Calling the 2026 season a disapointment for Washington State would be an understatement. This was a team expected to be in the thick of the Pac-12 Championship race, and at the halfway point in the season, the Cougars might be lucky to win two Pac-12 games.
WSU (1-5, 0-2 in Pac-12) started with two expected losses at Washington and at Kansas State. In those games, the defense showed flashes of competency while the offense mustered just one touchdown. At the time, it was some cause for concern but could be attributed to the strength of their opponent. As it turns out, it would end up being the spoiler for how the rest of WSU's games would go against FBS opponents.
Against FBS opponents, WSU ranks:
131st in Points Per Game (12.6)
137th in Yards Per Game (236.4)
134th in Third Down Conversion Percentage (21.74%)
129th in Punts Per Offensive Score (2.5)
137th in Predicted Points Added (-0.105)
136th in Success Rate (0.328)
131st in Passing Play Success Rate (0.332)
They rank near the bottom in almost every offensive category.
On defense, however:
76th in Opponent Points Per Game (27.0)
84th in Opponent Yards Per Game (389.4)
88th in Opponent Yards Per Play (5.7)
59th in Predicted Points Added (0.064)
70th in Success Rate Against (0.405)
50th in Stuff Rate (0.201)
While the defensive numbers aren't quite elite, they are certainly good enough to win Washington State at least one game against an FBS opponent. If the Cougars were just competent offensively in some degree, this is a team that should be 2-4 or 3-3, maybe even 4-2.
In football, college football especially, it all starts with the quarterback. They are the only one on the field (outside of the center) who is touching the ball on every play. Teams often go how their quarterback goes. WSU is a great example of that in past years with some great quarterbacks that masked some of their other blemishes. I marry the quarterback and offensive playcalling here because a good quarterback can only elevate to great if the system around them allows them to be. An option-heavy team with a slower quarterback isn't going to perform as well as if they had a more mobile quarterback.
For WSU, quarterback play has been the focal point in the 2026 season. So much so that this week they are making a change at quarterback, moving from their starter Caden Pinnick to a redshirt freshman, Owen Eschelman. The Cougars tried to see if changing the playcalling from offensive coordinator Matt Miller to head coach Kirby Moore may have unlocked something in the offense for Pinnick to thrive more, and it kind of did for one half of football against Utah State, but they scored 0 in the second half of that game.
Here is a chart from CollegeFootballData that measures the efficiency of the Pac-12 quarterbacks. The Y-axis features usage, which if you are familiar with college basketball and more specifically KenPom, you will understand. It's the percent of plays a player was directly involved in. For quarterbacks, it's going to be every pass attempt and all QB rushes, including sacks. The x-axis is the predicted points added per play. Caden Pinnick sits in the very top left of this graph with the second-highest usage but the second-worst in predicted points added. And if you're curious, that is San Diego State's Jayden Denegal in the very bottom left.
And if you look closely, yes, WSU and Pinnick sit to the left of that 0 marker, meaning they add negative points per play.
On the season, Pinnick has completed 61.8% of his passes for 952 yards, three touchdowns and five interceptions. With his legs, Pinnick is averaging 2.6 yards per rush attempt not adjusted for sacks. Simply put, it just hasn't worked for Pinnick and WSU. It's time to try something different, hence the move to Eschelman this week.
The playcalling also has to carry a good chunk of the blame. It became pretty apparent early on what Pinnick's strengths and weaknesses are. For offensive playcallers, they have to recognize that and try to structure an offense around this. In the first half against Utah State, they were able to do that to some degree with Moore calling the plays. But that quickly fell off in the second half as the offense turned the ball over and couldn't march down the field to get past those mistakes.
Now, it's not all on Pinnick. The rest of the offense hasn't been particularly great either. But, as stated earlier, teams go as their quarterback goes.
The skill group lumps running backs, wide receivers and tight ends together. It can also carry some of the quarterback mobility grade as well, depending on how you want to look at it.
It's hard to grade these positions when we don't have access to All-22 film that allows us to see if receivers are creating separation or if running backs are hitting the right holes, etc. It also doesn't help that this group is missing maybe its biggest playmaker, Tony Freeman.
I find explosiveness is a fine number to look at when measuring skill groups. Explosiveness, as defined by CollegeFootballData, is the average Expected Points Added on successful plays. Successful plays are defined as:
Touchdowns
Gains of 50%+ of yards needed on 1st down
Gains of 70%+ of yards needed on 2nd down
Gains of 100% of yards needed on 3rd and 4th down
Expected Points are specific point values added based on the down, distance and yard line. Essentially, the more expected points you are getting on a play, the more explosive you are.
This works for skill groups, as if you are going to create an explosive play, you need to create some sort of separation between you and the defense. For receivers, they need to either win big off the line on a route or make a catch and get past tacklers. Running backs need to find gaps in the blocking to dart through to get past the defense.
WSU ranks 94th in total offensive explosiveness, 9th(!) in rushing play explosiveness, and dead last at 138th in passing play explosiveness. The rushing play explosiveness is aided heavily by the Kirby Vorhees 58-yard touchdown run vs Duquesne, and the Leo Pulalasi 54-yard touchdown run vs Utah State.
One of the biggest felt strengths WSU had coming into this season offensively was the continuity on the offensive line. Continuity can often bolster an offensive line and make them outperform their perceived talent level.
It's been hard to judge this unit this year. The high number of sacks would make you think this line isn't gelling like we expected, but a good number of those can be pinned on Pinnick. According to Greg Woods from the Spokesman-Review, as of last week, Pinnick led college football in QB-fault sacks .
Injuries and inconsistent play have also led to some shuffling around the line. Ashton Tripp and Jaylin Caldwell suffered injuries in the Utah State game. While Caldwell was able to return to the game, Tripp is now day-to-day according to Moore. Tripp has been one of the highest-graded offensive linemen in college football through the early part of the season.
As far as the numbers go, WSU ranks 103rd in offensive line yards, which is the percent of rushing yards attributed to the offensive line based on the distance the rush goes.
120% for a loss
100% for gains of 0-4
50% of gains of 5-10
0% of gains over 11
On to defense, and we will divide this into three categories: Run Stuff, Pass Rush and Coverage. This takes into account all three levels of defense while also splitting it up into pass vs run plays.
Run stuff has been a major strength for this WSU defense. They rank 19th in Power Success (2nd best in the Pac-12), 50th in Stuff Rate, 59th in Rushing Play PPA and 65th in Rushing Play Success Rate. Their defensive line is littered with talent. EDGE Matyus McLain is leading the way with 5.5 tackles for loss, followed by Linus Zunk at 4. Linebackers Keith Brown and DJ Warner have also gotten involved with 36 and 27 total tackles, respectively.
While the sack numbers haven't quite been there for WSU at 118th in the country in sack percentage, they still have been able to apply some pressure on the quarterbacks.
Pass rush and coverage often work in tandem. If the pass rush can get to the quarterback quickly, it allows the coverage to not have to cover for so long. If the coverage can cover for long enough, it allows the pass rush to get home.
The Cougars' defense as a unit ranks 54th in passing play PPA and 58th in passing play success rate. In havoc however, which are plays in which the defense records a tackle for loss, forced a fumble, intercepted a pass or broke up a pass, the Cougars rank 107th.
Speaking of havoc, the Cougars rank 106th in havoc created by their DBs, which are plays that only look at passes defended or intercepted. However, they do rank 78th in passing play explosiveness. When we discussed explosives on offense, it was all about the offense creating separation in some capacity against the defense. For WSU's defense, they do a fairly ok job on the back end of limiting that separation.
Amongst their Pac-12 counterparts, they rank 7th in that category.
Where WSU does get a high mark in the passing defense, is in opponent incompletions per game against FBS opponents. The Cougars rank 45th in that category with 12.2 incompletions per game. They've played some pretty good quarterbacks too along the way.
Jack Stevens struggled early on. He started the season making just two of his first seven attempts. Since then, he's nailed his last five tries, including a pair of 50-yarders in back-to-back games.
In the punting game, Max Dean is averaging 44.6 yards per punt, good for 41st in the country.
