PULLMAN - Washington State’s offensive line has not been the main reason the Cougars’ offense has sputtered, but it hasn’t been able to rescue it, either.
That’s the tricky reality sitting under WSU’s 1-4 start and its 11.8 points per game, a number that ranks No. 130 nationally. Quarterback Caden Pinnick has taken plenty of heat for the mess, and the numbers back up a lot of it: he’s thrown an interception in all five games and has committed six of the Cougars’ nine total turnovers. With a Friday night trip to Utah State on deck, coach Kirby Moore is taking over playcalling in an effort to shake the offense loose, and he also sounded open to changes at quarterback, with redshirt sophomore Julian Dugger and redshirt freshman Owen Eshelman in the mix.
“Everyone’s gonna get reps,” Moore said. “I think that’s the most important thing.
Everyone’s gotta make the reps count. We’ll see where it’s at on Friday, and we’ll play ball.”
Still, the offensive line deserves a closer look, because the story there is more layered than the sack total suggests. Ashton Tripp, the 6-foot-7 left tackle from Kennewick, has been one of the steadier pieces up front, but the rest of the group has been shuffled since WSU’s road loss to Kansas State last month.
Since then, the Cougars have lined up with Tripp at left tackle, Jonny Lester at left guard, Noah Dunham at center, Nick Bakken at right guard and Jaylin Caldwell at right tackle. That alignment came after Kyle Martin was benched, which moved Lester back to left guard, where he started last season, and brought Caldwell off the bench to the right side. Earlier this year, Lester had been at right tackle.
There could still be more movement coming. Moore has said every part of the offense is under review, and that leaves the door open for veteran tackle Maximus McCree, a former Washington starter who arrived in January with plenty of buzz but has not yet played a snap for WSU.
The Fresno State loss last weekend offered another harsh snapshot of the offense’s issues. Pinnick was sacked five times in a 26-6 defeat, pushing his season total to 18, which ranks No. 129 among 138 FBS teams.
But Pro Football Focus charged the offensive line with only three of those sacks, meaning Pinnick was blamed for the other two. That fits the broader picture: too often, the quarterback has held the ball too long, drifted into pressure or gotten himself into trouble.
PFF’s QB-fault pressures stat tells that story even more starkly. Pinnick leads the country with 10 QB-fault sacks, a glaring sign that some of the damage has been self-inflicted rather than created by the protection in front of him.
That doesn’t make the line spotless. It just means the blame gets shared.
Dunham has been the least culpable for pressures among the front five, with only 9% of the pressures Pinnick has faced coming from his assignments. He also owns the line’s best pass-blocking grade at 65.9 and has allowed only six pressures total.
The heaviest pressure has come from the right side. Bakken and Caldwell have each been tied to about 22% of the pressures, while Lester sits at the same rate. Tripp’s share is lowest at 17%.
The run game hasn’t offered much relief, either. In the second half against Fresno State, tailbacks Maxwell Woods, Kirby Vorhees and Leo Pulalasi combined for only five carries, and Moore said this week that getting them more involved has to be part of the answer.
Lester has been WSU’s best run-blocker up front with a 74.6 grade, well above average. Caldwell follows at 61.1, then Bakken at 60.1, Dunham at 55.3 and Tripp at 51.6. Lester, Dunham and Tripp were all recruited for an offense much closer to the old Air Raid than the system the Cougars are running now, and that mismatch has been part of the adjustment.
For Tripp, though, the message is simple.
“It’s just all about us. I just keep coming back to it,” Tripp said.
“We gotta just keep doing more. We gotta keep working, keep doing extra stuff, get the guys together, and we gotta start clicking.”
In Other News...
Washington State Needs Answers Fast In A Game That Could Reset Everything
Washington State heads into Saturday needing something closer to a clean reset than a simple bounce-back. At 1-4, the Cougars are staring at a conference game against Utah State that carries an early-season weight neither side expected, with both teams still chasing their first league win. Kirby Moore is expected to stick with Caden Pinnick at quarterback, and the bigger question around Pullman is how much the offense can be tweaked to give him a better chance to settle in.
Utah State brings its own urgency and its own plan, likely leaning on Grady Brosterhous under center while trying to make life difficult for Pinnick. The Aggies have a pass rush piece in Matyus McLain who has begun to show real disruption off the edge, and Washington State will have to sort out protection quickly if it wants this game to look less like a stress test and more like a turn in the right direction. [Read more 🡒]
Washington State Faces A Harsh Offensive Question Heading Into Utah State
Washington States offense has been searching for answers for weeks, and the pressure is only growing as the Cougars head toward a visit from Utah State. The recent loss to Fresno State underscored how hard it has been for this group to generate consistent production, and the teams position near the bottom of the early-season Pac-12 picture reflects how much work still remains after a difficult first month.
Kirby Moore has now taken over play-calling duties, a clear sign the Cougars are trying to reset before the next chance to salvage momentum. The challenge is familiar enough by this point: get the offense stabilized, find some rhythm and give a 1-4 team a reason to believe there is still a path forward before the schedule puts even more strain on every possession. [Read more 🡒]
Washington State Is Leaning On One Captain After A Frustrating Loss
After a frustrating loss to Fresno State, Washington State leaned on one of its most steady voices in Kaden Beatty. The interior tackle and team captain has long been one of the programs most visible leaders, the kind of player who handles media availability and promotional duties because of his communication skills as much as his role on the field.
Beattys postgame remarks fit that profile. He spoke candidly about what went wrong and made clear the Cougars need sharper play across the board, not just from one side of the ball or one position group. For a team trying to reset quickly, having a captain willing to address the disappointment head-on matters almost as much as the corrections that follow. [Read more 🡒]