FanHouse WsuFootball

While Alex Brink continues to rack up the passing yards on a weekly basis, a crucial element to the WSU offense has fallen off the face of the earth: the running game. In what is considered a staple of the modern version of the Dennis Erickson-Mike Price one-back offense, WSU has emphasized balance in recent years as a key to offensive success. And in the Bill Doba era, which has seen Mike Levenseller and Timm Rosenbach design the offense and call the plays, the offense has been running at nearly a 50-50 run-pass ratio. But this year? Forget it. The balance has completely disappeared in 2007, and the trend is becoming a big worry for WSU.

Right now, the offense is averaging just 3.6 yards per carry. That's good for 108.6 yards per game, which places them ninth in the Pac-10. That's ok, you say, WSU still leads the conference in passing yards per game at just a shade under 300, so big deal. Well, it is a big deal because WSU's offense needs that balance to be successful. Alex Brink is who he is, a solid player who is at his best when he has a strong running attack behind him. But force Alex into 2nd or 3rd and long, and like any QB in the nation, it's a whole different deal. But to really put that 108.6 rushing yards per game in proper perspective, you must realize that it is the lowest per-game average in the Bill Doba era. But the further you go back, the worse it gets. Going back to 1997, 108.6 is the lowest yards per game over that span. The second-worst rushing mark is 114 yards, turned in by a dreadful 1999 team, a team so bad that Mike Price dubbed himself the "King of Poop Island".

It's even worse when you look at just the last couple of years to see how important the WSU running game actually is to wins and losses. Late last year the season fell apart in a three-game losing streak, as WSU struggled vs. Arizona, ASU and UW. In the Arizona and ASU losses, the Cougars were held under 100 yards rushing. In both losses they were held to under two yards per carry. In the season finale against UW, they did barely crack the 100-yard mark at 102 yards, but it came on just 3.3 yards per carry. That's even worse than the 3.6 yards per carry they are averaging this year.

You hate to get too excited over a player with just two career starts under his belt. But it's hard to ignore what WSU's Andy Mattingly is starting to do at WSU. Mattingly, a true sophomore, got his first start at outside linebacker vs. ASU two games ago, and thus far has made a tremendous impact as a starter. Mattingly totaled four sacks, five tackles for loss among 17 total stops in his first start vs. ASU, a game where WSU's defense played one of it's best games of the season. They hung tough for four quarters before falling to the unbeaten Sun Devils on a missed field goal in the waning moments.

The following week, WSU was flat-out embarrassed by Oregon, but you can't lay the blame at Mattingly's feet for that one. He held his own, with two more sacks. That makes six sacks in just a two-game span as a starter, an impressive total that is one of the best two-game totals in recent WSU history. He's already tied for third in the conference with the six sacks, just one-and-a-half behind conference leader Nick Reed of Oregon. And his nine tackles for loss this year is already good for second in the Pac-10.

This week, Mattingly has caught the eye of the local scribes, as he's been featured in several stories, including Cougfan.com, the Seattle Times, and a detailed background story in the Tacoma News Tribune. The News Tribune story went into his training with older brother Chris, a specialist in hand-to-hand combat in the US Army. Andy spent a couple of weeks in 2006 at Fort Benning, GA, learning jujitsu from Chris. The training appears to be paying off on the football field:

"When you're battling with offensive linemen and trying to get in there, the quick hands help get them off you," Andy said. "And it also helps in the aggressiveness and toughness aspect when you're getting hit in the face and stuff."

The 2007 season has been a titanic disaster for WSU. Now 2-5 after a 53-7 embarrassment of epic proportions at Oregon, WSU takes the week off to try and regroup. But not only are the natives restless, even the media is starting to sound the alarms that this should be the end of the Bill Doba reign in Pullman.

First it was Howie Stalwick, freelance journalist who covers WSU for various publications, saying that with WSU sinking every week and no real end in sight, the end is near. Then WSU alum and P-I writer Jim Moore added on yesterday, alluding to how you can basically feel it in the air, that Doba's run out of time and most likely it will end upon the completion of the season.

Maybe the most damaging of all was Bud Withers of the Seattle Times writing last week about the disastrous recruiting under Bill Doba's watch. How bad has it been? Basically Doba and staff have whiffed on over 50% of the players they signed on letter-of-intent day from 2003 - 2005. What I mean by whiff is that over 50% of the players who signed on the dotted line aren't even in the program anymore. Poor recruiting has led to a shaky position in regards to depth, where many backups are far too young, inexperienced and just not very good Pac-10 level players. WSU is traditionally a thin program anyway, but when the recruiting is this bad, it's almost impossible to compete with the power programs in the Pac-10.

While simply getting a victory this Saturday at Oregon is the top focus for WSU, this is also a homecoming of sorts for QB Alex Brink. Brink hails from Eugene, and was passed over by Oregon, Oregon State, and even the rest of the Pac-10 before committing to Boise State. He then changed his mind and accepted an offer from WSU, and the rest as they say is history. But while Brink acknowledges the homecoming, he's more worried about the final outcome this week:

"It's certainly an opportunity I've been looking forward to my entire career ... but we need to win a football game bad. That's first and foremost," Brink said Tuesday.

Last week saw some history in that Alex Brink has now become the all-time leading passer in WSU history. Players like Jack Thompson, Mark Rypien, Timm Rosenbach, Drew Bledsoe, Ryan Leaf and now Jason Gesser are all looking up at Brink's career passing yards. Brink topped Gesser last Saturday vs. ASU, and now has over 8,900 yards passing. With seven games still on the schedule, it's not out of the question that Brink will surpass the 10,000-yard plateau before it's all said and done.

Last year, Brink was excellent against Oregon, as the Cougars upset the 16th-ranked Ducks in Pullman. Brink set a school record for completion percentage, going 20-for-23 through the air. But yet, there's a somewhat hollow feeling to Brink's flashy numbers. It's always been a bit of a controversy with Alex Brink and the WSU faithful, where for reasons that would take weeks to explain he hasn't exactly been Mr. Popular. Whether it's fair or not, he bares the blunt of the blame for a failure to return the program to postseason play during his time as the starting QB. But it's very difficult not to be appreciative of what Brink has achieved, despite the fact that he's only had one non-losing season and the team is currently sitting at 2-4. But this is really nothing new, at any school in America. The QB and also the head coach will always be front and center in the blame game, and that view isn't likely to change anytime soon.

Through the first five games of 2007, it's hard to find a defense that's played much worse than WSU. Last in the Pac-10 in scoring defense, total defense, and passing defense among the major categories, a program that used to pride itself on playing fast and aggressive has turned into a passive group lacking experience and, most of all, confidence.

It's gotten so bad, this defense ranked "in the hundreds" among the nation's teams, that even the few productive players on defense are going to be replaced. Newcomers Alfonso Jackson and Kendrick Dunn, two of the top tacklers on the team, are both out this week after suffering injuries last week vs. Arizona. So changes are in fact coming for this beleagured group, but sadly, it's not really even by choice. At least four new starters will be in the lineup Saturday when WSU hosts ASU. Among the new starters is junior defensive tackle A'i Ahmu (pictured), a player who's battled stress fractures in his foot for the last year. Ahmu will start in place of senior Aaron Johnson. But at least Ahmu has a few starts under his belt, even if it is just a few. The rest of the new faces, led by safeties Christian Bass, Xavier Hicks and linebacker Andy Mattingly, will all be making their starting debuts this weekend.

But the seeds of what we are seeing today were planted last year, when the WSU defense lost so many productive players. The Cougars lost five of their top seven tacklers from 2006, including all-conference safety Eric Frampton and all-conference defensive end Mkristo Bruce. They even lost starting corner Tyron Brackenridge, who was last seen scoring a touchdown for the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday. In other words, this defense was already a thin, inexperienced unit before they ever lined up for the 2007 season. When you look at everything as a whole, the results thus far aren't exactly a shock. But what it does show is that WSU has come up short in terms of recruiting defensive talent. A lot of painful lessons are surely on the horizon when you realize that ASU, Oregon, and Cal, along with their athletic, dynamic offenses, are still on the schedule. In other words, if you can fathom it, it's probably going to get worse before it gets better.

So much for wearing a life jacket and wading into the shallow end of the pool. Bill Doba is instead grabbing his young WSU defense by the back of the neck and tossing them off the diving board. The head coach and defensive coordinator is taking the tough-love route with his fresh young faces, as the Cougars will start three newcomers in the secondary as WSU gets set to take on Wisconsin at Camp Randall.

The scary part for Coug fans? Two of the newcomers couldn't be any "newer" at one of the toughest positions to play in a BCS conference. That's right, Doba has chosen to start a true frosh in Chima Nwachukwu at one corner spot, and JC transfer Devin Giles at the other. Chima is thought of as a rising prospect, and clearly had a fine camp by passing the upper class-men ahead of him on the depth chart (for sake of spelling errors, we'll just go with Chima this year). He's earned the right to start based on what coaches have seen thus far. But it's hard to envision a true freshman coming in and excelling right away. It might be a feat if he can simply tread water and not get beat too badly. But Doba certainly has confidence in the young prospect who has played on a big high school stage:

Nwachukwu is from Allen, Texas, and Doba said big-time high-school football in Texas has prepared him to step into pressure situations. Doba said Allen High School has a 50-yard indoor practice facility, a 15,000-seat stadium, 17 assistant coaches and a football-program receptionist.

"It's a different type of intensity," Doba said, comparing it to other high-school programs.

Giles may be a JC guy, but he didn't even play football last year, instead taking a redshirt and running track at Coffeyville JC in '06. The third new face in the secondary is JC transfer Alonzo Jackson. At least Jackson played JC football last year at Blinn College, and has shown the WSU coaches a lot thus far in camp. However Terry Mixon, the five-star JC recruit thought to be a starter immediately at strong safety when he signed with the Cougars, has battled weight and injury issues since the beginning of camp. That opened the door for Jackson, so he will get the start.

WSU finally filled the void in their secondary yesterday, agreeing to terms with David Walkosky of Toledo. Walkosky, a four-year letter winner in his playing days at Toledo, has spent a good portion of his coaching career at his alma mater, coaching linebackers beginning in 1999. While coming all the way to Pullman from Toledo might raise a few eyebrows for an Ohio-grown guy like Walkosky, it sounds like the opportunity to coach in a BCS conference was too good to pass up:

"It's a great opportunity for me," Walkosky said. "To be able to coach in the Pac-10 and being able to work with Coach Doba, that's great. I've heard a lot about him for a long time and he has a great reputation as a defensive coach.

"The way I look at it, there is a chance to work with a great head coach, excellent assistant coaches and at a place that has an opportunity to win. It's all that I could ask for."

The bonus for WSU is that Walkosky happens to know a thing or two about special teams, an area in 2006 that the Cougars were, well, I guess dreadful comes to mind. They were ranked as the worst coverage units in the Pac-10 last year, and clearly a new approach is needed. So while Walkosky is mainly in Pullman to fill the shoes of secondary Ken Greene, special teams are going to get an overdue makeover.

Speaking of the departed Ken Greene, still no official word regarding his departure, other than he resigned to pursue other opportunities. The P-I's Jim Moore tried to get something out of Doba and company at a recent golf outing, but simply got the company line. Maybe the most interesting thing about this hire is that Walkosky isn't a former WSU player and has zero ties to the Cougars. The trend of late has been for WSU to hire assistants who had ties to the school, including the recently hired running backs coach and former Cougar great Steve Broussard. But as Doba said, maybe it was time for a new approach:

"Maybe we need some fresh blood, some new ideas," he said.

One thing is certain. Given the lack of depth and experience in the secondary, which is looking like the biggest weakness on the entire football team, and the woeful special teams, the new guy should be pretty busy from day one!

Previously in the FanHouse

WSU Cans Secondary Coach Greene

With the 2007 spring football session now officially in the rear-view mirror, it's time to look back on the last month of work, and more importantly, look ahead at what needs to be done before the Cougars open the 2007 season.

The overall assessment thus far is that the defense is the side of the ball that needs the most work. Gone are six senior starters from last year's team, including three out of four in the secondary, highlighted by NFL hopeful and All-Pac-10 selection Eric Frampton; two out of the three starting linebackers, led by three-year starters Steve Dildine and Scott Davis; and the best defensive end in many years at WSU, All-Pac-10 selection Mkristo Bruce.

That's a lot of talent and experience to replace, and to be realistic, it's going to take some time before things fully settle down on defense. Youth and inexperience generally means a lot of mistakes early, although to hear Bill Doba tell it, he's going to do his best to keep things as simple as possible so as to not confuse the young players, but it's still likely to be a bumpy ride early on. The discouraging thing is that the secondary in particular appears far from settled, to the point that Doba made reference to players that weren't even on campus yet completely in the mix for the starting nod at both cornerback positions. JC transfer Terry Mixon has looked promising - on film anyway - as a safety, but Doba has already said he'll get a long look at corner once he shows up this summer. Others mentioned include cornerbacks China Nwachukwu, Tyrone Justin, Devin Giles and Romeo Pellum. If this were a conference that loves to run the ball 75% of the time, it wouldn't be in the end of the world, but in the Pac-10? Not what you'd call a recipe for success. Green corners generally get their lunch handed to them, and it often times takes a JC transfer a good half of a season to get comfortable with their new teammates, coaches and just playing on a much higher level than they are used to, so the break-in period can be just as rough on juniors as it is freshman.