Wulff tips the scales

PULLMAN – New Washington State University coach Paul Wulff thought for a second.

“On what kind of grading scale?” he asked, turning the tables on an interviewer.

Wulff had just been given the task of grading his football team after six days and seven practices.

Is it where he expected it to be at this point?

“We are in terms of what we have inserted and what we are trying to get accomplished in terms of all three phases of the game,” Wulff said, alluding to offense, defense and special teams. “We’re kind of on track on how we want to insert it. Would we want to execute it better? Yeah. But I think that’s pretty natural.”

The first week has been eye-opening in some ways for Wulff, who spent the last eight seasons as Eastern Washington University’s head coach. There have been surprises, both positive and negative, involved in the climb up the college football ladder to his alma mater.

“Every kid genuinely wants to do the right thing,” said Wulff in explaining the positive. “They’re trying.”

But the level of play, the level of innate football ability, hasn’t reached the expectations Wulff had for a team in a BCS conference – the elite NCAA level.

“The disappointing thing is they are probably not getting it as quick as us coaches want them to get it,” Wulff said, choosing his words carefully. “A lot of that is just maybe lack of growth getting to this point. Some of them are stunted, and aren’t where we would expect them to be (at this point in their career) from a technical standpoint, from a natural moxie standpoint.

“I’m not saying the whole team, but a good portion of the team. So we have to increase that natural feel of the game. There just isn’t a lot of that natural flow.

“I don’t know why that’s the way they are as a team right now, whatever happened prior, but that’s where we’re at and that’s what we have to get better at.”

Still the former outweighs the latter in Wulff’s mind, because of what it signifies.

“Their attitude right now is going to allow them to get better,” Wulff explained. “All the signs are there for the improvement to happen.”

So what’s the grade?

“A C-plus,” Wulff admitted, adding, “we want to be better than that.

“This (next) period of camp is crucial,” he said. “(That’s) when the good teams are going to make big jumps, over the next week or two, instead of just trying to get through practice. That’s my concern. Are we just going to try to get through it, or are we going to attack it and get better?

“That’s a mindset. How we come out and do that the next week or two will be a big indication of how we do this year.”