How sustainable is WSU's success?

SB Nation college football writers Bill Connelly and Steven Godfrey talked about the current success of Cougar football, and the program's long-term trajectory Thursday, on their podcast "Podcast Ain't Played Nobody." In particular, they discussed what fans should expect from a program that is going to struggle to ever recruit at a top-20 level.

Early in the segment, Godfrey said while Mike Leach likes to compare Texas Tech to WSU, the two aren't the same when it comes to recruiting. Pullman, is much farther away from a fertile recruiting ground than Lubbock is, and that adds to the difficulty of winning at Washington State.

Connelly, agreed and stressed that for programs who can't recruit with the elites, it is always going to be a steeper hill to climb. He did add, however, that when Leach was able to get the right mix of speed at receiver, and in the secondary, with a "moldable" quarterback he had a lot of success at TTU, a level of success that should be somewhat replicable at WSU.

Connelly did touch on his ratings (the S&P+) that have had WSU quite low, despite their success, for two seasons now. WSU would be 25th (up from 42nd) if they had beaten Eastern, but Connelly maintained that the Cougs' defense is still "woefully inefficient" despite proving effective at stopping the run and forcing turnovers.

Their talk on WSU ended with Godfrey telling fans "what they want to hear." He affirmed their previous discussion saying that the program can compete at a top 40-60 level regularly, while in the best season contending for a conference title.

Overall Godfrey stressed the need of "proof of concept" from Leach for fans. He described this as "some sort of bizarre win in a circumstance that you don't really have a purpose being there." Something along the lines of Michael Crabtree's famous touchdown catch against Texas in 2008. While not key to long-term success, a moment like that can invigorate the fan base,

I'll put the question to you, is the Cougs current level of success sustainable under Leach, and do you think Godfrey and Connelly are underselling WSU's potential as a program?

You can listen to the whole podcast below. Their conversation about Wazzu starts at the 1:15:00 mark and lasts about 12 minutes.

******

Football:

WSU coach Mike Leach fined by Pac-12 for signal-stealing comments | The Spokesman-Review
The Pac-12 conference announced Thursday night that Washington State coach Mike Leach has been fined $10,000 for his recent comments accusing Arizona State of attempting to steal the signals of opposing teams.

No. 1 ranked WSU run defense has tough task at ASU | The Spokesman-Review
The big challenge for the Washington State defense this weekend against Arizona State will be to contain Demario Richard and Kalen Ballage, two of the Pac-12’s better running backs.

Christian Caple's Pac-12 picks and predictions for Week 8 | The News Tribune
I sit before you a broken man.

Pac-12 football picks of the week
The latest installment of the Hotline picks includes a look at the Pac-12 schedule and frustrations expressed by coaches, with Cal's Sonny Dykes being the latest to voice an opinion.

Run game at root of Cougs’ win streak | Washington State University | union-bulletin.com
PULLMAN — River Cracraft was baffled, grabbing the stat sheet lying on the table just for verification that what he was being told was correct.