Notes from an evening practice
COUGARS
FROM PULLMAN -- It might be Friday in the real world, but it's Sunday for the Washington Statae football team. That meant a light, slightly-more-than-an-hour practice at Martin Stadium. And for the first time since practice began, I wore jeans instead of shorts. That and other pressing matters after the jump.
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Again, it was mostly a scout-work practice, with the players not wearing pads and doing light work in preparation for BYU. For the second time in the last week, players are wearing different-colored helmets -- presumably to denote who is on the travel squad and who isn't, though Mike Leach said afterward that he doesn't know if the players wearing the crimson helmets are indeed the ones who will make the trip to BYU. But if they are, there really aren't any surprises, as pretty much everyone with a crimson helmet on is someone you'd expect to see the field quite a bit this year. ...
... Xavier Cooper looked good running sprints the past few days, but he was back in a walking boot today and worked exclusively on Rogers Field, performing conditioning drills with a group of players that included LB Darren Markle and DT Justin Clayton.
... We're told an official depth chart should be released by Sunday, though Leach did volunteer a guess at what the offensive starting lineup might look like. He still isn't committing to Jeff Tuel as the starting quarterback, though when asked, he said, "We’ll see how the week goes. He’s getting most of the reps right now." So you can probably go ahead and lock Tuel into that spot, if you haven't already. ... Leach said Gabe Marks and Isiah Myers are his top two options at the Z outside receiver spot, Andrei Lintz and Brett Bartolone will play at the Y inside spot, the H inside spot will feature some combination of Rickey Galvin, Bobby Ratliff and Gino Simone (though Eric Morris said Galvin is atop the depth chart theree), and the X spot is led by Marquess Wilson with Bennett Bontemps and Dominique Williams behind him. ... It appears the offensive line will feature, from left to right, John Fullington, Wade Jacobson, Elliott Bosch, Jake Rodgers and Dan Spitz, with Matt Goets apparently unseated from his starting position for now.
... Leach said WSU's captains for the BYU game will be Jeff Tuel, Travis Long, Deone Bucannon, Andrei Lintz and Andrew Furney. Captains will be chosen by a player vote each week.
That's all for now. WSU has tomorrow off from practice, but we'll be around on the blog.
Christian Caple can be reached at christianc@spokesman.com. Twitter: @ChristianCaple