- Kirby Moore finally had something to say, and it wasn't about a tie
CORVALLIS, Ore. – After each of his Washington State team’s first five games of the season, Kirby Moore strode up to the postgame microphone and sounded neutral. He sounded the same after his group’s loss to Utah State and after its win over FCS Duquesne. He talked like a coach whose team had just played to a tie.
After WSU’s 48-30 loss to Oregon State here on Saturday night, the Cougars’ fourth straight loss, he talked like a coach who was furious. He was far more animated, much more visibly frustrated with the way things had unfolded. He had never shown so much emotion, low as the bar is for the usually vanilla Moore.
Here’s a sampling.
What did you think of Owen Eshelman’s play in his first start?
“We had a much better rhythm,” Moore said. “I thought the first couple drives we had some chances there didn’t execute, and then finding completions, obviously extending plays. Thought there was some tempo elements to the offense, and we gotta keep building on that.”
Do you wish you would have pivoted to him sooner in the season?
“We’re not looking in the rearview mirror,” Moore said. “We gotta keep building on where we’re at right now.”
Regardless of what you think of those answers , understand this: Moore had never looked so fired up after a game. He looked comfortable expressing both his likes and dislikes, looked confident in explaining his decisions, questionable as some were. He looked more like a head coach.
Pair that with his decision to bench Pinnick and roll with Eshelman and you wind up with this conclusion from Saturday’s game: WSU grew up. The Cougars entered their next chapter with this game. They started the right quarterback. Their coach is beginning to look and sound more like a guy who believes in his system.
It’s a significant development for WSU, even if it’s true that these things took too long to happen. Did coaches wait too long to start Eshelman? Probably. Did Moore take too long to sound so convicted? Also likely. But Moore is a first-time head coach, and these are lessons he had to learn at some point. Give him credit for being open enough to apply them midseason.
Moore almost certainly knows that he stuck with Pinnick for too long, same as he knows that it was a mistake to punt it away on two fourth-and-short situations around midfield, both of which immediately led to long Oregon State touchdowns. He didn’t acknowledge either after the game – it’s not fair to expect him to, given the way that would affect cohesion in the locker room – but you can see him learning the right lessons. That matters for the Cougs, even in what is turning into a lost season, now at 1-6 overall and 0-3 in Pac-12 play.
Here is his response to whether he regretted punting it on fourth-and-1 from the OSU 48, then punting again on fourth-and-3, both of which turned into OSU touchdowns on the very next play: “No, I’ve got a ton of confidence in our defense. Obviously, when you punt the ball and they have the ball inside their 15-yard line, you get a stop, you’ve got great field position. That didn’t happen. Give them credit. They’ve got good players. They executed and made plays.”
Two things can be true. One: Moore understands he should not have punted in those spots, and if a similar situation arises next weekend against Boise State, expect him to go for it. Two: He expressed confidence in his defense, which is key to keeping this season from going completely off the rails. Sometimes you just have to back your guys, even if it sounds silly to the rest of the world.
Now let’s get to Eshelman, who looked electric in his first career start, completing 32 of 49 passes for 289 yards, two touchdowns and one meaningless interception in the final seconds with the game out of reach. He also carried 15 times for 136 yards and one more score, earning the second-most rushing yards by a WSU QB in program history. If you didn’t know this was Eshelman’s first start, and your friend told you mid-game, you’d call them a liar.
As he made play after play, as he connected with Branden Ganashamoorthy for a 40-yard touchdown pass and as he glided 20 yards into the end zone in the second half, you might have had this thought: Why didn’t they go with Eshelman sooner? Why did they stick with Pinnick so long?
All of those thoughts are normal to feel, and heck, there’s probably some level of truth in them. Eshelman looked tremendous in this game. He aired it out for a long touchdown. He made a great read to score with his legs. He oozes talent and potential. The Cougars probably have one or two more wins with Eshelman at the controls.
Still, keep this in mind: Eshelman was not clearly WSU’s best quarterback coming out of fall camp. At that time, he looked less like a guy who could have pulled this off and more like a second-year freshman still learning the ropes of playing QB at the FBS level. Which was totally fine. Tons of quarterbacks aren’t ready to play at this stage of their careers.
During fall camp, Pinnick was pretty obviously the team’s best quarterback. He had some turnover problems, but because Eshelman didn’t look ready and because Julian Dugger didn’t pose enough threat with his arm, Pinnick felt like the right choice. That’s why it was no surprise when he was announced as such.
You can also squint and see the logic in rolling with him as long as Moore did. Pinnick looked static and turnover-prone in all six games he played, but as the struggles became clear and Moore took over playcalling duties ahead of the Utah State game, maybe coaches wanted to see how he looked with Moore calling plays. If he didn’t look any better, the thinking might have gone, pivot away from him then. That’s what coaches did.
Now, about that logic. Against FBS competition, Pinnick never really looked sharp. After he lost two turnovers in a 26-6 loss to Fresno State, it was probably time to bench him. At that point, it was clear that the opponent wasn’t the one causing Pinnick to play so poorly. It was his decision-making, his inability to stretch the field, his lack of willingness to even look at passes downfield, and all of that had a downstream effect on the Cougs’ offense. It hearkened back to the Paul Wulff days, which is not a conversation Moore wants to be in.
Besides, Moore isn’t paid to learn lessons. He’s paid to win games. He made a mistake riding with Pinnick for so long. Based on the results, Moore probably made a mistake pursuing Pinnick in the first place.
But these are things Moore was always going to have to take time to learn. As a first-time head coach, he was going to need to learn how to identify the right quarterback. He was going to need to learn when to pivot away from that guy. He was going to need to learn that, when you’re 1-5 and 18.5-point underdogs, you don’t punt it from midfield and take opportunities away from your new – and very capable – quarterback.
In hiring a first-time head coach, WSU brass implicitly acknowledged all of that, too.
With Eshelman at the controls, the complexion of the rest of this season changes a bit for the Cougars. They don’t look like a team that can beat Boise State next weekend, but they do look like one that can beat San Diego State, Colorado State, even Texas State on the road. Maybe they would be gunning for bowl eligibility in those games if they had gone to Eshelman sooner. But Eshelman is here now, and that’s the right call from Moore.
- Moore's offense showed some pulse, but the Cougs still left plays on the field
PULLMAN – The beginning of this Washington State season, the gauntlet the Cougars would see to open the Kirby Moore era, was always going to be difficult to parse. They faced three Power 4 teams in their first four games. Two were on the road. One came on a short week.
The Cougars were expected to come away from that stretch with one win and three losses. Thanks to a 34-24 setback to Arizona here on Saturday evening, WSU has fulfilled that much, which is not an indictment on these Cougars. But it does bring up the question that may define the rest of this season.
How many of the problems WSU’s offense is facing are a product of the stiff competition, and how many are the product of self-inflicted wounds that the Cougars would commit against the Pac-12 foes coming up?
We won’t know that much until conference play arrives when WSU hosts Fresno State next weekend, but the early returns on the Cougars’ offense are far from encouraging. Think about this stat, which is now official after Saturday’s game: In three games against FBS competition, WSU has produced three offensive touchdowns and committed six turnovers. The Cougars have lost seven total.
Moore’s team was expected to lose the games it has. It’s the way the Cougs’ offense is costing the team, though, that raises cause for concern.
“We gotta make sure we have a plan that everyone’s on the same page,” Moore said, “going from the half to the third quarter, especially in a tight game like that where our defense is battling, and we gotta find more ways to create explosive plays. We had them in the first quarter, in the first half, and had opportunities there to score even more. And then in the second half, we didn’t. So we gotta look at the film and see where we went wrong.”
In this one, WSU quarterback Caden Pinnick completed 24 of 41 passes for 241 yards, one touchdown and one interception, which came in the first quarter. If an Arizona defender hadn’t bobbled the ball later in the first half, Pinnick would have thrown two. Those were two costly decisions. Consider the other turnover Pinnick lost, a fumble that happened because he tried to throw the ball while being dragged down, and you start to see some of the poor decision-making that has led to Pinnick’s total turnover number this fall: four.
The reason that trend looms large for WSU: Pinnick is committing turnovers because of listless decisions, not because Power 4 athletes are making spectacular plays. Remember his interception last week against FCS Duquesne, when he threw into what became triple coverage downfield? Those are the kinds of poor decisions that have created such a gaping hole in the Cougars’ offense.
It would be one thing if Pinnick was playing a solid brand of football and a freak Power 4 defender, the kind that Arizona and Kansas State can afford, used his strength to jar the ball loose. That would be forgivable. But that’s not what’s happening. It may be Pinnick’s first season of FBS ball, but he has been too slow to differentiate a good decision from a bad one, especially when he’s looking to stretch the field vertically.
That raises a fair question: How can WSU coaches help Pinnick avoid those kinds of turnovers? How can they help Pinnick make better decisions, like in the third quarter, when he slid and gave himself up one yard short of a first down?
“We’re all in this together,” Moore said. “So it starts with me, obviously the offensive staff. Just having that dialogue with him, whether it’s in practice on the headset, reminders, making sure he knows exactly the stipulations, or even there on the third down. We ran the quarterback, he slides. That’s an unfortunate one. It’s a QB-designed run, and so we got to make sure he’s on the same page with that.”
The other problem the Cougars are facing is consistency. Their first drive in Saturday’s game, an 11-play, 71-yard scoring series, was nearly flawless. It ended when Pinnick took a QB keeper 11 yards into the end zone, following a string of perfect blocks, capping a perfect series. If that’s the way the Cougs were going to play in this one, well, the Wildcats should have been on their heels.
But WSU’s offense hardly looked the same after that. In the third quarter, the Cougs put up these numbers: 3 points, 149 total yards, 44 rushing yards, two three-and-outs, four punts and three sacks taken, giving Pinnick 10 sacks taken on the season. That opened the door for Arizona to turn a three-point deficit into a four-point lead, adding two more scoring drives in the fourth frame.
The Cougs can rebound from this. They showed what their offense can look like on that first series, and by showing an increased willingness to take shorter throws, Pinnick looks more than capable of making adjustments. But the biggest one he’ll have to make to avoid meeting the same fate against Pac-12 teams is more about trimming things out of his game.
He’ll have to make better decisions, better calls on when to try to stretch the ball down the field and when to be OK with checking it down. Fresno State’s defense figures to give him more opportunities to show that kind of acumen. But it’s on Pinnick, Moore and offensive coordinator Matt Miller to put themselves in a position where those changes don’t become just possible, they become probable.
“Give Arizona credit; they have a unique scheme,” Moore said. “So there was different variations of zone, whether it was inside, outside. Obviously, the quarterback pin-pull there we scored on in the first quarter. So there were some ID things there. Give them a ton of credit with how fast and hard those guys played. But we gotta have an answer as well with protecting the quarterback and having some more opportunities in the pass game.”
- Moore won't throw his QB under the bus after Utah State loss
PULLMAN – In his first 10 months on the job, Washington State coach Kirby Moore has made at least one thing crystal clear.
In public settings, he doesn’t want to single out his quarterback.
As the Cougars’ slow start to the season continues, reaching 1-5 after a surprising road loss to Utah State Friday night, Moore has demonstrated that he doesn’t want to talk about quarterback Caden Pinnick in specifics. When given the opportunity, he turns his answer into a referendum on his entire offense, addressing systemic issues rather than individuals.
Here’s a sample: In his postgame news conference on Friday, he was asked about his concern level with Pinnick, who has now lost seven turnovers and doesn’t look comfortable letting it fly in the pocket.
“Well, my concern level with the offense is we’re not scoring enough points,” said Moore, who called plays for the first time in Friday’s game, taking over those duties from offensive coordinator Matt Miller. “Yes, there’s a quarterback piece of that. There’s an offensive line piece of that. There’s a skill piece of that. There’s running backs. Making sure we’re seeing it how we saw it in practice. So all of that, we gotta work like heck to score more points.”
Moore was not wrong at all. The Cougars committed 13 penalties for 113 yards. Outside of running back Leo Pulalasi’s 54-yard touchdown sprint in the second quarter, they generated only 23 rushing yards on 18 carries from their running back trio. And thanks to left tackle Ashton Tripp’s ankle injury in the first quarter, things got even shakier up front in WSU’s pre-snap operations.
But as WSU prepares for its next game, a road test against surging Oregon State next weekend, the questions are only going to grow louder around Pinnick.
Here are three thoughts from WSU’s loss to Utah State.
1. Coaches may not have any choice but to move away from Pinnick
At this point, Moore and Miller may not have much choice but to pivot away from Pinnick and start a new quarterback against Oregon State, whether it’s redshirt freshman Owen Eshelman or redshirt sophomore Julian Dugger.
In Friday’s game, Pinnick completed 23 of 36 passes … for just 156 yards. He did not complete a single pass further than 9 yards downfield, according to Pro Football Focus, highlighting one of his main weaknesses: He either can’t or won’t stretch the field vertically. The only times he looked further downfield included when Utah State had jumped offsides, offering a free play, and one key miss (more on that in a moment).
That paves the way for the stat that paints this picture best: Pinnick is now one of just two quarterbacks in the country to attempt at least 150 passes and total less than 1,000 yards. The other is Middle Tennessee’s Roman Gagliano. In other words, Pinnick is having little trouble completing passes, but never further than about 9 yards, which has hampered the Cougars’ offense in huge ways.
Pinnick did look sharper in the first half, though. He played his game, completing short routes and letting his playmakers do their thing, including a nice juke and run from tight end Trey Leckner in his second game back from injury. He made shrewd reads, including when to bail from the pocket and run upfield, doing so for a couple first downs.
But in the second half, Pinnick was simply missing throws. His biggest miss came in the third frame, when he dropped back and spotted a wide open Pulalasi, who had nothing but green grass ahead of him. But Pinnick couldn’t deliver an accurate throw and it fell incomplete.
How can the Cougars solve that problem? Pinnick has provided a six-game sample of his abilities, so there may not be a way other than making a change at quarterback. On Friday, they did give one snap to Dugger, who carved out a 5-yard gain, underscoring his strengths on the ground. But to unlock a more compelling passing attack, they might consider Eshelman, whose arm talent could do just that.
“There (were) plays for Julian,” Moore said. “Obviously, Owen had more reps in practice this week. The first half, I thought Caden did a nice job of moving the ball. We just didn’t finish there in the red zone.”
Would either of those quarterbacks perform meaningfully better? It’s impossible to know, but it’s becoming clear that the Cougars’ offense might not be able to improve as currently constructed.
2. The Cougars have to be better in their pre-snap operation
To Moore’s point, WSU’s offensive issues were hardly limited to just the quarterback. Ten of the Cougars’ 13 penalties came on offense, including five holding penalties, several of which wiped out key plays.
But WSU’s pre-snap penalties were killer, too. The Cougs were whistled for three false starts and one delay of game penalty, which came in the second quarter, right after the Aggies were called for unsportsmanlike conduct. Pinnick and the WSU offense were coming off a dead ball, a penalty situation. And the Cougs couldn’t get their play off in time.
For WSU, it didn’t help that in the first quarter, left tackle Ashton Tripp went down with what Moore called a “pretty good ankle sprain.” He was out for the rest of the game, so in came Washington transfer Maximus McCree, whose lack of playing time seemed curious earlier in the season. He acquitted himself well as a blocker, but he was also dinged for two false start penalties, the first of which led to a field goal from Jack Stevens and the second of which later resulted in a punt.
Earlier in the game, after Pinnick took a late-hit penalty as he slid to the ground, the Cougars had more pre-snap chaos. With about five seconds on the play clock, Pinnick tried to change the play, leading three receivers to move around. That happened far too late in the play clock, forcing WSU to burn a timeout.
3. Jack Stevens is fully back
It’s officially safe to say: Jack Stevens is still the same guy who delivered an incredible 2025 campaign. He has now connected on six straight field goals, including three in Friday’s game, his longest a 50-yarder – the second straight game he’s connected from 50 yards, tying his career-long.
Stevens, who has put his 1-for-5 start in the past to deliver a 7-for-12 mark on the year, is back as a real weapon for this WSU offense. Things weren’t always his fault earlier in the year – he had two field goals blocked, one of which was a product of a missed block on the offensive line – but he did look shaky.
Now he looks consistent and confident, two of the best traits a kicker can possess. In a WSU offense that is still scuffling, averaging just 12.6 points per game, Stevens could play a key role if the Cougars can find a way to turn things around.
