Can the Washington State football team be successful during the new era of NIL and the transfer portal?
Absolutely, Washington State football coach Jake Dickert told The Seattle Times earlier this month.
“Is it an obstacle or an opportunity?” said Dickert, who begins his second full season as the Cougars’ head coach with 15 spring practices, starting Tuesday. “Everyone on the outside is looking at it as an obstacle, but from inward out it has to be an opportunity. That doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges. That doesn’t mean we’re always going to have the best facility or the most NIL (money), but we can do it our way. But we’ve got to be actively involved in every level of what we do.
“I’ve always been the underdog. I think Washington State, in general, maybe has always been the underdog. It hasn’t changed, right? So what, there’s challenges. Let’s attack those challenges. Let’s bond together and let’s get it done.”
Among the challenges this offseason were replacing both coordinators and key players at many positions — some who graduated and others who transferred.
That said, Dickert is bullish on his team. Quarterback Cameron Ward, whom Dickert said has NFL-level talent, is back. So are star edge rushers Ron Stone Jr. and Brennan Jackson, returning for a sixth season.
The Cougars are coming off back-to-back 7-6 seasons that ended with bowl losses, and Dickert wants “to take that next step as a program.”
“So we’ve got to come out of spring feeling very comfortable that it’s not a restart,” Dickert said. “I’ve told that a lot to the coaches: ‘This is not a restart, this is a step forward.’ So these 15 practices, we’ve got to maximize every moment out there.”
Navigating the new world of college football
The Cougars have had 19 players enter the transfer portal since the end of the regular season. Many were deep reserves, but there were also key losses, including Jarrett Kinsgton, a three-year starter on the offensive line, linebackers Francisco Mauigoa and Travion Brown and receivers De’Zhaun Stribling and Donovan Ollie.
“A lot of those kids needed to go somewhere because they needed to play and I fully support that,” Dickert said. “But I think in today’s world, you’re probably always going to have surprises, whether it’s us or Alabama, so you’ve got to make sure you’re adaptable enough to overcome those things. But I think to lose a position group you’re counting on being there in the first week of December, has extreme challenges for all of us, not just Washington State.”
As Dickert said, the transfer portal “is a two-way street.” WSU has added several new players from the portal, and Ward was among those added before last season.
A new factor for players considering leaving is money from NIL (name, image and likeness) deals. Can WSU, in a small college town, compete with other universities when it comes to NIL money?
“That’s the question, right?” Dickert said. “What the NIL has created, probably has been a benefit to universities in big metropolitan areas. That’s probably easy to say. … I can go out there and talk to our people about what everybody else is doing and the numbers will blow people away. Or we can say, ‘This is what we need to do, the hard, tough, gritty way that Cougars have always done it.’ “
There has long been a “once a Cougar, always a Cougar” mentality among players — and all students — at WSU. The transfer portal and NIL threaten that.
“I think Coug passion and pride is very important to our people,” Dickert said. “That stems through loyalty and I think that’s a challenge we all face.”
Dickert said recruiting players from the Northwest, who understand what it means to be a Cougar, has become more important.
That, Dickert said, might mean taking a player from the Northwest with a little less talent than a player from elsewhere because “the kid loves it here, the family loves it here and he wants to be here.”
Working in two new coordinators
It was quite a December for Dickert, who juggled recruiting, preparing his team for a bowl game and working on replacing his offensive and defensive coordinators.
“I had almost every head coaching situation happen in year one, right?” Dickert said with a laugh.
The new offensive coordinator is Ben Arbuckle, who will also coach the quarterbacks. He spent the past two seasons at Western Kentucky, serving as co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for an offense that ranked sixth in the nation in total offense at 497.3 yards per game.
Dickert said one of the questions he gets most often from fans is if the passing offense will be more aggressive after so many passes behind or near the line of scrimmage under previous offensive coordinator Eric Morris.
“With coach Arbuckle, one of the biggest things was an opportunity to bring in somebody new to maybe find a little bit different vision,” Dickert said. “At Western Kentucky, they led the country in 20-plus-yard passes. That and some more max protection as we’re taking shots down the field are elements of his package that he’s brought in.
“We still will throw bubble screens and that will still be part of our RPO (run-pass option) package. But the volume of it? We’ll see, and we’ve got to get better in that phase too. I’m excited with what coach Arbuckle has brought in systematically and I think that solves a lot of those questions and those problems.”
Jeff Schmedding, a Spokane native who played at Eastern Washington, is the new defensive coordinator — and linebackers coach — after spending last season as the defensive coordinator at Auburn.
Dickert said the plan is to keep 80% of the previous scheme, “and another 20% of it will be new and (Schmedding) putting his spin on it.”
“I think a fresh set of eyes that’s outside of our system has been a big positive.” Dickert said. “I think you’ll see some multiple-front stuff — we’ve been four down (linemen) to the core. I think you’ll still see some of our same pressure packages, but there’ll be new twists and turns and techniques. … I think he’s brought a bit more of an attacking mindset on base downs that I think can be a positive thing.”
How it all comes together on both sides of the ball for WSU, is the question.
“Coach (John Stiegelmeier) at South Dakota State used to say it takes a coaching staff three years to get fully on the same page,” Dickert said. “I tell our guys, we don’t have three years. … The urgency of the coaching staff to jell is probably more important than you would say in a Year 2 with the same staff.”
Can QB Cam Ward and offense take step forward?
Ward transferred to Washington State amid great fanfare after two fantastic seasons at FCS Incarnate Word. But it was an up-and-down year for both Ward and the WSU offense in 2022.
The Cougars averaged 26.1 points a game, ranked 80th among 131 FBS teams, and it was the fewest points the Cougars have averaged since 2022.
“There was a lot of buzz with (Ward) coming in, a lot of excitement coming in and I’m still completely excited about Cam’s future,” Dickert said. “Cam is focused on what he needs to do to get better. There’s mechanical things he has worked his tail off in the offseason to get in sync.”
Dickert said Ward had taken a big step forward as a leader and that he understands “the two most scrutinized people in our program will be me and him.”
That said, Ward needs help from his offensive teammates. Dickert said he believes with the addition of a few transfers, the wide receiver position is more athletic.
Dickert also expects a step forward from the offensive line, which had a tough time protecting Ward last season.
“I know he got sacked 46 times last season, and if he wasn’t Cam Ward, that number would’ve been 60,” Dickert said. “There’s harnessing that talent, there’s playing within our scheme, but there’s also helping him in multiple different ways. I’m absolutely excited about what Cam is going be able to do in Year 2.”
The two who stayed lead the defense
Dickert said it meant a lot to the team — and to him personally — that Jackson and Stone returned.
Both are three-year starters, and both were second-team all-Pac-12 last season. Stone was first-team all-conference in 2021.
“I feel very strongly where we’re at on the defensive line, and that’s a comforting feeling for any defensive coach,” Dickert said, “Obviously, (Stone and Jackson) anchor that unit. I think they’re ready to take off and finish what they started.
“Those guys are really valuable to me personally because when I got here in 2020 (as the defensive coordinator), they were part of the change agents of what we needed to do to get better on defense. We took over a defense that was very below grade, so I’m proud of those guys.”
Dickert said replacing Armani Marsh at nickel back is the biggest question in the secondary, but he expects the unit to be improved overall.
Dickert said he believes junior cornerback Chau-Smith Wade is an NFL talent and he said redshirt sophomore Jaden Hicks “is undoubtedly one of the best safeties I’ve personally ever seen — and I’ve coached some that are in the NFL right now — and he’s going to be a superstar.”
The big question is linebacker. WSU lost star Daiyan Henley to graduation, but also Mauigoa and Brown.
“We feel great with the guys that we’ve got coming in, but it’s like adding a bunch of freshmen again,” Dickert said. “We’ve got to teach them and that’ll be a big position as we go throughout spring.”
Keys to success
Dickert looks at the schedule as 12 one-game seasons, with the goal being 1-0 each week. Not even privately does he predict overall wins.
“Why put a ceiling on it?” he said.
Dickert said he goes into each week thinking the team will be 1-0. He said the Cougars have what it takes for success, and the key is not beating themselves with mistakes.
“There is the reality of what each team needs to do to win games,” Dickert said. “Ours is being grittier. Ours is not turning the ball over. Ours is eliminating explosive plays. There’s benchmarks we set out that we have to hit to win. We’ve chosen to focus on those things more than the outcome. If we do those things, you’ll get the result you want.”