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I have been a long time reader of CougCenter (Since the first month the site started on SBnation), but I have rarely posted on much of anything until this week.  I am more of a reader then a writer, so up until this football season I haven’t felt a need to write about what’s going on.  I am on this site at least 3-4 times a day checking for updates and seeing what others have been saying and I am tired of sitting on the sidelines as momentum build towards putting Paul Wulff on the hotseat.  (Side note: I am a basketball guy, played small college and coached high school, so a lot of my insights are framed by my better understanding of basketball then football.  I have been going to cougar football games since I was in the womb, however.)

We are Washington State University.  We are not USC, Oregon or UW.  We have to do things a certain way in order to be successful.  We cannot afford NCAA sanctions and to be docked scholarships like USC.  We don’t have billionaire sports company owner doners like Oregon.  We are not based in a major city like UW.  WSU is located in Pullman, WA.  (I am just saying this because it seems like a lot of people calling for Wulff’s job have never actually been to a game.)  Pullman is a beautiful place with lots to offer, but it is not going to appeal to all high school athletes or college coaches.  We need to find coaches and players willing to stay at WSU and build something.  We have fewer resources to offer so we need to make sure that we are using the limited resources to the best of our ability.  WSU has far less room for error then almost any other BCS college. (Don’t miss understand me WSU has a lot to offer athletes and coaches as well) 

That being said, WSU has to have coaches that are willing to stay around and not leave for greener pastures.  That means WSU shouldn’t be hiring hotshot assistants from major programs to be our head coaches (I am looking at you UW).  We can’t recruit 5 star players so we have to find lesser known players and then develop them.  Development of players is not an overnight process.  We need to find that diamond in the rough coach and that diamond in the rough talent all the time.  That puts tremendious pressure on our coaches to project talent/potential and do it consistently.

I am 27 years old so my basis for successful Cougar programs are Sampson, Price and the Bennetts.  I don’t remember Erickson, I was only 6.  I do remember Bennie Seltzer, Issac Fountiane and Drew Bledsoe.  Kids who were not highly rated who became stars.  I remember Mark Fields, Derrick Low, Kyle Weaver, Jason Gesser, Michael Black, these kids came to WSU to build something or be a part of something that had been established.  They were not wanted by USC or UCLA, but I will never forget the plays they made to beat those teams. 

Good Cougar coaches understand this concept: To succeed at Washington State you must develop talent, you must develop a unique system, and you must be patient.  I think that fans that have been around WSU understand that too.  We understand that there are going to be bumps in the road and ups and downs.  After WSU went to the rose bowl in 1997 what was their record for the next 3 seasons?  Give up? The teams went 10-24.  How many Pac-10 games did we win those years?  3.  0-8, 1-7, 2-6.  Gee, I don’t think this Mike Price is a very good coach, we should find a young assistant from Texas to replace him.  The next year we went 10-2.  The year after that we won the PAC-10 and went to the Rose Bowl.

The point of all this… In my eyes this is Wulff’s first year as a coach.  1. We were docked scholarships because of poor academic performance in Doba’s final year.  2. When Wulff was hired in December of 2007, Doba had 0 commits.  (one kid who was interested in WSU was a quarterback from Prosser, WA who was told he was too small to play quarterback) (That’s Kellen Moore if you didn’t know) 3. Wulff was forced to clean house and start from scratch with his whole team.  Only now does he have the pac-10 level talent on the field for us to judge him as a coach.  I don’t know if he will be a good coach (I think he will be).  But I know that is one of a handful of coaches who might stay in Pullman long term to build something.  I think that fact is worth taking into big consideration.  We can start over with a new coach anytime, but lets judge the one we have first by his ability to develop his players.