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| | Sunday, September 3 More wins, no bowl in sight for Cougars | |||||
| By Ed Graney Special to ESPN.com Season notes: 1999 record: 3-9, 1-7. Coach: Mike Price. Starters returning:11 (6 offense, 5 defense). Outlook Price jokes that he is the only man in history to turn WSU's program around twice, first from bad to good and then vise versa. "Now, I'll try and do it a third time and get us back to being pretty good," he said. Memo to the Cougars faithful: Don't hold your breath. You might explode. WSU suffered through academic and health woes last season. Those concerns are now solved, but there still isn't enough depth or ability on either side to contend. The secondary has talent, led by all-conference safety Lamont Thompson, but five of the front seven are new faces. Jason Gesser is a sophomore quarterback who's 29-0 as a starter. Problem is, 28 of those wins came in high school. He is not fast. He is not big. Said Price: "He's a rambler and a gambler." The offseason questions about sophomore running back Deon Burnett's work ethic have apparently been answered, and he will stand behind what Price says could be his best line ever ... two years from now. How bad is it? You know things are shaky when the head coach spends as much time on media day talking about his kicking game as anything else. Ouch. Keep an eye on: Junior strong safety Billy Newman. He is another member of WSU's strongest area, a secondary that could rank among the league's best. Newman (105 tackles, two sacks last season) prepped at Santa Margarita High in Orange County, Calif., where his jersey was retired. USC quarterback Carson Palmer attended the same school. His jersey was never bestowed such an honor. It's a good season if: The Cougars better last year's win total. There are winnable non-league games against Idaho and Boise State, but finding two more victories might be harder than locating consecutive days of no drizzle in Pullman. Wow, was Ryan Leaf really that good? Ed Graney covers college football for the San Diego Union Tribune. |
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