Jacob Thorpe

While it is fun to imagine the previously unheralded players who excelled during Washington State’s Crimson and Gray game on Saturday finding similar success in the fall, a dose of skepticism is healthy when assessing spring game performances.

Early in Washington State’s spring game it seemed that coach Mike Leach’s self-assigned task of creating two equal teams would prove impossible. After all, starting quarterback Connor Halliday couldn’t play for both sides. But Halliday’s Crimson team had to hold on for a 23-19 victory in front of 6,233 fans at Joe Albi Stadium after his backups overcame some early jitters to rally the Gray team.

Early in Washington State’s spring game it seemed that coach Mike Leach’s self-assigned task of creating two equal teams would prove impossible. After all, starting quarterback Connor Halliday couldn’t play for both sides.

PULLMAN – The film room in the Washington State football offices has all the trappings of a command center. With a conference table dominating most of the room, the little available space is stacked high with boxes of water bottles, sodas and energy bars. Everything is in the shadow of a projector screen that consumes one wall of the intimate space, the only wall not covered in notes, depth charts, lists and reminders, all written in a language foreign to outsiders.

The life of a football coach can be measured in an endless cycle of tape. Game tape, practice tape, opponent’s tape, they all record the minutiae – lost upon the casual observer – that hold the key to a successful snap, game or season.

New men’s basketball coach Ernie Kent did not have to travel far to find the third and final member of his coaching staff. Curtis Allen came to WSU as an assistant under former coach Ken Bone and will remain in the same capacity under Kent.

PULLMAN – Connor Halliday will return to his old field of glory on Saturday. But when he leads the Cougars into Spokane’s Joe Albi Stadium for the Washington State Crimson and Gray game it will be to showcase his quarterbacking talents, rather than proving them. As a prep football player at local Lewis and Clark and Ferris high schools, Joe Albi was the site for many of Halliday’s early exploits that caught the eye of college coaches. He returns as WSU’s record-setting quarterback and one of the national passing leaders.

Connor Halliday will return to his old field of glory on Saturday.