WSU looks to get back into Pac-10 upper echelon

LOS ANGELES – If the object of this 2005 season wasn’t yet clear for Washington State and head coach Bill Doba, things crystallized quickly at an off-season gathering.

“I had one guy on a golf outing,” Doba recalled at the Pac-10’s annual media day gathering. “He said, ‘You know, for Christmas I’ve gotten my wife bowl tickets. And this year, because of you, I had to go shopping.’ “

One year after the 2004 Cougars went 5-6 and settled into their couches for the holidays, WSU must find a way to get back to the bowl picture. Picked sixth in the preseason media poll – the Pac-10 has six automatic bowl bids this year – that seems a reasonable goal.

For Doba, the wishes of anyone outside the program don’t come close to those inside his own head.

“It’s more internal than it is alumni,” he said. “That’s your goal – to get to a bowl game every year. Obviously, your goal is to win a national championship. But at least to get to a bowl game every year.”

That had been the case for WSU in the three seasons prior to the last, all of which resulted in 10 wins. According to Doba, it’s the successes of 2001-03, not the setbacks of 2004, that remain the baseline for the Cougars.

“We think we should be in a bowl game. I think our kids believe we will be in one,” Doba said. “The kids are ready to come back and get to work. They stayed all summer and worked hard.”

This year’s team, while featuring many more returning starters than last year’s, still does have its share of unanswered questions, one reason why the conference’s media types didn’t forecast an upper-division finish for WSU.

The first and most obvious issue for the Cougars to resolve is that of the starting quarterback. It figures to be Josh Swogger, the incumbent starter who sat out the second half of last season with a score of injuries.

But the door has been cracked open for Alex Brink, Swogger’s replacement last year and the first Cougars quarterback to win an Apple Cup since Ryan Leaf.

Repeating his mantra of quarterbacking battles, Doba said he’ll want a quick answer in camp, which begins Sunday morning, and a definitive starter for his team to follow.

“Those two kids will battle it out the first few weeks, and hopefully we can get that settled early,” he said. “I don’t want to go into the season with two quarterbacks.”

If that problem and a handful of others get resolved, the Cougars can picture a Pac-10 season that resembles their better efforts this decade.

After USC, which stands head and shoulders above the rest of the conference in the eyes of almost anyone in America, the Pac-10 race could be wide open. Four teams – California, Arizona State, Oregon and UCLA – all received multiple second-place votes.

Though well behind those four in the polling, WSU leads the rest of the conference in the preseason poll and has a chance to make the upper tier of teams.

“We started a tradition of winning, and I don’t think that’s going to go away easily,” senior middle linebacker Will Derting said. “I think we kind of had an off year last year. I think everybody’s ready to win again. Not this losing by three points.

“We need to get our confidence back. And honestly, that starts the first day of practice. I think you have to get that intensity back, that winning attitude back.”