Summer is no time for vacation

PULLMAN – For many college students, summer is the perfect time for kicking back, soaking up rays and decompressing from the year just past.

Not so for football players. Summer is a time to take strides, to build bonds, to strengthen muscles and team unity.

Summer is filled with hard work.

Brandon Gibson did all those things this summer.

Maybe that’s why he’s smiling. It’s an infectious smile, an easy one that appears often off the field. After the work has been done.

Gibson knows how to work. And why he works.

“I think that coming out and competing every down is essential in getting a win,” he said. “Once you come out and you strap on, it’s time to go. You can’t relax, you can’t be lackadaisical. It doesn’t get you where you want to be. You have to go 100 percent at all times.”

That give-it-your-all attitude is paying dividends for the junior from Puyallup, Wash. He’s poised to be one of the main threats in the Cougars’ potent passing offense.

But it’s been a three-year process. When he arrived on the Washington State University campus in the fall of 2005, the Rogers High grad knew he was ready to be a star.

Now he knows better.

“As a freshman, you are really eager to come here and play,” Gibson said. “As a freshman I was pushing myself. It takes time, honestly. Not a lot of people step in and are the No. 1 receiver in a program.

“Now I’m more patient. I learned to wait for my time and now, though I still have a ways to go, I’m patient in my routes, I learn things quicker, all those things have helped me.”

And now they should help him take the next step.

Though he started five games as a freshman, he wasn’t the star. Though he started nine games last year as a sophomore and led the Cougars in receiving yardage with 731, he wasn’t the star.

Not with Jason Hill on the field.

It’s Hill, a rookie with the San Francisco 49ers, whose name appears in all 11 receiving categories in the WSU record book, including at the top of yards, touchdowns in a season and career touchdowns. It’s Hill who was the star.

And it’s Hill who WSU head coach Bill Doba has linked Gibson’s name with this fall, as in “Brandon Gibson can be as good as Jason Hill.” It’s high praise … and higher expectations. And it’s something Gibson hopes he can live up to.

“I consider Jason to be the greatest receiver in Washington State history,” he said. “While I’ve been here, he had 1,000-yard seasons, 60 catches, 13, 14 touchdowns. He’s just a real special kind of player. They don’t come around that often.

“When I’m compared to him, I like to smile and take them when they come, but I know I have a long way to go.”

With Hill gone, Gibson knew he had to become a touchdown maker. And that brings us back to the summer.

“That was just straight two months of end-zone work,” Gibson said of his three touchdown catches in the Cougs’ first fall scrimmage Saturday. “I thought last year we really struggled. Me and (quarterback) Alex (Brink) and (receivers) Michael (Bumpus) and Charles (Dillon), we talked it over and we (decided) we really struggled in the end zone last year.

“So we decided to try something new. We worked on it consistently, over and over again.”

The sweat from the summer’s work may have translated into three scrimmage scores, but it didn’t take that performance to catch Doba’s attention.

“He started to show it in July, and all summer,” Doba said of Gibson’s emergence. “A couple of those routes are routes he and Brink have worked on by the hour.”

“The stuff we did in the summer is really paying off for us,” Brink added. “I feel like I have as a good a rapport with (Gibson) as I do with Mike and as I did with Jason when he was here.

“Just by doing the extra stuff this summer, the red zone work, the individual route-running work, that stuff is real important.”

Notes

The Cougars practiced twice Sunday, the morning in just helmets and the evening in full pads. Husain Abdullah ended the morning practice with his fourth and fifth interceptions of fall practice, while defensive end Kevin Kooyman, dropping into coverage, grabbed one as well. … The newer members of the secondary, freshman Chima Nwachukwu and junior college transfer Devin Giles at the corners and JC transfer Alfonso Jackson at safety have impressed Doba. “I like them. They played really well (Saturday),” he said, adding that all are in the mix to start. … No one who had been banged up returned to practice Sunday and safety Christian Bass didn’t suit up. Backup quarterback Kevin Lopina is on crutches with his right calf injury. He will be out for a while, so freshman Marshall Lobbestael is getting more snaps at quarterback. … Today is a day off, with two practices scheduled for Tuesday.