Preseason poll tabs WSU 5th

LOS ANGELES – One thing is certain about this year’s Washington State football team: It won’t look much like 2003’s edition.

With just five combined starters on offense and defense returning from last year’s 10-3 squad that defeated Texas in the Holiday Bowl, plenty of new faces will be making appearances in the starting lineup.

Still, despite 17 new entries in the lineup — 18 with kicker Drew Dunning’s graduation — the Pac-10 media have given the Cougars a small nod of respect. The Cougars have been tabbed to finish fifth in the preseason poll despite the relative lack of experience.

In that poll, defending national co-champion USC was a unanimous pick to repeat this season and a resurgent California program under coach Jeff Tedford was a unanimous pick to finish second.

The Cougars have a history of making summer prognostications look silly. Last season, the same Pac-10 poll had the Cougars in seventh, the same spot they were slotted in the Rose Bowl season of 1997.

The same holds true on a national level. One tabulation of a dozen national preseason polls shows that the Cougars have been cumulatively more underrated than any other squad in Division I-A, with Kansas State a distant second.

And WSU head coach Bill Doba, speaking at the conference’s media day, expressed some surprise that his squad wasn’t pegged so low once again.

“I’m amazed you all noticed,” Doba said. “I think these guys here have earned a lot of respect throughout the conference.”

Senior safety Hamza Abdullah, one of this season’s defensive captains despite having no career starts, echoed Doba’s thoughts, almost wishing for the old days to make a return.

“I kind of like the eighth or ninth spot. We did a lot of damage from there,” Abdullah said, turning his attention to this year’s team. “Nothing is going to be handed to us. Time and time again, we’ve had a 10-win season and then, here we are, back again at seventh or fifth.”

Doba did acknowledge that he’s had to modify his approach with the change on his depth chart, taking care not to leave more inexperienced players behind. The Cougars have a combined two career starts among their quarterbacks, running backs and top three wideouts.

And the coach didn’t even mention those positions when addressing the team’s major question marks going into training camp this fall, which starts August 9. Instead, he pointed out the possible holes at one cornerback spot, both defensive tackle positions as well as left guard.

“We almost went back to the old thing putting tape on (the helmet) with the names to keep track of who they all were,” Doba said of this year’s spring practices. “We kept it real simple. Some people teach the whole part and then back up and teach the little things. We used to do that and I don’t believe in that.

“I think they can lose confidence. We’ll go slowly, and when they’re ready for the next thing, the next blitz, the next defense, the next coverage then that’s when we’ll put it in. But we can’t go too slow.”

Both Doba and Abdullah maintain that the number of returning starters is deceiving.

For instance, quarterback Josh Swogger played a significant amount of time last season when starter Matt Kegel was injured. And on defense, most of the players stepping into the starting lineup saw a lot of snaps in third-down situations — not just in garbage time when games were out of hand.

“We lost nine defensive starters, but the guys that will be coming in to play for them are not guys that haven’t played before,” Abdullah said. “I believe if you ask them, they can locate Pullman on a map, so I think we’ll be OK.”