2022 Football Preview

And so begins the Jake Dickert era at Washington State. For real, this time. The Cougs played well under Dickert for the final six games of the 2021 season, after coach Nick Rolovich was dismissed for failing to comply with a state COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Yet Dickert’s seventh game at the helm – 6:30 p.m. Saturday versus Idaho – will signal the proper start to his head-coaching career at WSU.

Washington State’s nonconference football slate features two favorable matchups against lower-level opponents and one major test on the road against a notable Power Five foe. The Cougars open Pac-12 play with a grueling month-long stretch, during which they will face four of the conference’s best projected teams – including defending champion Utah. WSU’s schedule for November is much less daunting. The Cougars close their season with four very winnable games, all against opponents they beat in 2021.

WSU retained a strong nucleus of veteran players from last year’s squad, but the Cougars made several significant additions via the transfer portal this offseason as they reshaped their program and laid the foundation for the Dickert era. WSU signed 10 immediate-impact transfers, a haul headlined by a pair of potential superstars in Ward and senior linebacker Daiyan Henley, a former Nevada standout.

Cameron Ward will start at Washington State. Michael Penix Jr. will do so at Washington. Gunner Talkington is now the starter at Eastern Washington. All three are out to prove this fall that they are the next frontman to lead his team to great seasons. Because at these programs, through exhaustive recruiting and rigorous development and retention, excellent quarterback play has become the standard.

It's pretty much a given that the Golden Age of College Quarterbacking in our neck of the gridiron extends from the early 1980s to today. In that span, the college programs of the Inland Northwest have produced 10 NFL draft picks, five Walter Payton Award winners and 26 of the 30 winningest quarterbacks in the schools' collective histories. So 40 pretty good years. Let's see if we can come up with the best quarterbacks, from 1 to 40.

For context, a brief recap of the grim 2021 season: The Washington Huskies opened their football season with their first loss in history to an FCS team (Montana) and wrapped it up with a 40-13 shellacking by their in-state rival Washington State. In between, they won just four games and agreed to shell out $9.9 million to be rid of their head coach, Jimmy Lake (a former player at North Central High and Eastern Washington).

It has never been easier for a college football player to switch programs, yet Eastern Washington has experienced very little turnover in that regard the last two seasons since the NCAA loosened its transfer rules.

They do not lack confidence.

As disappointing as last year’s 7-3 record was to the Whitworth Pirates, with nine returning starters each on defense and offense, they are getting a rare chance to redeem it with almost entirely the same roster.

The saying suggests that records are meant to be broken, but the circumstances of these records – all of them the best in their respective program and some also records at their respective level of college football – make these marks particularly unique and difficult to surpass.

A series of subpar drafts and the aging of cornerstone stars couldn’t sustain the level of play that had made the Seahawks perennial contenders. Follow up a 7-10 season (last in the NFC West) by trading the franchise’s best quarterback (Russell Wilson) and releasing the all-time leading tackler (Bobby Wagner), and here you are. Starting from the bottom.

Sept. 12 vs. Denver

In the last year, three of the top teams in the Football Championship Subdivision announced their intentions to ascend to the Bowl Subdivision, something that could be seen as a considerable blow to the competitiveness at the FCS level.

Our picks for the conference race, with projected records, analysis and a title game projection.