- Second-half snaps tell the story of WSU's defensive breakdowns
PULLMAN – A few minutes after halftime began and Washington State players filed into their locker room, the sparkly new crimson and black lair that was remodeled over the summer, linebacker Keith Brown turned to a teammate with a question.
“What’s the score?” asked the sixth-year linebacker.
It was Saturday evening, and WSU had just taken a three-point lead on visiting Arizona into halftime, but Brown was none the wiser, according to his retelling. Brown and the Cougars’ defense had yielded a pair of scoring drives, and because quarterback Caden Pinnick had thrown an interception, that unit had to be on the field for one extra drive.
As the rest of the game unfolded, the Cougs lost one more turnover, a fumble from Pinnick on a play where he was trying to throw the ball away as he was getting tackled. That was the seventh turnover WSU’s offense has committed this season, which has spawned all kinds of other problems, perhaps this above all: The Cougars’ defense has been tasked with playing tons more snaps, lots more drives, putting them at risk of tiring themselves out when they shouldn’t have to.
For his part, Brown says it isn’t much of a problem.
“I don’t even think about it, man,” Brown said. “As a defender, you’re so excited to go out there and play, no matter what. … We just go out there every single series, and that series right there is the only thing I’m worried about. I don’t care if I just came off the field or the offense has been out there for a while. I’m excited to go out there and play.”
That may be the case, but it also means WSU defenders are playing heavy amounts of snaps. Check out some of the total snap counts from the Cougars’ loss to the Wildcats last weekend. Cornerback Khamari Terrell led all defenders with 72 snaps. Then came Brown, who logged 69, followed by defensive backs Jackquintin Bal with 67 and Jamarey Smith with 61.
That was the second time at least three WSU defenders played at least 60 snaps each, joining the team’s earlier loss to Kansas State: defensive backs Kai Rapolla, Jaylen Thomas and Smith all cleared the 60-snap mark.
Headed into WSU’s next game, a home matchup with Fresno State to kick off Pac-12 play, two defenders have hit the 200-snap threshold: Thomas leads the team with 225 snaps while Brown is on his heels with 222. Several others are in the area, including Smith at 199, linebacker DJ Warner at 196 and safety Jeremiah Bernard at 192.
Does that add up over time? Or does it all come out in the wash for a bunch of 19- to 22-year-olds?
“It adds up in fact that you’re going against a really good quarterback,” WSU coach Kirby Moore said, referring to Arizona’s Noah Fifita, “and we were very aggressive on defense, and you saw that in the first half. Over time, he’s gonna make some plays. He’s gonna create some passes downfield, and they had the quick drive right there, and just keeping our guys fresh because the coverage and the front, it’s all gotta work together. If the front is tired and we’re not getting the rush that we want to, well, that’s affecting the back end. That’s what we gotta get solved there in the third quarter, and it really starts playing complementary football.”
Perhaps no single stat illustrates the point better than this: WSU’s defense ranks in the top half of the country in points allowed in the first quarter, permitting just 4.3, which ranks No. 57 nationally. In the fourth quarter, the Cougars are allowing an average of 11.3 points, which ranks No. 123 nationally, only about a dozen spots up from last in the country.
Think about the way WSU’s defense was operating in the first quarter against Arizona. Defensive end Linus Zunk earned a sack on the first play of the game. Bal snagged that pick-six. Then later in the first quarter, defensive tackle Jirah Leaupepele got home for another sack. “Just doing my job,” he said about that play.
The Cougs (1-3) couldn’t replicate that level of production in the second half. The Wildcats won the second half to the tune of 20-7, averaging nearly 7 yards per play, keeping Fifita clean the rest of the game.
In other words, WSU defenders wore down as the game unfolded, which is partially to be expected of a group headed out onto the field so often. The Cougars have lost seven turnovers on the season, remember? Only 18 other teams in the country have committed more. That sets up defensive coordinator Trent Bray’s unit with more and more series, and while the Cougars could certainly be doing more on defense – their inability to get much pressure on Fifita in Saturday’s second half loomed large, as did a long touchdown rush K-State broke off earlier this month – check out their high snap counts and you start to understand the root of the issue.
So what’s the solution? Play more defenders? That isn’t feasible in all of WSU’s position groups. Cornerback Jalil Tucker, a starter in Week 1, has missed the last three games with an injury. Linebacker Nylan Brown was out last week. Defensive ends Malachi Wrice and Mike Hughes were too, and they figure to be out this Saturday against Fresno State. The Cougars could get more out of young safety Kyle Peterson, for example, but after he made an early mistake that led to an Arizona touchdown, he didn’t see the field again.
What about other players on the roster? Could the Cougs give more looks to guys like defensive lineman Josh Wedel (73 snaps) or defensive end Ben Beatty, who has played just 67 snaps? The latter seems possible, but in an interesting development, WSU coaches have never separated starters Zunk and Matyus McLain. They have both played 184 snaps, indicating that coaches like them best when they’re on the field together.
With that in mind, it’s possible that the best respite for this WSU defense is an improved offense, an offense that can sustain drives. The Cougars figure to have an easier time doing that against the likes of Fresno State than they did against Power Four foes like Washington, Kansas State and Arizona. If they can hold onto the ball against the Bulldogs – whose defense ranks sixth nationally with a plus-seven turnover margin – the Cougs won’t just be doing their offense a favor.
They’ll also be doing a favor to their defense.
- Why one Coug keeps catching passes through a 1-7 season
PULLMAN — Trey Leckner admits that when he was younger, years before he began to flourish as Washington State’s premier pass-catching tight end, the noise could get to him sometimes. He was in high school, at Glacier Peak over in Snohomish, and he internalized some of the criticism.
That type of noise doesn’t bother him much these days, he said, in large part because of the journey it took for him to arrive at WSU. He redshirted his true freshman year in 2023, then began to ascend toward the back half of the following year, then earned a starting role in 2025. He missed the first four games of this season, his redshirt junior campaign.
When you watch him play, you wouldn’t know it. He caught a key fourth-down conversion over the weekend, in WSU’s 31-10 loss to Boise State, giving him these numbers in four games: 12 catches for 98 yards, including an 18-yard reception. He’s been the same kind of downfield threat that made him such an enticing prospect years ago.
“I think just getting older and being in the locker room,” Leckner said earlier this week, “being around a lot of really good players, obviously through 2023 and on. Just picking their brain and having good mentors, whether it’s players or coaches. Just being around it for so long.”
Leckner’s veteran presence is surely coming in handy this season, a 1-7 campaign for WSU, which is still looking for its first FBS win of the season. Head coach Kirby Moore and the Cougars had few issues cruising past FCS Duquesne in mid-September, but since then, they’ve dropped five in a row.
They’ve tried changing play-callers. They’ve tried changing quarterbacks. The Cougs’ offense has enjoyed some improvement since Moore benched Caden Pinnick for Owen Eshelman at quarterback, but in two games with that move, it hasn’t resulted in wins for WSU.
The only sure thing this WSU season has yielded is criticism: From fans, from media, from college football observers at large. The Cougs’ is a high-profile program, even in their new era within the reimagined Pac-12, which means they hear about it when things are going as poorly as they are now. They may sign up for it when they agree to such a platform, sure, especially when they accept such big paydays in the new NIL era. But that doesn’t mean they’re immune to criticism.
Ahead of WSU’s next game, a road matchup with San Diego State, that brings up two key questions: How do these Cougars handle the noise? And without a bowl game to play for, what keeps them motivated?
“Regardless (of) what the prize is or whatever that we’re playing for, I want to win. I know all the guys in the locker room want to win, and the coaches want to win,” Leckner said. “So I think just the will to win. I think we have all the seniors, all the seniors that are still playing. We wanna send them out on a good note, and we wanna build momentum going into next year.”
This WSU team rosters 14 seniors, including key pieces like linebacker Keith Brown, offensive linemen Jonny Lester and Jaylin Caldwell, receivers Daniel Blood and Darrius Clemons, defensive end Linus Zunk, defensive tackles Paul Hutson III and Damarjhe Lewis and tight end Jack Pedersen, plus cornerbacks Khamari Terrell and Jalil Tucker. All of those guys have played important roles for this team.
All three players who spoke to the media on Monday — Leckner, defensive end Matyus McLain and nickelback Jamarey Smith — agreed they’re motivated to keep playing for their seniors. They want to finish things right, especially for Brown, who is playing his sixth and final season of college football.
Fun fact about Brown: He’s played 482 snaps this season, which is the 12th most in the country among linebackers. It’s the third-most in the Pac-12. That underscores how reliable he has been this season, particularly in WSU’s last two games, making 15 tackles against Oregon State and nine against Boise State.
“Playing for the guys, playing for the seniors,” McLain said. “This is their last four games ever, could be ever. Playing for guys like Linus, Keith Brown. Gotta keep playing for those guys, and then just the guys in the locker room. You just gotta keep playing for everybody around you.”
Technically speaking, WSU isn’t entirely out of the bowl game picture. If they were to win out and end the regular season 5-7, they could make a bowl if there aren’t enough 6-6 teams to fill all the bowl slots. But the Cougars would also need to meet certain Academic Progress Rate standards, and they would need to decide if such a thing would benefit the program to begin with.
But that’s a long way off for WSU, which needs to beat an FBS team first before anything else can happen. The Cougars’ next task is a road tilt with the Aztecs, who are favored to win the game, making the Cougs an underdog they way they often have been this season.
“No offense to you guys, but you guys, the media people aren’t in our corner like our coaches are, and like we are for each other,” McLain said. “So really leaning on the brotherhood and the people in this building for the support that you need throughout that is really what it is.”
“I kinda block it out,” Smith said. “I worry about just what we have going on in the building and preparing week-by-week. Things that happened last week, to me, don’t really matter now. We’re on to San Diego State, bigger and better things. So just trying to prepare for that and dominate each and every week.”
- Keith Brown deleted social media to lock in on WSU's defense
PULLMAN — In his long college football journey, Keith Brown has learned the importance of tuning out the noise. During Washington State’s fall camp, he deleted all social media off his phone, understanding that if he wants he and his unit to reach their potential, they can’t get sucked into the distractions.
Heck, he doesn’t always look at the scoreboard. Last month, in his WSU team’s home setback against Arizona, he went into halftime not knowing the score. He had to ask a teammate to find out, he said.
Turns out, that’s part of the reason how Brown and the Cougars have done their part on defense, using herculean efforts to keep their team in games when their floundering offense has left a lot out there. At least for Brown’s part, he’s done his best to ignore the problems his team’s offense is having, even if it means jogging out there for extra series thanks to turnovers.
“Just continue to compete,” Brown likes to tell his teammates.
As WSU defensive coordinator Trent Bray makes his return to Corvallis, where he worked as Oregon State’s head coach for the 2024 season and part of the 2025 campaign, the Cougars will have to do a lot of competing to pull an upset. The Beavers, who opened as 17.5-point favorites, own one of the country’s most prolific offenses, engineered in large part by quarterback Brayden Atkinson and true freshman wideout Jesse Legree.
Which leads to this question: How does WSU’s competitiveness on defense factor into a matchup with such a productive OSU offense?
“I don’t think it affects it at all. It’s just another opportunity to go out there and compete,” Brown said. “I’m sure our entire back end is just excited for the challenge, ready to do what they’re supposed to do. No matter who we’re playing, no matter what the rankings are and stuff like that, we always wanna go and play our best.”
As WSU’s offense earns all the headlines, turning things over to redshirt freshman quarterback Owen Eshelman over the struggling Caden Pinnick, perhaps a look at the Cougars’ defense is in order. Bray’s group has consistently held its own in the face of daunting circumstances, many of which have been caused by WSU’s offense, which has lost nine turnovers — seven from Pinnick.
First, consider this statistic, which paints the picture of what the Cougars’ defense is going through: In BCF Toys’ field position value rankings, WSU ranks dead last in the country, No. 138 of 138 FBS teams. In simplest terms, this means the Cougars are averaging the worst starting field position in the country, when averaging the drives their offense starts at the drives their defense starts at.
Whittle that down to just the starting field position WSU’s defense has averaged, though, and the problem becomes even clearer. The Cougars rank second-to-last nationally in that category, checking in with a mark of 65.2 — which means on average, opponents are starting drives at about their own 35-yard line. Only one other team, Rice, gives opponents better starting field position.
To be sure, though, this is not an indictment on WSU’s defense. It’s the opposite, an explanation behind some of the scores the Cougars have given up. In Washington State’s 17-16 loss to Utah State over the weekend, the visitors lost the lead in the fourth quarter, when a fumble from tight end Jack Pedersen set the Aggies up at the Cougar 19. Three plays later, they jogged into the end zone to take the lead for good.
That reality is best illustrated by BCF Toys’ defensive short field rankings, which measure how often a defense has to jog out with the opponent starting at its own 40 yard line or further. The Cougars’ defense has been handed those situations 25% of the time. Only 15 other defenses have met that fate more often.
All of that, though, only serves to make this WSU defense’s accomplishments even more impressive. In Friday’s game, defensive end Linus Zunk and defensive tackle Jirah Leaupepetele each earned sacks. The Cougs forced seven punts. On the season, they’ve forced five turnovers, about middle of the pack nationwide.
In six games, WSU is allowing 23.7 points per game, which is fifth in the Pac-12. Maybe that doesn’t sound very impressive — but then you consider what this group has been up against. That’s when their outings click, the genius behind Bray’s operation zooms into focus.
“We’re a very connected team,” Brown said. “We have our captains group chats, leadership meetings and stuff like that, and we just continue to reiterate that we’re a team at the end of the day. The last thing you wanna do is divide the team. There is no division. We’re one team. I think honestly, we’re just as close as we were going into week one. So I’m still excited for rest of the season.”
