WSU coach Mike Leach hasn't had miracle cure for Cougars' problems

Originally published October 9, 2014 at 4:57 PM | Page modified October 9, 2014 at 8:51 PM

STANFORD, Calif. - This week, in a synopsis reflecting the parity-on-steroids state of the Pac-12, The Los Angeles Times made reference to Washington State as 'the worst team.'

Is this where the Cougars are - precisely at the 2½-year mark of the Mike Leach regime at WSU - the Pac-12's worst team?

That's a bit of a harsh verdict while Colorado is still in the league, but certainly after a controversial, hand-wringing 60-59 defeat against California, the Cougars look like prime contenders for last in the Pac-12 North unless they can reverse the course of their perplexing 2014 season, starting Friday night at Stanford.

It's been one of those years: Hitting and missing in a league without tomato cans, youth exposed, offensive bursts and defensive busts, and seemingly at just the imperfect time, the wayward officiating call.

Leach, 11-20 at WSU and 2-4 in 2014, is making $2.75 million a year and the Cougars are bearing down on their 11th consecutive nonwinning season (albeit with a bowl game in 2013). Next year, they'll be operating with an inexperienced quarterback.

My guess is, if Leach were being honest, he'd tell you this assignment is far tougher than the one he inherited at Texas Tech, where he went to 10 bowls in 10 seasons. That Big 12 had Kansas, Baylor when Baylor was dreadful, and three other programs that, in at least two of Leach's first four seasons in Lubbock, each had losing records.

Fans are understandably put off by the Cougars' seeming inability to manage a close game (Colorado, 2012; Colorado State, 2013), something that bit them against Cal. But I'm not sure you can tag Leach with that one because Connor Halliday inexplicably burned WSU's last timeout, shortening the options before the missed field goal with 15 seconds left.

So this week, Leach fired the hitting coach - uh, the special-teams coach - and some think he shouldn't have stopped there. But the defense, helpless as it was against the Bears, hasn't been uniformly poor. It wasn't the reason WSU lost to Nevada, it sacked Oregon's Marcus Mariota seven times, and it limited Utah to 357 yards.

The state of the Cougars is more easily assessed, big picture, by going back to the 2010 and 2011 recruiting classes under Paul Wulff, those that would now be fourth- and fifth-year foundational pieces.

There are only 15 such players remaining. At Washington, Chris Petersen has 25 players from recruiting years 2010-11.

Wulff's 2011 class was the dictionary definition of a staff trying to save its job. It included four high-school players who didn't make grades and five JC guys whose contribution was mostly negligible. Wulff left Leach a couple of good quarterbacks, a few capable receivers, some help here and there (including future All-American safety Deone Bucannon) but shockingly little in the trenches.

The older heads around WSU, then, are the remains from those two classes, plus the recruiting class Leach and Co. was able to cobble together in 2012, two months after getting hired.

The rest is youth, and WSU likes to advertise the fact it has debuted 23 players this year, on the high side in the Pac-12 (two other third-year programs, UCLA and Arizona, have 16 and 14, respectively. Cal has a startling 41).

Dismissed assistant Eric Russell was surely victimized in part by the manpower and youth issues, which might be expected to show up on special teams.

Meanwhile, it's become staggering that WSU hasn't won the turnover battle in its past nine games. The Cougars are unquestionably tougher and more resilient under Leach, but assuming takeaways are heavily a function of physical play and athleticism, there's another window into the struggles.

And in a season becoming star-crossed, there's also the zebra factor. The Cougars saw some inept work from a Mountain West crew at Nevada, they suffered from a late, critical no-call of pass interference against Oregon, and against Cal, Gerard Wicks might have scored a touchdown two plays before the botched field goal.

But the run didn't merit a review. Pac-12 replay refs can lollygag over five second-half reviews, but they can conclude in the 19.8 seconds (I timed it) between the end of Wicks' run and the next snap that it's not a touchdown?

'The fact of the matter is that (athletic director Bill Moos) thought he was hitting a home run with the Leach hire,' a reader emailed me this week, 'and it has been more like a sharp single into the gap that might be a leg double.'

Barring a late-inning rally, WSU fans are bunkered down with some sobering realities: The program's ills ran deep. And Mike Leach was no miracle drug.

Bud Withers: 206-464-8281 or bwithers@seattletimes.com

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