a sharp increase in the number of undergraduate transfers granted a request for immediate eligibility, in some cases due to “mitigating circumstances” outside the student-athlete’s control, which can cover a great many things.
Assuming it all falls into place for Osur-Myers, his remaining eligibility could include this year and next at Utah.
Related: UteZone talks to new Ute and former Cougar offensive lineman Osur-Myers
Washington State plays at Utah in Week 5. The Utes have been mentioned in several of the media’s early top 25 polls.
Osur-Myers midway through this year’s spring football session was the most consistent performer on the No. 2 o-line before deciding to transfer. Cougar defensive line coach Jeff Phelps shifted a lot of players in and out this spring, but OL coach Mason Miller pretty much stuck with the same first-team unit from the second practice on. WSU is returning four of five offensive line starters in 2019.
Osur-Myers appeared to be well on his way to becoming a starter in 2018 but was shelved by injury after injuring his shoulder in the Holiday Bowl practices in 2017.
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Future WSU non-conference football schedules: More Leach-Petrino moments
By COUGFANcom
THE POSTGAME HANDSHAKE PART III is coming to a football stadium near you. Washington State's future non-conference schedule sees Idaho back on the slate in 2020, presenting the third opportunity for Mike Leach and Paul Petrino to exchange pleasantries, and not shake hands.
WSU and Idaho last played in 2016 and there was no postgame handshake after the Cougs' 56-6 victory. In the first meeting between the two coaches in 2013, a 42-0 WSU shutout, Petrino barked something and briefly but vigorously pumped Leach’s hand before abruptly turned to leave. Leach responded to Petrino by saying – well, you remember.
Both men have said the '13 incident was quickly forgotten, though the non-handshake in 2016 would seem to suggest otherwise. Meanwhile, Leach and Petrino have lived two houses away from one another for years but Petrino told the Spokesman-Review in 2016 the two coaches never see one another. Leach has said he doesn’t know Petrino.
Assuming both men remain in Pullman and Moscow, the third act takes place in Martin Stadium on Sept. 19, 2020.
Here's how the Cougs' non-conference schedules shape up for the next 10 years, according to fbschedules.com.
2019
Aug. 31: New Mexico State
Sep. 7: Northern Colorado
Sep. 13: vs Houston (NRG Stadium in Houston)
Comment: This past season, NMSU went 3-9, Colorado State was 2-9 and Houston went 8-5.
Related: Why Week 3 vs. Houston holds extra importance for WSU and Mike Leach
2020
Sep. 5: at Utah State
Sep. 12: Houston
Sep. 19: Idaho
Comment: In 2018, Utah State went 11-2, Idaho went 4-7
2021
Sep. 04: Utah State
Sep. 11: Portland State
Oct. 23: BYU
Comment: Portland State, which shocked WSU 24-17 in 2015, was 4-7 this past season while BYU went 7-6 including a bowl game win over Western Michigan. . A scheduling quirk has BYU coming to Pullman in late October in 2021.
2022
Sep. 3: Idaho
Sep. 10: at Wisconsin
Sep. 17: Colorado State
Comment: Washington State last played Wisconsin in 2007 and is winless against the Badgers in two tries.
2023
Sep. 2: at Colorado State
Sep. 9: Wisconsin
Sep. 16: Northern Colorado
Comment: Washington State finally gets the Badgers in Pullman, with all prior meeting having been played in Madison.
2024
Aug. 31: Portland State
Sep. 07: at San Diego State
Open
Comment: Who should the Cougs schedule for their third non-conference game?
2025
Aug. 30 - Idaho
Sep. 6 - San Diego State
Open
Comment: Another open slot to fill out WSU’s non-conference slate.
2026
Sep. 12 - at Kansas State
Sep. 19 - Boise State
Open
Comment: With K-State and Boise State already on the schedule, WSU likely to schedule a highly winnable non-conference foe.
2027
Sep. 11 - Kansas
Sep. 18 - at Boise State
Open
Comment: See above.
2028
Sep. 9 - at Kansas
Open
Open
Comment: We want ‘Bama.
2029
Sep. 8 - Kansas State
Open
Open
Comment: We want more ‘Bama, schedule the Tide for both games.
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FOOTBALL Why Week 3 holds extra importance for WSU and Mike Leach
By COUGFANcom
Sun May 12 2019
ATHLON TABS HOUSTON – Washington State’s opponent in Week 3 -- as one of the top 20 teams on the rise this season in college football. Because of the game’s storylines, including Mike Leach back in Texas and squaring off against mentee Dana Holgorsen, the tilt will garner increased national attention and become that much greater a boon for the victor, and that much larger a setback for the vanquished.
Houston plays two marquee opponents in its non-conference slate, kicking off at Oklahoma in Week 1 before hosting WSU 12 days later.
WSU-Houston is going to be big no matter what. But if Houston were to upset the Sooners, national interest in what happens Friday night in Houston on Sept. 13 (5 pm, ESPN) will climb to a fever pitch.
Related: WSU vs. Houston in the Texas Kickoff
With Leach and Holgorsen known for their offenses, pundits are expecting a high-scoring shootout. Houston ranked No. 5 in the nation last year in scoring, while West Virginia under Holgorsen was No. 10. WSU was No. 15.
Washington State returns four of five starting offensive linemen and three of four starting wideouts return. And Houston?
“The Cougars led the American Athletic Conference in scoring offense (43.9 ppg) in ’18, but quarterback D’Eriq King suffered a season-ending leg injury in mid-November. Assuming King is back to full strength, he should rank among the nation’s top signal-callers in Holgorsen’s high-powered offense. A solid foundation is back up front, while King will have plenty of help in the receiving corps thanks to the return of three receivers who caught at least 35 passes, including Marquez Stevenson (1,019 yards),” writes Athlon.
Defense, however, is a concern for Houston, says Athlon. Six of the team’s top 10 tacklers last season were seniors. For WSU, six of the Cougs’ top 10 tacklers return.
We only have to wait 124 days to find out what happens.
NOTABLE NOTES:
Scheduled in June 2017, the two-game series concludes with Houston coming to Pullman Sept. 12, 2020.
Holgorsen left West Virginia for Houston this offseason, with much being written about the rarity of a Power 5 coach leaving for a Group of 5 team.
WSU last played Houston in the 1988 Aloha Bowl, a 24-22 WSU victory when Dennis Erickson was coach.
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Is the Pac-12 really worth $5 billion? Finally, we have the ingredients for a valuation estimate
Sale of Fox regional networks to Sinclair provides a point of comparison
By Jon Wilner of San Jose Merc News
PUBLISHED: May 8, 2019
For the first 103 years of the Pac-12’s existence, its valuation was inconsequential.
For the past six months, that has been one of the hottest topics in a conference that generates an outsized share of hot topics.
Commissioner Larry Scott and his strategists calculated a $5 billion valuation for the conference media rights as part of a plan to attract an equity partner.
That partner would acquire 10 percent of the media rights holding company in exchange for as much as $750 million in cash that would be sent to the schools.
Some called the plan creative. Other termed it desperate. In reality, it’s both:
The schools need the cash, they need it now, and the conference created a means to generate a windfall that would allow it to retain control of the content.
Then Scott and his team assigned a $5 billion valuation on the holding company — a whopper of a number, for sure, but was it accurate?
Two pieces of information were required for an assessment of the valuation:
Private Pac-12 financial data, and an open-market point of comparison.
Fortunately, we have both.
Thanks to Hotline sources, we have the Pac-12 conference and Pac-12 Networks financial data.
And thanks to Disney’s sale of 21 Fox Regional Sports Networks (RSNs) to Sinclair broadcasting, we have a reasonable market benchmark.
(The approach is good enough for Mark Cuban, who drew the comparison in an email to the Oregonian’s John Canzano.)
The Fox RSNs were valued at $10.6 billion in the sale, which is approximately 6X their projected EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
That 6X multiple for the Fox RSNs gives us a benchmark to value the Pac-12’s media-rights holding company.
Of course, the Pac-12 doesn’t have earnings in the traditional sense. Instead, we’ll use the total revenue (revenue less operating expenses) as our starting point.
We know the Pac-12 Networks were projected to generate $35 million in FY19.
And we know the conference was projected to generate $349 million in FY19, with the networks adding another $35 million (the profit that gets distributed to the campuses).
That’s $384 million in what we’ll call net revenue.
If we then apply the same 6X multiple the Fox RSNs received, that would place an open market valuation of $2.3 billion on the Pac-12 media assets — far less than the figure Scott and his investment advisors (The Raine Group) have projected.
However, it’s not quite so simple.
The 6X multiple assigned to the Fox RSNs could be viewed as too high for the Pac-12 Networks, because the 21 RSNs have enormous collective reach (74 million homes) in addition to a national sales force and Tier 1 media partners — all of which act as a force multiplier for the valuation.
The Pac-12 Networks have none of that: small footprint, small staff, small revenue … small everything.
However, the networks also account for just nine percent of the net revenue figure ($384 million) we’re using.
The remainder comes from conference-side revenue streams, the largest of which is the Tier 1 deal with Fox and ESPN for premium football and men’s basketball games.
But even there, the situation is nuanced.
Approximately one-third of the conference revenue comes from the college football postseason and NCAA Tournament units. Should those streams be included in an open-market valuation of the Pac-12 media rights?
For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll include both: the March Madness cash comes from CBS/Turner and flows through the NCAA to the conferences, while the football postseason revenue is courtesy of ESPN, which owns the rights to the Rose Bowl and the College Football Playoff.
Both revenue streams, therefore, originate with third party media deals.
One could argue that the conference buckets (premium football content, March Madness and the CFP/Rose Bowl) would command a multiple greater than 6X.
Should we adjust? And if so, by how much?
If we randomly doubled the multiple, to 12X the Pac-12 operating revenue, that would produce a valuation of $4.6 billion on the conference’s media assets — still less than the self-assigned number.
But 12X is probably high, and here’s why:
Before 21 of the 22 Fox RSNs were sold to Sinclair, the most valuable of them all — the crown jewel — was sold separately: The YES Network.
For those unfamiliar, that’s the Yankee Entertainment and Sports Network. And it went for 8.4X earnings.
(Also worth noting: The Pac-12 is counting on digital media giants to bid for the conference’s media rights in 2024, thereby driving up the price, but none of them made a serious play for the Fox RSNs. While plenty could change in the next few years, that’s hardly an encouraging sign for the Pac-12. Or any other sports property.)
Even if we were to apply the same Yankee-esque multiple of 8.4X to the Pac-12’s media rights holding company, the result would be a $3.2 billion valuation.
That’s substantially less than the conference’s internal estimate.
And if we’re in the correct range with $3.2 billion, then an investor (or group of investors) willing to hand over the $750 million sought by the conference would receive, in return, almost 25 percent ownership of the company.
That would leave the schools with far too little for far too long.
So unless the Pac-12 manages to convince equity partners that the value of its media rights is substantially greater than the market seems to indicate …
The Pac-12 will hand over a larger slice of ownership than it initially planned or receive less cash than it originally hoped.
Or it could assess the options and do nothing.
Doing nothing just might be the smart play.
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Pac-12 spring wrap: North division assessment
May 13, 2019 at 7:16 am
The Pac-12 North was the only division in the Power Five last season to produce four teams with at least nine victories. The Big Ten East and SEC West only had three; the entire Big 12 had two. That's not to suggest the Pac-12 North was the best division in the land; the absence of a serious playoff contender greatly...
Former SJSU football coach Dick Tomey dead at 80
May 11, 2019 at 8:42 am
In addition to his great success at Arizona, where he remains the all-time leader in wins, he led San Jose State to its first bowl game in 16 years.
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WSU Research: Keeping the taste, reducing the salt
April 11, 2019
While humans need the salt in snacks like potato chips, Americans consume significantly more salt than is necessary or even healthy.
By Scott Weybright
WSU College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences
PULLMAN – Washington State University researchers have found a way to make food taste salty but with less of the sodium chloride tied to poor health.
“It’s a stealth approach, not like buying the ‘reduced salt’ option, which people generally don’t like,” said Carolyn Ross, a Food Science professor at WSU. “If we can stair-step people down, then we increase health while still making food that people want to eat.”
In a paper published in the Journal of Food Science, Ross and colleagues looked at salt blends that use less sodium chloride and include other salts like calcium chloride and potassium chloride. Both of those salts have no adverse health effects on people, Ross said. Potassium can actually help reduce blood pressure. Unfortunately, they aren’t very tasty.
“Potassium chloride, especially, tastes really bitter and people really don’t like it,” Ross said.
The researchers used tasting panels and WSU’s electronic tongue to see just how much they could add of the replacement salts for standard sodium chloride before people found the food unacceptable to eat.
Some tasting panels tested a variety of salt solutions, or salt in water, while others tested different salt combinations in tomato soup.
Using the e‑tongue and panels, they found that a blend using approximately 96.4 percent sodium chloride with 1.6 percent potassium chloride and 2 percent calcium chloride was the ideal reduction.
They had a higher reduction when they added only calcium chloride, getting acceptable rates with a combination of 78 percent sodium chloride and 22 percent calcium chloride.
“This combination of the two salts did not significantly differ compared to 100 percent sodium chloride,” Ross said. “But when we added potassium chloride, consumer acceptance decreased.”
While humans need salt, Americans consume significantly more than is necessary or even healthy. According to the U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, the recommended maximum amount of salt consumed per day is less than 2,300 mg. The average American adult female consumes 2,980 mg per day, while males average over 4,000 mg per day.
Recent findings have suggested that gradual reductions in salt over a period of years is the best way to reduce salt consumption. Using one of the new blends for a specified time frame could lead to greater reductions down the road.
