Shorthanded WSU ready to take on No. 22 Syracuse in Holiday Bowl, looking to snap three-game bowl skid
SAN DIEGO – On the first day of the month, shortly after Washington State wrapped up its regular season with a home loss to Wyoming, the Cougars still looked like the Cougars.
They might not have been bound for the College Football Playoff, which seemed a possibility earlier in the season, but they remained eligible for an upper-tier bowl game.
WSU is still in that position, preparing to face No. 22 Syracuse in Friday’s Holiday Bowl. But the Cougars who took the field for 12 games this fall are not the Cougars who will take the field at Snapdragon Stadium . That group will look a lot different, all the way up to the head coach, following Jake Dickert’s departure for Wake Forest.
In the transfer portal are 28 Cougars, including the players who guided the team’s 8-4 regular season: quarterback John Mateer, running back Wayshawn Parker, offensive lineman Fa’alili Fa’amoe, defensive tackles David Gusta and Ansel Din-Mbuh, cornerback Ethan O’Connor, linebacker Buddah Al-Uqdah, even punter Nick Haberer. Still others have committed to other programs, including Arizona-bound wideout Kris Hutson and Arizona State signee Adrian Wilson.
The Cougars will also operate without an offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator, following OC Ben Arbuckle’s exit for Oklahoma and DC Jeff Schmedding’s dismissal. The absences also include a running backs coach (Mark Atuaia decamped for Utah) and a quarterbacks coach (John Kuceyeski took a job at Oklahoma).
Wide receivers coach Nick Edwards is slated to call offensive plays in Friday’s game, Dickert indicated before he left, but it’s unclear who will do so on defense. Dickert had tabbed himself to call the defense against the Orange (9-3).
Either way, it’s clear some portal players will not play in Friday’s game – Mateer, Parker, O’Connor, Din-Mbuh and others are not with the team – but because of a policy the team voted to adopt, players who enter the portal are eligible to play in the contest. In a news conference Thursday, acting head coach Pete Kaligis said players who entered the portal after Dec. 18 would be able to play Friday.
That would exclude most of the 28 players – including Gusta, who is out with an ankle injury, per Kaligis, as well as Washington-bound Al-Uqdah – but it would include key players like cornerback Stephen Hall and receiver Josh Meredith, plus up-and-coming players like freshman wideouts Chris Barnes and Isaiah Cobbs.
Also in the mix to earn more snaps than they did in the regular season are linebackers Parker McKenna and Keith Brown, the backups to veteran Kyle Thornton, plus receivers Tony Freeman and Carlos Hernandez, defensive backs Kamani Jackson and Jaylon Edmond, running backs Leo Pulalasi and Djouvensky Schlenbaker, and offensive lineman Ashton Tripp.
That’s on top of the veterans who have made no bones about staying: senior wideout Kyle Williams, offensive linemen Brock Dieu, Christian Hilborn, Esa Pole and Rod Tialavea, edge rushers Syrus Webster, Andrew Edeson and Raam Stevenson. Their commitment has meant a lot to the program, coaches and teammates have said in recent weeks, especially in such a tumultuous time.
“Just ready to attack for the most part,” senior safety Tanner Moku said last week, “going to war with the guys that are still here in the room, putting the work, coming out here on the field, putting in the work. Like (safeties/nickels) coach (Jordan) Malone said, he’s never lost a game with guys that aren’t here, but you can win a whole lot with the guys that are here and committed to the process. So that’s where our mind is at. We’re focused on ourselves.”
Starting at quarterback for WSU will be transfer Zevi Eckhaus, who backed up Mateer this season. Eckhaus spent three years at FCS Bryant, where he matched the school record for single-season touchdown passes last season with 28. He’s also the school record holder for career touchdown passes, total offense and completions. He spent three years with the Bulldogs, from 2021 to 2023, starting nearly all three seasons.
After starting nearly all four years in high school, at Los Angeles-area Culver City High, it’s a new experience for Eckhaus, being a backup. It didn’t always come so easily to him. At times, he had to lean on a few close friends and family members for encouragement and motivation. But those days are over, he said, and he’s relishing the chance to lead the Cougs into a bowl game that the Orange are favored to win by 17 points.
“I’m really excited. An opportunity that not a lot of people get to experience,” Eckhaus said last week.
“I’m very, very fortunate, very blessed, to be in this position that I’m in right now. Just really excited. The guys are excited, the coaches are excited, the fans are excited, everybody’s kind of excited.”
Turns out, that’s what’s driving the players and coaches left over. WSU fashions itself an underdog in many situations to begin with. Facing long odds in a bowl game, even with extreme circumstances like these, is hardly any different.
“It means a lot because we’re locking arms,” Kaligis said. “It takes everybody. It takes a family to do this. But more importantly, these young men, they are the rocks on the team. They’re the ones stepping on the field. They’re the ones doing the work. We just watch them play.”