Wednesday WSU practice report
From Pullman -- With a game on Friday the Cougars had their underclassmen scrimmage a day early. The portion of practice that involved the entire team was relatively short, but WSU still got plenty of work in.
The team briefly had a 1's vs. 1's session in which quarterback Connor Halliday threw a pass that was intercepted by cornerback Damante Horton. Halliday recovered when the team did work against the scout team, completing 19 of 22 passes. During the session Zach Brevick played briefly at center and badly missed on one shotgun snap, sending Halliday scrambling for the ball. Rico Forbes saw some time at at right tackle and Riley Sorenson checked in as the right guard.
On the defensive side linebacker Jared Byers overcame his massive handlebar mustache to pick off a pair of passes thrown by scout team quarterback Tyler Bruggman.
During practice the team piped in crowd noise, as is typical on Thursdays.
Tana Pritchard continued to see the majority of reps at SAM linebacker, although Cyrus Coen was back at practice.
"I think he's doing good," linebackers coach Ken Wilson said. "He got his first full game last Saturday. We didn't know how long he could go -- he got every rep. He did a nice job, productive when he was attacked. Obviously he's got to get better but he gave us some good reps in there and hopefully we'll have Cyrus back some this week."
In the past few Thursday Night Football scrimmages the offense has gotten the better of the defense. That wasn't the case today. More on that after the jump.
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The passing game struggled during WSU's underclassmen scrimmage. Bruggman's first five passes fell incomplete thanks to drops by four different wide receivers. After the final drop practice was momentarily stopped as all the receivers and quarterbacks were made to do 30 up downs by the coaching staff.
The message was received as Bruggman's next five passes were completed until Nathan Derider blew up an intended receiver to breakup the pass. Bruggman finished 8-14 on the day, including a 32-yard touchdown pass to Daniel Lilienthal, who caught three scores last week.
Luke Falk struggled at quarterback on Wednesday, missing open receivers and finishing just 7 of 16 with defensive back Kahshan Greene dropping an interception.
Receiver Willie Roach made the play of the day, reeling in a one-handed touchdown catch from Falk after breaking free up the middle of the field.
