Introducing: The 2020 CougCenter WSU Football Preview

This is the first in our series of stories previewing the 2020 Washington State Cougars football season. For later installments, click here.

In these unprecedented times ... now more than ever ... you need a WSU Cougars football preview.

Did that very bad joke cause you to throw up in your mouth a little? I even tried to work in “out of an abundance of caution,” but I couldn’t quite figure out where that would fit. Out of an abundance of caution ... we didn’t write this back in August? I dunno, still workshopping it. Probably should leave the jokes to funnier people.

Nothing about any of this is normal, but maybe we can interject a little bit of normalcy with our annual — plus two months, but whatever — look at the approaching season with the 2020 CougCenter WSU Football Preview. We’ll have a story a day until the season kicks off in less than two weeks, on November 7, just like we always do.

There’s going to be a whole lot of guesswork involved in all of this, because there’s so much we just don’t know. It was always going to involve a huge measure of uncertainty with a new head coach and a whole new staff bringing a new offense — led by a new quarterback — and a new defense ... but this?

Photo by Abbie Parr/Getty Images

Because of COVID concerns, nobody is allowed at practices. All we know about any player is what coaches or players tell us in post-practice interviews. (Via Zoom, of course.) Who’s going to start? Which players are looking good? Nobody knows.

We have no idea how the team is going to approach a seven-game season. Will it be treated more like a preseason than a season, since nobody will burn a year of eligibility? Nobody knows.

The stadium will be empty. How will that affect the players? Nobody knows.

How many games do the Cougs have to win in order to go to a bowl game for the sixth consecutive season? Nobody knows.

So many questions, all of which will involve more speculation than usual, and none of which will have satisfactory answers.

But that won’t stop us from giving it a shot.

Tonight: A look at the defense.