Athlon Sports ranks Mike Leach as the 18th best coach for 2017

Athlon Sports released their rankings of all 130 college football head coaches on Monday and the man behind the Washington State football team found himself ranked 18th. Mike Leach and the Cougars are coming off of an 8-5 year while going 7-2 and finishing second in the pac-12 North.

The Cougars have won 17 games over the past two seasons which is two less wins than they had total from 2009-2014. After struggling against Minnesota in the Holiday Bowl last season, they finished the 2016 year with 3 straight losses.

Despite the downslide at the end of last season, Leach and the Cougars are very capable of returning to the top of the conference in 2017. Returning quarterback Luke Falk and the trio of running backs will have a chance yet again to compete for the conference.

Washington head coach, Chris Petersen was the highest ranking coach in the conference at 6 with Stanford’s David Shaw coming in at 7. Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham at 15 is the only other conference coach ahead of Leach. Mike MacIntyre at Colorado landed at 28 while the rest of the coaches in the conference found themselves outside of the top-30

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Football:

Ranking All 130 College Football Head Coaches for 2017
18. Mike Leach, Washington State

Baseball:

Bragg’s HarbourCats debut a real blast
HarbourCats starter A.J. Block (2-0) from the Washington State Cougars of the Pac-12 went five complete innings with three hits and one run allowed and three strikeouts and two walks to keep Victoria in contention.

Basketball:

WSU basketball player Josh Hawkinson signs with Japanese team - Spokane, North Idaho News & Weather KHQ.com
Former Washington State Cougars forward Josh Hawkinson has signed with the Toyotsu Fighting Eagles of Japan's BL2, according to international basketball reporter David Pick.