NCAA football

Eastern Washington head coach Aaron Best likes to point out that a football team’s win-loss record is an imperfect tool in discerning just how well that team has played.

When his Washington State club is looking at another long flight to play a team from another walk of life, Tucker Large doesn’t get too creative. While some teammates might watch movies or listen to music, the veteran safety likes to keep things businesslike.

For a pair of teams that have not reached the playoffs and know their season is ending, Idaho’s game against Idaho State looks both forward to a better future and back to a year that might have been.

PULLMAN – Jesse Bobbit squints and looks out of his office window, a fifth-floor perch with a picturesque view of Gesa Field, where his Washington State defense has made mincemeat of nearly every opponent that has dared set foot in the place this fall. On this November morning, sunlight bathes the entire scene in brilliant colors, the green turf and the crimson Cougar logos and even the occasional white speck on Bobbit’s beard, belying the defensive coordinator’s young age of 31.

MOSCOW, Idaho – So, it comes down to this: Idaho and Idaho State will conclude the football season playing for an 18-pound slab of Douglas fir chain-sawed into the shape of a potato by UI assistant athletics director Jerek Wolcott

A quick scan of the Eastern Washington football roster reveals an enticing truth: Heading into the 2026 season, this team might not lose all that many players.

PULLMAN – As college football’s early signing period nears, Washington State’s next class is rounding to form.

Idaho fans did not wait for the dust to settle. Within hours of the Big Sky Conference announcing a $2,500 fine against University of Idaho head football coach Thomas Ford Jr., “Tubs at the Club,” a podcast that covers Vandal athletics, organized a GoFundMe page to cover Ford’s penalty. The page surged past its goal in a matter of hours, turning a moment of frustration into an online rallying point for a fanbase fed up with Big Sky officiating and eager to stand behind its first-year coach.

There is no glory at the end of this story, no shining moment where childhood friends Malik Dotson and Jared Taylor lead their team to a championship, their equally triumphant teammates hoisting them on their shoulders and carrying them off the field.

PULLMAN – Across the last few years, as NIL and the transfer portal have tightened their grip on the college football ecosystem, Washington State has operated in a liminal space in between.

In nearly three decades at Eastern Washington, Aaron Best can’t recall another time where the Eagles have turned to their fourth quarterback.

PULLMAN – Over the offseason, when Washington State coaches hit the transfer portal to look for a tight end, they didn’t need long to identify Ademola Faleye, who was looking to move on from Michigan State. Listed at 6-foot-7, he had the size they were looking for, and they figured they could develop him into a reliable pass-catcher.

The makeshift arrangement in which Pac-12 legacy schools remain tied to their previous bowl partners was supposed to expire after the 2025 postseason.

The investor planning to plow billions into the Big Ten in exchange for an equity stake in a newly formed commercial subsidiary announced Monday that the offer was on hold “to complete our due diligence as recent developments unfold.”

Ask anyone who has been there.

PULLMAN – Coach Jimmy Rogers kept his cards close to the vest on the topic of wide receiver Devin Ellison departing the program.

PULLMAN – Here is a first look at Washington State’s road game against No. 21 James Madison on Saturday.

Between the first and second quarters Saturday, the lights went out at Husky Stadium. Attention turned to the video board beyond the east end zone, where Washington rolled a package of highlights through history. Myles Gaskin’s snowy 80-yard touchdown trot in the 2018 Apple Cup. Elijah Jackson’s leaping swat to turn back Texas in the 2024 Sugar Bowl. Don James’ heavy haul, lifting a single finger with one hand and the 1992 Rose Bowl trophy with the other.

The math that matters most improved incrementally for the collection of schools that will form the new Pac-12.