Jorgensen gone, Harrington moves to wide receiver
I'm busy; you're busy, so let's dive right into the practice notes.
-- The big news from Wednesday's practice is that running back Keith Harrington played at H-receiver. While Mike Leach hinted the move may not be permanent, it makes sense given that the Cougars only want three primary tailbacks. Harrington came to WSU as a slot receiver, and some of the other backs had perhaps outplayed him during preseason camp, so this is a chance for Harrington to still make an impact. Many of Harrington's best plays last year came on screen passes, and the H has a lot of opportunities to catch passes close to the line of scrimmage and make people miss.
Also, last year the running back trio of Harrington, Jamal Morrow and Gerard Wicks were given the nicknames Earth, Wind and Fire. Because the Cougars sometimes run two-back sets, on Wednesday we saw some plays where Earth, Wind and Fire were all on the field at once.
-- Christian Jorgensen appears to have left the program. The walk-on quarterback is no longer on the roster. Jorgensen played pretty well for a freshman walk-on last season during Thursday Night Football scrimmages and Leach seemed to like what he brought to the table. But Trey Tinsley and Anthony Gordon joined the team in the offseason and were ahead of Jorgensen on the depth chart.
-- Jamal Morrow made the play of the day during the skeleton drill, putting Isaac Dotson in a spin cycle. Dotson was the only defender in the area, so Morrow gained at least 25 extra yards or so thanks to his use of the B button.
-- Dotson was the starter at weakside linebacker on Wednesday, with true freshman Chima Onyeukwu backing him up.
-- The defense had a resurgent day during team period, although it took a while. The offense has been getting the best of the defense for a week or so, and that was still true for most of practice.
Even early in team period, Tyler Hilinski had great success airing the ball out. His first pass went to Isaiah Johnson for about 20 yards, and he followed that with passes to Tavares Martin and Kyle Sweet for about 15 and 13 yards, respectively. Then he hit Kaleb Fossum for 10, Martin for 10 more and a few plays later hit River Cracraft on consecutive plays for seven and 20 yards. The defense got a few points back when Kirkland Parker broke up a pass, but before the period was over Hilinski hit Sweet for a five-yard touchdown.
The starting defense had more success, however. Jalen Thompson came up and hit Cracraft to hold him to only a two-yard gain on a pass, and Nnamdi Oguayo sacked Falk. Garrett McBroom had a hurry, but Falk turned to his run game in the red zone and again had success as Gerard Wicks sliced through the defense for a12-yard touchdown. On the next play, however, Jamal Morrow carried the ball and somebody forced a fumble.
The day ended with a pass to Tavares Martin in the end zone, who made an athletic play to reel in the pass with Shalom Luani pushing him out of bounds. It looked to me like he made the catch and got a foot in, but there was understandably some controversy over the whole thing.
