PULLMAN — Over the course of his introduction to the Pullman public on Thursday, new Washington State football coach Jimmy Rogers seemed an awful lot like the coach who just left.
Young, bright, intense, highly motivated.
All quality traits for a coach, of course.
The Cougars got three and a half pretty good seasons out of the last guy, Jake Dickert. Pullman isn’t the final destination for everybody. So, there’s no need to kick him around now that he’s moved on in his career.
It would be nice if the shelf life was a little longer with Rogers, but it’s a business, right?
Rogers was head coach at FCS-level South Dakota State for only two seasons but won 27 of 30 games after a long assistantship.
Most of his presentation Thursday was fairly generic except for one point he made that I thought could prove that he’s on his way to understanding what the whole “Coug” thing is about.
He said he watched WSU lose to Syracuse in the Holiday Bowl before Christmas. Playing without their head coach and 28 players gone in the portal, the Cougars fell 52-35 to the No. 22-ranked Orange.
“Watching that game, honestly, was pumping life into me,” Rogers said, overwhelmed by WSU’s tenacity in spite of the obvious manpower shortages.
Of course it did. He’s a football guy, and this team was playing for the love of the game. It was rare and inspiring. They lost, but it might have been the best marketing of WSU spirit they’ve ever had on national television. The effort was stunning.
Sure, there’s an old saying in sport: “Next man up.” But having to say, “Next 28 men up” is asking a lot.
Guaranteed: Forty years from now, that team — the few, the proud, the Cougs — will meet for a Holiday Bowl reunion and they’ll remember that game as a life highlight. That is the kind of deep and meaningful connection that can be lost to those who hopscotch from school to school.
I doubt that Rogers was able to watch the post-game interviews with linebacker Kyle Thornton and receiver Kyle Williams. But he should check out the emotion on those guys’ faces from the videos.
Williams talked about the Cougar brotherhood and camaraderie, and that if he could go back, he’d do it all again at WSU. He didn’t say he’d cash in and transfer to a bigger program. He’d come back to Pullman.
Thornton said he couldn’t even find the words to express himself, but that the tears on his face would tell all anybody needed to know.
Those guys weren’t crying over lost NIL chances or missed portal openings. They weren’t just a bunch of muscular businessmen eager to get on the phones to their agents.
Those guys might have been saying the exact words of Mel Hein, Tuffy Ellingsen, or so many of the other Cougars through the eras.
That whole game for the Cougars felt like a reminder to the viewing public of what college football used to be, in a Field-of-Dreams kind of way. Maybe WSU should lean into this. If you build it, maybe those four-star recruits will come.
Sell that family environment. Sell the closeness. Promise a willingness to stick with kids as they develop. We’ll stay with you if you stay with us down the road.
If coaches can foster that connection, and tap into it, winning should take care of itself.
Anne McCoy, who took over as athletic director after Pat Chun quit Pullman for the University of Washington, seems to get the challenge.
Through the process of hiring David Riley to take over the men’s basketball team for the departed Kyle Smith, and then searching for Rogers, McCoy recognized how crucial it was to identify the people who really want to be at WSU. Coaches, players, whoever.
Most athletic directors have been cast in unenviable positions, forced to mine scarce resources in a madhouse environment. Running sports at WSU has always had challenges, and they’ve swerved up on the sidewalks a few times.
But Riley has jumped in and had an impressive start with the Cougar men’s basketball team. And Rogers’ resume is thin but with potential and strong recommendations.
If McCoy can go 2-0 in her first major-sports hires, she could be on her way to being an all-time Coug in her own right.
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