- Moore to Cougs after Fresno dud: The noise is fair, the fix is on us
PULLMAN – At some point in the Gesa Field locker room, not long after his Washington State team managed just six points in an anemic loss to Fresno State on Saturday evening, Kirby Moore got his players together and left them with a message.
“We talked about, naturally, there’s gonna be noise, and rightfully so,” Moore said. “We gotta have a better product on the field. We all agree that we’re a better football team than that. The leadership group’s gotta step up, and the only way I know how to improve is to go back to work.”
Plenty of that will be in order for the Cougars, who are now 1-4 overall and 0-1 in Pac-12 play to begin Moore’s tenure. With this 26-6 setback, WSU’s offense now ranks near the bottom in the country in several key departments. With this sampling, keep in mind that there are 138 FBS teams this season.
• 11.8 points per game, No. 130
• 27% on third down, No. 133
• 287 yards per game, No. 133
• 18 sacks allowed, No. 129
• 11 red zone attempts, No. 125
Here are two more statistics that might best capture the Cougars’ struggles on offense. They’re averaging 2.8 yards per rush, which is No. 128 nationally. They’re also averaging 5.6 yards per pass attempt, which is two spots up from dead last in the country.
The eye-test backs up those trends. Quarterback Caden Pinnick, who threw an interception to bring him to six total turnovers on the season, hasn’t shown much acumen with the deep ball. Credit WSU coaches for game-planning around that, but they also aren’t getting much out of their running game, which could play a key role in opening up the field for their quarterback.
In short, that’s how you end up with this WSU offense, which has now gone without an offensive touchdown twice in one season. For the Cougars, that’s the first time that has happened since 2008, the first season of former coach Paul Wulff’s tenure. Wulff actually did visit Moore and coaches back in August, but in terms of on-field results, that’s not company anyone with WSU’s program wants to keep.
Here are five lingering thoughts from WSU’s loss to Fresno State.
1. Caden Pinnick’s pocket presence leaves a lot to be desired: Pinnick’s list of issues is quite lengthy, but this problem ranks somewhere near the top: He doesn’t look entirely comfortable in the pocket, whether or not he’s seeing pressure. He may have taken five sacks, but Pro Football Focus only dinged the Cougars’ offensive line for one, which does a great job of crystallizing the issue.
On one play late in the first quarter, Fresno State brought a blitzer up to the line of scrimmage a few seconds before the snap, and Pinnick seemed to be aware of that. The WSU player he was lined up against, tight end Jack Pedersen, even pointed to him. But defensive back Loyall Mouzon came unblocked just the same, and even with a second to get the ball out to running back Maxwell Woods in the flat, Pinnick elected to hold on to the ball and take the sack.
At the beginning of the third quarter, Pinnick also put on display what is becoming a bigger and bigger issue: He won’t throw the ball away. On this play, he does well to fake a handoff and make one defender miss, but he’s out of the pocket so he has a chance to throw it away and avoid a loss. Instead, he takes a sack for a loss of 10 yards. The Cougars punted three plays later.
Let’s fast forward to the end of the third quarter, when WSU was facing a 13-6 deficit. Backed up deep in their own territory, the Cougars go with a shotgun dropback for Pinnick, who gets great protection from his O-line. He chose to scramble from the pocket, which looked unnecessary, and checked it down for a short gain.
On that play, it wasn’t just Pinnick’s decision to bail from a clean pocket that presented a problem. That choice spawned another: Pedersen was called for holding. That’s the kind of penalty that quarterbacks put their blockers at risk of when they scramble from the pocket, causing blockers to become more visible to officials.
2. Matyus McLain turned in his best game yet: In his fifth game at the FBS level, the defensive end McLain looked like the best version of himself. For the game, he totaled four tackles, including a half-sack and two tackles for loss, playing a key role in the Cougar defense keeping the team in the game.
Late in the first quarter, McLain shot through the line of scrimmage and dragged down running back Rayshon Luke for a loss of four. Then, late in the third frame, he made back-to-back huge plays: He brought down Fresno State QB Jayden Mandal for his half-sack, sharing it with defensive tackle Jirah Leaupepetele.
Only moments later, he dropped back in coverage and made a key third-down tackle in space, highlighting the athleticism that makes him so dangerous in the pass-rush department.
3. Jack Stevens is back in business: It wasn’t long ago when WSU kicker Jack Stevens was mired in a long streak of misses, entering last week’s game against Arizona 1-for-5 on field goals. There was a lot wrong with the Cougars’ entire field goal operation, which caused one last week to get blocked, and a lot has changed since.
The most important centers on Stevens, who connected on two field goals in Saturday’s game, including a careerlong 50-yarder to tie the game right before halftime. He looked psyched afterwards. You can tell his confidence is returning, which could aid a struggling WSU offense.
Credit WSU coaches for making changes up front. They removed usual right tackle Jaylin Caldwell, whose failure to block anyone last week resulted in a blocked field goal, as well as offensive lineman Arion Williams, who were a part of that blocked field goal. They subbed in linemen Kyle Martin and Nick Bakken, which helped facilitate a cleaner operation.
4. Why did WSU almost completely abandon the running game in the second half? For the game, Cougar running backs Kirby Vorhees, Maxwell Woods and Leo Pulalasi combined for 45 yards on 12 carries. In the second half, those numbers dropped significantly: Those three combined for just 13 yards on five carries. As a team, the Cougars posted negative-4 rushing yards in the second half.
You read that right: In the second half of Saturday’s game, WSU’s stable of running backs – whose retention was hailed as one of Moore’s top offseason accomplishments – got only five tries to run the ball. The Cougars almost entirely shelved the running game, resulting in 18 passes for 70 total yards.
What’s even weirder is that Woods, who turned in a 7-yard carry early in the game, played only 12 snaps. In the second quarter, he ran backwards to look for more space, which became a 4-yard loss. Maybe that explains his low snap count, but considering his shiftiness and speed, there has to be a bigger role in the Cougs’ offense for Woods – and Vorhees and Pulalasi.
5. Did Julian Dugger or Owen Eshelman deserve a few garbage-time snaps? Pinnick never came out of Saturday’s game, not even in the final three minutes, when the game was out of reach. He had thrown an interception on the previous series, and with only minutes left in a blowout, it seemed possible for WSU coaches to give snaps to one of their other quarterbacks, Dugger or Eshelman.
Instead, Moore rolled with Pinnick, explaining that decision this way: “With where we were at, just the rhythm. Wanted to keep him going with the first group from an offensive line standpoint. But I think everything on offense, we gotta reevaluate.”
It’s clear that Moore wants to stick with his guy, wants to ensure that Pinnick feels like QB1. But Pinnick could still have been QB1 even if coaches gave the game’s final snaps to another quarterback, if only to demonstrate to fans that, yes, they are interested in trying new things.
As WSU prepares for its next game, a road test at Utah State on Friday, it’ll be fascinating to see how Moore talks about the way he’s handling Pinnick and the team’s QB situation.
- Moore's homecoming was nice, but WSU's offense is now the problem
PULLMAN – Kirby Moore rode into this new era under a gorgeous sky, the sun glimmering down at the Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport, where a host of supporters waved crimson Washington State fans to welcome their new coach home. Moore sat shotgun in a white Jeep Wagoneer rolling through the gate, making its way to the road, before he hopped out and shared a short message with the fans gathered.
“Thank you guys. Appreciate you coming out,” Moore said, wearing a crimson crewneck and khaki pants. “Excited to be home and build this thing. I’ll see you at the press conference on Tuesday.”
That was on Dec. 14 of last year, shortly after Moore was hired as the Cougars’ 36th head coach. Fans were excited for a number of reasons, but this one ranked near the top: They were ready to see a fun, high-powered offense return to their program. Moore had just completed three seasons as Missouri’s offensive coordinator, and after a season short on impressive offense, they were ready to see something more imaginative back in place.
Some of those same people were likely in the stands Saturday evening at Gesa Field, the site of WSU’s unsightly 26-6 loss to Fresno State, showering Moore and the Cougars with boos. They hurled untold amounts of invective. This, an offensive showing devoid of touchdowns and replete with mistakes, wasn’t the product they were promised. In fact, it was the furthest thing, an outing so gruesome that it harkened back to some of this program’s darkest days.
“They deserve better,” Moore said “There’s Cougs who travel and alums and people in the Northwest who travel from all over to get here, and they deserve a better product on the field.”
Where to start with this WSU offensive outing, which played a key role in the Cougars’ loss to open Pac-12 play? Quarterback Caden Pinnick, who took five sacks, threw an interception and wasn’t ready for a snap, resulting in two more turnovers. His team has now lost nine on the year For the second time this season, WSU failed to score an offensive touchdown. The hosts converted just 3 of 14 third-down chances, dropping their season totals to 16-for-59, which is just 27%.
Think about it this way: In four games against FBS competition, the Cougars have three offensive touchdowns. They have eight turnovers.
Here on Saturday, the Cougs never got anything going on offense, not even in garbage time, after the Bulldogs had secured the final margin with a hair over three minutes to play. A sampling of the miscues: Pinnick threw a third-down pass behind tight end Jack Pedersen. Receiver Daniel Blood dropped what would have been a conversion. Center Noah Dunham might have been at fault for the aforementioned snap mishap. Wideout Branden Ganashamoorthy ran a route short of the sticks, leading to a punt, one of the eight Max Dean sent away on the night.
This was the kind of loss that forced Moore to answer some uncomfortable questions after the game. The big one: Is he sticking with Pinnick at quarterback?
“I think you wanna look at every play,” Moore said, “and see if it’s scheme, if it’s personnel, or if there’s a way that we need to look at why that play went right or it didn’t go right, and we gotta mark that on every play.”
What makes Pinnick the right QB to start WSU’s next game, a road test against Utah State next Friday?
“I think everything, we gotta reevaluate. Obviously it starts with me as the head coach,” Moore said. “On offense, we gotta find ways to score more than six points. I think that’s the most important thing. We gotta score. Tuesday in the staff meeting, we said we needed to score 27 to win this game. If we score 27, we win this game, and we didn’t do that.”
You might notice that Pinnick has not been quoted in this story yet. That’s because he was not made available to the media after Saturday’s game, despite a request from The Spokesman-Review. No WSU offensive players were made available, which is the first time that’s happened this season.
It’s a bit of a strange look from Pinnick, even if he wasn’t the one who decided he wouldn’t talk. Earlier this season, after delivering a remarkably short postgame after a loss to Kansas State, Pinnick followed up on the next Monday and admitted his mistakes. “As quarterback of this team and university, it’s my job to give this team and institution some pride and belief,” Pinnick said then. “My frustrations from the past two weeks crept up on me.”
At the time, it registered as a particularly mature moment from Pinnick, who is just 20 years old. He was commended accordingly. Now, after he hasn’t spoken after WSU’s two straight losses, it feels weird. If he wants to be regarded as the poised leader that admitted when he was at fault, he has to keep talking after the hard moments.
But that’s only the tip of the iceberg for WSU, whose entire offense is up for re-evaluation, Moore said. He wouldn’t specify whether Pinnick would be a part of that, whether coaches would look at quarterbacks Julian Dugger or Owen Eshelman, so that much is unclear. What is much more apparent is that as currently constructed, this Cougar offense is in no place to make a bowl game, much less finish in the top half of the Pac-12 standings.
We could spend this entire column going over the superlatives, the numbers that might make you wince. The Cougars totaled just 182 yards of total offense. They went 0-for-2 on fourth down. In the second half, they put up just 66 total yards, a number that reflects WSU’s offensive line’s inability to protect Pinnick just as much as it does Pinnick’s inability to make downfield throws and stretch the field vertically.
Still, perhaps the most striking thing from it all is this: WSU has not made the proper adjustments or played to Pinnick’s strengths. Way back in fall camp, the Cougars’ offense looked similarly listless. At one point, after one scrimmage, WSU’s offense looked bad enough that offensive coordinator Matt Miller sounded the way you would expect him to after this loss, not after an August scrimmage.
“Not to the standard,” Miller said. “Starting with me, I gotta be better. Gotta lead better. Gotta prepare a better plan for the guys for them to go execute it. So everybody’s gotta look themselves in the mirror.”
From that point on, WSU’s offense has languished under all the same problems, from fall camp to Week 1 to Week 5. Pinnick can’t avoid turnovers, which he now has five of, and he won’t throw the ball away when he’s in trouble, even though Moore publicly emphasized the importance of that earlier in the week. The Cougars’ offensive line can’t protect him long enough, leading him to take sacks, and now the counter is at 13. And WSU’s running backs can’t create enough separation, especially in Saturday’s game, finishing with a combined 45 rushing yards between Maxwell Woods, Kirby Vorhees and Leo Pulalasi.
So if you’re looking for reasons to criticize this WSU offense, start there: The Cougars have not improved in any material way from fall camp to Week 5 of the regular season. They’ve taken steps forward, but they’ve often followed with two steps back. Pinnick hasn’t been all to blame – WSU receivers Darrius Clemons and Blood, tasked with stepping up in the absence of injured star Tony Freeman, combined for six catches for 62 yards on Saturday – but at the heart of the operation, he bears the biggest responsibilities.
Will he have those same responsibilities next week? That much has yet to unfold, but coaches should have at least entertained the possibility by subbing in Eshelman or Dugger in garbage time, if only to get a peek at their abilities in game settings. Even if they did that, Moore could be truthful in saying Pinnick is the team’s quarterback. He could stick with him. But the least Moore and Miller could have done was give Dugger or Eshelman a chance.
“With where we were at, just the rhythm,” Moore said, explaining his decision to stick with Pinnick the whole game. “Wanted to keep him going with the first group from an offensive line standpoint. But I think everything on offense, we gotta reevaluate.”
Is there any hope for WSU, any light at the end of the tunnel? You might have to squint, but it’s there: Activate their running game and take pressure off Pinnick. Limit his menu of throws to short and intermediate routes. And ride their defense, which turned in an excellent game, keeping the team in the game until the fourth quarter, shining brightly.
Back in December, the sun shone even brighter on Moore as he smiled at fans at the airport. Now the clouds have converged over the operation, forcing him to make serious changes if he wants to pry them open and welcome the sunshine back to Washington State’s proud football program.
- Moore takes over WSU playcalls, promises QB competition this week
PULLMAN – Washington State coach Kirby Moore will be calling the shots on offense moving forward.
Moore is taking over playcalling duties from offensive coordinator Matt Miller, Moore said Monday afternoon, making a big change as the Cougars’ offense struggles.
“I can’t wait to go to practice today,” said Moore, who called plays from 2023-25 at Missouri, where he worked as offensive coordinator. “Just look forward to, naturally, I’m gonna be on the offensive side the whole time. But with that, just working with our guys. They’re working their tail off, and we’re gonna put the best plan moving forward for Friday.”
It’s the first significant change Moore has made to remedy his team’s offense, which went without a touchdown in a 26-6 loss to Fresno State on Saturday evening. That was the second time the Cougars’ offense didn’t score a touchdown this season, a key reason why WSU (1-4) has started so slowly in Moore’s debut year, its offense ranking No. 133 of 138 FBS teams with just 247 yards per game.
The Cougars’ 19 points per game ranks No. 120 in the country. In four games against FBS competition this season, they have scored just three offensive touchdowns. They have eight total, which ranks No. 133 nationally, four spots up from last.
Miller, who Moore confirmed is still part of the WSU program, last worked at Boise State, where he served as wide receivers coach from 2020-24 and co-offensive coordinator/wide receivers coach in 2025. But Miller wasn’t calling plays for the Broncos last fall.
WSU has now lost nine turnovers on the season, including six from quarterback Caden Pinnick, who threw his fifth interception of the season in Saturday’s game. But it’s unclear which QB will take the field for WSU’s next game on Friday, a road test against Utah State: Pinnick, redshirt sophomore Julian Dugger or redshirt freshman Owen Eshelman.
Does that mean the Cougars’ QB situation is an open competition this week?
“Everyone’s gonna get reps,” Kirby 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.”
Moore did not rule out the possibility of playing multiple quarterbacks, saying that “is probably still to be determined.”
“It really starts with the operational piece from an offensive standpoint,” Moore said of his QB evaluations this week, “whether it’s a protection check, whether it’s something with a motion. Obviously the defense is game-planning just as much as us, so there’s times where, yes, there’s a first read in a progression, but there’s times where we gotta check the ball down. We can’t make a bad play worse. So that’s the big emphasis. It’s gotta start in practice. We’ll go through that process. That’ll determine what happens on Friday.”
Dugger, who started his career at Pittsburgh, has seen little playing time at WSU since arriving ahead of the 2025 season. He completed 2 of 6 passes in short stints last fall, but he got more run in WSU’s Potato Bowl win over Utah State last winter, at one point breaking free for a 32-yard touchdown run.
Coming out of fall camp, Dugger seemed to be the team’s No. 2 quarterback, using a combination of athleticism and improved throwing to make a strong impression.
In his second year at the college level, Eshelman has yet to see the field at WSU. He seemed to be the Cougars’ No. 3 quarterback out of fall camp, though it’s important to note that on WSU’s depth charts throughout the season, an “OR” designation has separated Dugger and Eshelman.
Moore also added that Miller will be “super involved in what we’re doing on offense,” Moore said. “We’ll have a ton of dialogue. This whole thing’s still gotta be super collaborative.”
The last time Miller called plays was in 2019, his final season at FCS Montana State, where he worked as offensive coordinator and receivers coach from 2018-19. He took over playcalling duties late in the 2018 season and in the 2019 season, which followed his 2016-17 stretch, when he worked as receivers coach and recruiting coordinator.
Moore and Miller first connected as players at Boise State, where they overlapped from 2010-13.
“I think everyone on our staff is pouring into their players,” Moore said, “and Caden, rightfully, yeah, there will be even more dialogue with Matt and focusing on those guys. We’ve got a number of other guys who work with the quarterbacks and the receivers, and we gotta throw the ball better to be successful.”
Under Miller and Moore’s watch, the Cougars’ offense has floundered. For the first time since 2008, WSU has gone two games in one season without an offensive touchdown, which underscores the way many of the Cougars’ problems have run together. They’re averaging 2.8 yards per rush, which ranks No. 128 nationally, and they lost another turnover on Saturday on a snap mishap between Pinnick and center Noah Dunham.
In Saturday’s game, WSU running backs Kirby Vorhees, Maxwell Woods and Leo Pulalasi combined for 45 yards on 12 carries. In the second half, those numbers dropped significantly: Those three combined for just 13 yards on five carries. As a team, the Cougars posted negative-4 rushing yards in the second half.
In other news, WSU defensive ends Malachi Wrice and Mike Hughes are now considered “day-to-day” with injuries, Moore said. Wrice has missed the past three games, while Hughes hasn’t played since the Sept. 6 Apple Cup.
When healthy, those two have provided important depth behind defensive end starters Linus Zunk and Matyus McLain, the latter of whom turned in his best game of the season on Saturday against Fresno State, finishing with a half-sack and two tackles for loss.
