Rain falls on WSU rookies

COUGARS

The morning session, featuring mostly freshmen and sophomores, is over. As Paul Wulff said, it was mostly a teaching session, giving the guys further down the depth chart a chance to be seen getting multiple reps, because they may be needed at some point this season. Read on for more.
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• Yes, Wulff was out there. And yes, it rained. And no, there was not a correlation. The steady drizzle – and true rain for a while – couldn’t dampen Wulff’s enthusiasm for having finished his three-day NCAA punishment. He admitted it was harder than he thought it would be, but he’s glad it’s over and said it won’t happen again. … He said he didn’t miss much because he watched a lot of tape from practice. That, combined with input from the assistant coaches, kept him up-to-date. … What he got to see this morning were a lot of young guys running around trying with all their energy to get everything right. Who stood out? Quarterback Jeff Tuel threw well, though his fastball, combined with the rain-caused slickness, resulted in a lot of drops. … Running back Carl Winston just may be a Steve Broussard clone – OK, that’s too much pressure to put on a freshman, but he’s 5-foot-8, weighs almost 200 pounds and looks for contact. Though he did juke Andre Barrington once in a hole and left the linebacker grabbing nothing but air. … Jordan Pu’u Robinson was tough to handle coming off the edge from left end, but he had to be reminded more than once to sprint to the ball. … And Esa Johnwell (we’ll have more on him later today) made a spectacular diving catch to end practice. He’s the step brother of former Cougars Husain and Hamza Abdullah. … There are two true freshmen who will be practicing with the veterans this afternoon, receiver Gino Simone and defensive end Travis Long. … Eric Block was back at practice after missing two days due to a death in the family.

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• That’s it for now. We’ll be back later this afternoon with our story and the summary from the afternoon practice. Until then …