Cougars hold practice under Martin Stadium lights

Two days after departing Lewiston, the WSU football team held its 13th practice of the fall camp under the lights of Martin Stadium on Friday Night. The practice was a helmet and shorts practice and was similar to a walk-through practice that the team would have on a Thursday night before a game. The only players that were in full pads were members of the scout team and redshirts as they scrimmaged at the end of practice as they do on Thursday nights during the season.

Thursday Night Football on Friday - The Thursday night football events are an opportunity for young players to show their improvement and have the coaches evaluate them for future consideration. Peyton Bender quarterbacked the third team during the scrimmage. Overall, the defense seemed to get the best of the scrimmage as offensive players grapple with learning the nuances of the playbook. The other week, River Cracraft talked about what it is like to be a freshman receiver where coaches draw up routes and new receivers just run them. He said that progress really begins when players understand how their routes are related to the other routes being run on the play and work to get the proper depth to create opportunities for other receivers get open. This and other finer points are not there yet for the third team offense as many of these players have just a couple short weeks working together with the playbook..

Young secondary personnel - The lineups for the first and second teams were pretty much the same as they had been in the final days in Lewiston. One notable absentee from practice was Charleston White. Leach said that White was fine and in good standing with the team. In White's absence, Patrick Porter and Marcellus Pippins held down the second team corner positions rather than rotating off of each other. At this point, I would say that it is inevitable that at least one of those players, if not both, finds himself in the two-deep meaning that a redshirt will come off. Pippins might have the leg up to see the field first having enrolled in January and participated in spring camp.

Jeff Farrar joined the team for his first practice. Leach said that if Farrar could put himself in a position to play that he could see the field this year if need be.

Chat with Wicks - Gerard Wicks may be the biggest surprise up to this point in camp, at least to an outside observer. Wicks name was not even on the depth chart a couple of weeks ago before camp started. Now Wicks looks like one of three running backs primed to see a lot of snaps. Despite the sudden emergence, Wicks isn't surprised saying that sitting a year out as a redshirt made him hungry to play..

"Going into fall camp, I had a chip on my shoulder and did my thing," said Wicks.

Wicks also said that the conditioning that is part of the redshirt really helped him to get in the physical shape he is in right now to be such an explosive runner.

"Everybody that redshirted last year did explosive work with the prowlers, pushing prowlers low and high Obviously it worked," said Wicks.

While Wicks does seem to have a role with the offense this season, he said that coaches have not yet told him what types of situations he will be used in or how many reps he is likely to see.

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