decision making
decision making at Wazzu is a file of 3 stories. The newest of them: “Three Quarterbacks Walk Into a Palouse Fall: Who Gets the Nod”, “Moore's offense showed some pulse, but the Cougs still left plays on the field”, and “WSU's corn fields got smarter, and the AI didn't even need a Palouse sunrise”. Three quarterbacks, one Palouse fall, and an offense that ranks 130th in scoring. Three offensive touchdowns in three games against FBS teams. The unofficial read for people who left Pullman and stayed Cougs. The list below is every decision making story on Wazzu, newest first.
Three Quarterbacks Walk Into a Palouse Fall: Who Gets the Nod
Three quarterbacks, one Palouse fall, and an offense that ranks 130th in scoring. That's where the Cougs are right now. Caden Pinnick has the experience and the knowledge of the playbook. He also has six turnovers in five games and 18 sacks taken. You can't win that way. Owen Eshelman has the arm to stretch the field, but he's a redshirt freshman who has never taken a college snap. Throwing him into a road game at Utah State feels like asking for trouble. Julian Dugger can run like hell and showed it in the bowl game last year, but his pocket presence is shaky, and his passing resume is nine completions in two seasons. Kirby Moore is taking over playcalling. He's been here before, at Fresno State in 2022, his team started 1-4 and then won eight straight when Jake Haener came back. That's the hope. The question is whether anyone in this room can be that guy. The smart money might be on Dugger for a spark, but the Cougs need more than a spark. They need someone who can make the right read on third down and not make a bad play worse. That's what Moore keeps saying. We'll see Friday night. For more on how the Cougs got here, check out our breakdown from the Fresno State loss: "Fresno State gets the edge but the Cougs fought until the final whistle." Go Cougs.
Moore's offense showed some pulse, but the Cougs still left plays on the field
Three offensive touchdowns in three games against FBS teams. Six turnovers. Seven total giveaways. That's not a Power 4 problem. That's a self-inflicted wound problem, and it's the story of this Cougar season so far. Kirby Moore's offense showed a pulse Saturday against Arizona, especially on that opening 11-play, 71-yard touchdown drive where Caden Pinnick looked like he knew what he was doing. The quarterback keeper, the blocks, the finish. That's the offense we were hoping to see. Then it vanished. The third quarter was brutal. Three points, two three-and-outs, four punts, three sacks. Arizona turned a three-point deficit into a four-point lead and never looked back. The defense held up its end. The offense didn't. Pinnick is making bad decisions, not just Power 4 athletes making great plays. The interception into triple coverage against Duquesne. The fumble while trying to throw while being dragged down. The slide a yard short of a first down. Those aren't talent gaps. Those are judgment gaps. Moore said it starts with him. That's the right answer. But the fix has to show up against Fresno State next week. If these problems are about competition, they'll ease up. If they're about Pinnick's decision-making, they won't. We've got more on Moore's postgame comments in "Moore puts it plain after Cougs let early lead slip in Pullman." Worth a read. For now, the Cougs are what we thought: 1-3, right on schedule. The question is whether they're better than the schedule. Go Cougs.
WSU's corn fields got smarter, and the AI didn't even need a Palouse sunrise
There's something almost poetic about a corn field that doesn't need a perfect Palouse sunrise to do its job. Washington State's AgWeatherNet has been out there quietly collecting data, and now the AI is taking that information and turning it into something farmers and ranchers can actually use. Automation, insights, better decisions, all coming out of the same ground we walked on. That's the part that gets me. This isn't some far-off tech hub story. This is WSU doing what WSU does: solving real problems for real people who work the land. The system has been around, feeding weather data into the machine, but now the machine is smart enough to talk back. It's not just telling you it's dry; it's helping you figure out what to do about it. You don't have to be a farmer to appreciate that. You just have to know how hard that work is, and how much a little foresight can save a season. The fact that this is coming out of Pullman, from the same university that taught us to think critically and show up early, makes it feel like home. It's easy to get caught up in scores and Saturdays. But this is the other side of Wazzu, the part that doesn't make the highlight reel but keeps the lights on. Smart corn, smarter systems, and a university that refuses to stay in the lab when it can help the field. Go Cougs.