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As season creeps closer, WSU trying to avoid overlooking eight Mountain West opponents on schedule

Washington State wide receiver Carlos Hernandez dives toward the end zone against Colorado State during the first half of a nonconference game on Sept. 2 at Canvas Stadium in Fort Collins, Colo. (Tyler Tjomsland/The Spokesman-Review)
By Greg Woods gregw@spokesman.com(509) 459-5587

PULLMAN – Somewhere out there, in conversations among fans and floating around the internet, is a sense that Washington State should have an easier time with this fall’s football schedule.

The Cougars’ 2024 schedule includes games with eight Mountain West Conference teams – two via previously contracted meetings and six from a scheduling agreement with the conference – and it might stand to reason they could rack up wins. It’s a longtime Power Five team going up against Group of Five teams, the thinking goes, so WSU might be able to roll through the schedule.

“It doesn’t happen like that,” WSU head coach Jake Dickert said.

As WSU and fellow Pac-12 holdover Oregon State attempt to rebuild the conference a year after it collapsed, the schools have made scheduling alliances with the Mountain West to provide the Cougars and Beavers with opponents for this season. They aren’t eligible for the conference title, but they would be able to make the College Football Playoff, which is expanding to 12 teams starting this season.

But, Dickert said, he’s taking care to avoid talking about the opportunity like it will be an easy one. A former Wyoming defensive coordinator for three seasons, Dickert knows the conference well, and his WSU teams have squared off with its teams – most recently topping Colorado State in both 2022 and 2023.

The Rams aren’t on the Cougars’ schedule this coming season. WSU’s games against Mountain West teams include San Jose State (home, Sept. 20), Boise State (away, Sept. 28), Fresno State (away, Oct. 12), Hawaii (home, Oct. 19), San Diego State (away, Oct. 26), Utah State (home, Nov. 9), New Mexico (away, Nov. 16) and Wyoming (home, Nov. 30).

The Cougs own a 39-18-1 all-time record against Mountain West opponents. Their best mark comes against UNLV, winning that series 6-0, and they’ve gone 5-1 against Boise State. WSU has also gone 8-4 against San Jose State, their last clash coming in 2018, a 31-0 win for Washington State.

As much as the Cougs might have handled Mountain West teams in years past, they’re trying to avoid seeing upcoming games in the same light. It was only seven years ago that WSU needed overtime to beat Boise State – and only three seasons ago when Utah State came to Pullman and earned a season-opening win.

“The narrative is that, ‘Oh, it’s just gonna be easy. We’re gonna go play a bunch of Mountain West teams.’ It doesn’t happen like that,” Dickert said. “They are proud programs. Obviously, Boise has a lot of preseason clout, well-deserved and earned. And we (WSU and OSU) both play that team and we’re excited about those challenges. But at the end of the day, it’s us vs. us. We gotta be focused on what we’re doing on a weekly basis.”

The question, then, becomes about the how. How do WSU coaches convince their guys to avoid overlooking some of these opponents when the season rolls around?

“We start it early. They mirror me and our coaches,” Dickert said. “And I think our messaging has been right. We’ve been challenging when we need to be challenging, and just understand that we’re in this thing together. Obviously, you’d say the top half of the schedule is very slanted, very tough. But we gotta attack these things one at a time and just keep this thing going throughout a long 12-game season.”

“Obviously, everything’s completely gonna be new this year,” WSU senior linebacker Kyle Thornton said. “So a lot of new there, but really, it’s still 12 games that we have to play this year. So the preparation is honestly the same that it’s been my previous 20 years.”