COUGARS

FROM PULLMAN -- If we had to guess who Washington State's starting quarterback will be on Saturday, we'd feel at least semi-comfortable saying ...

...

It'll probably be Connor Halliday. Based on the amount of reps he's received with the No. 1 offense, that's probably the safe bet. Then again, coach Mike Leach isn't saying either way, so there's always that element of surprise, as he likes to say.

But Halliday again saw most of the time with the first-team offense today during 7-on-7, scout work and a brief session against the No. 1 defense, too. Jeff Tuel continues to wear a knee brace and got some snaps, too, but not nearly as many as Halliday.

Leach said he feels good about both quarterbacks, but asked about Halliday, he said: "He looks better than he did last week. Steadily improved, pretty good from the neck up as far as looking at stuff, analyzing it."

And his reads?

"They’ve been good," Leach said. "They’re getting quicker all the time."

"Everybody, if you put them on the board, 'what do I do here? I do this, I do this, I look here, I look here.' They can all do that. You’re not going to stump them on that, but just being able to do it quickly, doing all of it as quickly as possible. It’s like we started off kind of in a walk then we’re jogging now we’re a little faster. So just get faster."

... Dan Spitz was again absent from practice, as was OL Niu Sale for the second consecutive day. Leach said the reason for Sale's absence was guarded by the same snakes and whatnot that he referenced during the spring, then said Sale was in study hall. ... Leach said he liked his team's energy on Wednesday but there were too many dropped passes, which led to the outside receivers performing a series of up-downs later in practice. They did not appear too pleased about that. Some offensive linemen were also put through a series of extra conditioning after practice, including Leach's famed "rolling" exercise and some work in the sand pit. ... Mansel Simmons was without pads and didn't participate. DL Destiny Vaeao was limited but was without a walking boot.

Christian Caple can be reached at christianc@spokesman.com. Twitter: @ChristianCaple