COUGARS

FROM PULLMAN -- Washington State's practices are officially closed to spectators and media, though we are still able to watch from the library above Rogers Field. And Sunday's practice had a frustrating feel to it, as far as Mike Leach was concerned. Read on.

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As we've seen before, Leach has no problem stopping a practice if he doesn't feel his team's effort is where it needs to be. That was apparently the case again on Sunday. After a sloppy couple of plays -- offensively and defensively -- during team session, Leach brought the entire team together for an inaudible briefing before overseeing the performance of 40 up-downs by each and every player.

"Slow in between transitions of drills, not great focus during drills," Leach said, asked to elaborate on his assessment of practice as 'not satisfactory.' "You go out and run something whether it’s special teams, offense or defense, you’re missing a guy, there’s a bunch of innocent and understandable misunderstandings -- well, they’re not innocent and they’re not understandable, so we made that point clear. Also made it clear that there’s no such thing as saving effort on the practice field, we ensured that we got the effort. It wasn’t pleasant effort, but we got it. So in the end we got a full dose of effort. The practice lasted 25 minutes longer than it should have.

"... If you didn’t learn effort from this practice, you practice it again the next one. ... We will have great effort. We may not be good at anything else, but we will be good at great effort."

... Max Hersey switched from his No. 41 offensive jersey to a white No. 41 defensive jersey, Leach saying afterward that be's being looked at as a defensive end. ... CB Ray Ford was not in pads, and wore a large cast on his right hand. ... LB Eric Oertel was again without pads, as were CB Brandon Golden and WR Isiah Myers. Others who were limited included WR Kristoff Williams, LB Darren Markle and DL Xavier Cooper. DT Robert Barber is still on crutches with a cast on his leg.

... With Oertel out, Cyrus Coen continues to play with the No. 1 unit. Taylor Taliulu is still taking reps at safety with the No. 1 defense. DT Toni Pole made his return to full participation, though he worked with the No. 2 defensive line.

Asked if he's any closer to naming starters -- specifically at quarterback -- Leach said: "We’ve shifted reps on players. We’re putting more reps on the players we expect to play with more. There’s no announcements. We’ve got until game day to really do that."

So, since Jeff Tuel has taken almost all of the snaps with the No. 1 offense so far in camp, you can draw your own conclusions there.

All for now.

Christian Caple can be reached at christianc@spokesman.com. Twitter: @ChristianCaple

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