Washington State's receivers struggled mightily early in Tuesday's practice. That didn't last long.

The Cougars spent some time working on deep routes with the constraint that the receivers must catch the ball over their outside shoulders. The receivers didn't take to the drill, only successfully pulling off the maneuver and completing the catch two of the first nine times.

The coaches noticed, of course, and for awhile it seemed like the receivers were going to have a bad practice. Then the Cougars added a defense and all heck broke loose. More on that in our practice report below.

-- First and foremost, here are the players that were limited in some capacity: Reece Alvardo, Brett Bartolone, Nick Begg, Frankie Luvu, Andre Dillard, Robert Barber, Dylan Hanser and River Cracraft.

-- Now, lets shore up the defensive positions a bit. Isaac Dotson was again starting at free safety and it seems like that will continue as long as he continues to play well. The defensive line is still Darryl Paulo and Destiny Vaeao at the ends, with Daniel Ekuale in the middle and Kache Palacio at Rush linebacker. Peyton Pelluer and Jeremiah Allison are pretty set at starting linebacker, it seems. Sulaiman Hameed is the starting strong safety, Marcellus Pippins and Charleston White seem set at field and boundary cornerback, respectively, while Darius Lemora is the primary nickelback. So, that's the first team.

Now for the second team, which, admittedly sees more substitutions. But it appears that Nevada transfer Reggie Coates will continue to play as a backup defensive end alongside former offensive lineman Devonte McClain in the middle and Jeremiah Mitchell at the other end spot, with Ivan McLennan at Rush linebacker. Greg Hoyd and Paris Taylor appear to be the backup linebackers and today Dakota Sinchak was the boundary cornerback and Brendan Haywas the field cornerback, with Jeff Farrar seeing some time at field corner as well. Taylor Taliulu was the free safety, Willie Roach was at strong safety and Colton Teglovic continues to backup Lemora at nickelback.

-- So, after the receivers dropped the ball (yeesh) during the early drills, they started to heat up during the WR vs. DB drill. Dom Williams made a nice play early to pluck  a ball high out of the air before Charleston White could make an attempt on it and Daniel Lilienthal, one of the team's strongest receivers, ripped a ball away from Sinchak. Gabe Mark even made a beautiful outside-shoulder grab on the same route the unit struggled with earlier. Lilienthal and Marks each followed with impressive end zone catches once the offense moved into the red zone, with Marks laying out to make the catch despite getting the wind knocked out of him for awhile.

One receiver who seems to have a lot of potential is Barry Ware. A 6-2, 205 freshman with good ball skills, Ware has a chance to make an impact outside for the Cougars, who graduated a couple of big receivers last year. But Ware's routes need work and he has a tendency to drift quite a bit instead of squeezing the defensive back into a space. Once he gets that down, he could be a really nice player for the Cougars.

-- In the first 7-on-7 segment, Luke Falk went 11 of 13 with a pass broken up by Brendan Hay and another dropped by Lilienthal. He also suffered a coverage sack, but was generally sharp, finding Calvin Green in stride for a big gain when Green flashed some nice wheels.

Peyton Bender was a solid 12 of 16, albeit with an interception to Pelluer that didn't seem to have a chance of being caught by anyone else. During this period, David Bucannon, never much of a talker, unleashed a string of salty language that lasted a good 30-45 seconds, demanding that a tired walk-on get back on the field after taking himself out of the drill.

-- Really, the entire defense started to look a little weary during the 7-on-7 period, something Mike Leach acknowledged after practice. We learned just how tired they were during the team period, when seemingly ever receiver was able to take a short pass for a big gain. Bender went first, as always, and on his third pass found Robert Lewis on a short pass, who went for a big gain thanks to a block from Tyler Baker. On his next pass he found Baker on the sideline, who laid out to make a catch while tapping his foot to make sure it counted. Keith Harrington had a big run, and then Lewis took a pass 60 yards for a score, 20 of which came during a shifty run after the catch. Then, Kyrin Priester put the spin cycle on Hameed and then Dom Williams had about a 45-yard receiving touchdown. Bender also found Lewis and Marks for touchdowns and finished 10 of 13 with four scores. One of the incompletions came courtesy of a hurry by Coates.

-- It took four passes for the defense to break down during Falk's turn, with Gerard Wicks taking a short pass 70 yards for a score after breaking one tackle. Priester had a 35-yard score running up the sidelines and then Wicks followed with one of his own. Baker scored on the last play of the drill and then Leach called the team around and told them that, despite the offense being well ahead in the drill, the offense would take one snap from the 3-yard-line and if they scored the defense would do three up-downs, and the offense would do the up-downs if they were stopped. Falk found Marks in the end zone and the defense had to do the up-downs. The quarterback finished the team period 11 of 16 with a couple of decent passes broken up thanks to big hits by Pippins and Bucannon.

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