College Football: Washington State Preview

As part of this becoming the all-sports blog for are three San Gabriel Valley Newspapers, and part of our college football overage, I will post a capsule of all Pac-12 teams for the upcoming season. We’ll begin with the North Division, and today we take a brief look at Washington State.

WASHINGTON STATE COUGARS
Coach:
Paul Wulff
Years at school: Fourth
Record: 5-32
2010 Record: 2-10 overall, 1-8 in conference
Division: North
2011 prediction: Sixth
Outlook: The Cougars have been the conference’s worst program over the past three seasons, finishing ninth, 10th and 10th. But they saw some light in the tunnel last year, playing respective games down the stretch, including scoring a 31-14 win at Oregon State. QB Jeff Tuel, who threw for 2,780 yards and 18 TDs, gives Washington State some hope. But it is most likely going to be another longer year in the Palouse, which doesn’t sound good for Wulff, who begins the year No. 1 on most publications’ coaches hot seat list.
Quotable: “When games are tight, (Tuel) needs to be able to make the plays that win the game,” Wulff said. “Those are the steps that he’s going to take, and he will take. I think that we’re going to go as he goes in a lot of ways. But what I also like is we do have more of a supporting cast around him and on defense that we’ve never had. So it’s not going to be only on Jeff Tuel, which is great. There needs to be some games where he isn’t necessarily the big factor, hopefully, and we can still win the ballgame. I’d like to see our team take that step, and I’d like to see Jeff take the step that I mentioned.”

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