Leading the way

LOS ANGELES – Just two seasons ago, Washington State’s football team entered the final quarter of its season 6-3 and on the verge of a bowl berth.

One more win was all the Cougars needed.

Then came a three-game collapse. A year later – actually, another bowl-less year later – head coach Bill Doba was gone and Brandon Gibson was contemplating a jump to the NFL.

But something he learned during that three-game, sophomore-year collapse would play a role in the wide receiver’s decision to skip an early entry into the NFL draft and give new coach Paul Wulff a pro-caliber athlete to build around.

“It was unfortunate that happened,” Gibson said Thursday of the 2006 collapse. “But ever since that happened, I realized you have to finish everything.”

Finish everything. Including his college career.

“It’s not just about leaving early or going to the next level,” said Gibson, WSU’s player representative at the Pac-10 Conference’s annual media day, held at the L.A. International Airport Hilton. “It’s about being complete before going to the next level, being a complete football player.”

And Gibson didn’t think he was. Yet.

That’s despite leading the pass-happy Pac-10 in receiving yards (1,180, best in WSU history) and being among the conference leaders in receptions (67, tied for third best at WSU) and touchdown catches (nine) despite missing the Oregon game with a heel bruise.

“He’s the most immediate impact player we’ve had,” in the off-season, Wulff said, before explaining why.

“If an individual has a tremendous amount of talent and doesn’t supply great leadership, he’s not very valuable to the team. If the player has … in this case, outstanding talent and supplies leadership, it’s priceless.”

The soft-spoken, always smiling Gibson knows he’ll be in the camera’s eye not only with the media – the senior’s been listed on every preseason All-Pac-10 team after being a first-team selection last season – but with the WSU coaching staff and players as well.

“That’s not pressure on my shoulders,” he said, shrugging them. “This is my fourth year, and I should know enough and be so experienced I can do that.

“I’ve always been a firm believer that actions speak louder than words,” added Gibson, who is eighth all-time at WSU in career receiving yards (2,083) and receptions (125). “I might say something now and then, but I rarely do it. If you can go out and show people through your actions … that’s more impressive than just talking.”

Still, Gibson knows he has a new role among a receiving corps that he believes is just a notch below the 2006 group that featured future NFL player Jason Hill.

“They want me to become that guy they can depend on,” Gibson said of Wulff and his staff. “And I want to be that guy.”

How?

“I believe every time I touch the ball, I want to do something special with it,” Gibson said. “I think they kind of expect that out of me.”

Though what Gibson expects of the 2008 Cougars, picked by the conference media to finish last, has changed.

“The past few years, the goal has been to go to a bowl game, and that hasn’t happened,” he said. “My goal, personally, is to compete every single play and every single game.

“That’s all I can really ask myself. I can’t really look toward the future because that puts a damper on what’s right now.”

And what’s right now for Gibson is trying to help a team picked 10th in the Pac-10 surprise some people.

“The word potential is bad,” Gibson said. “I would say we have the ability to win a lot of games. The thing is putting it all together. Once we learn how to put it all together, that will be the big thing.

“Hopefully people come out with a chip on their shoulder and ready to work. You get picked last for a reason, because people don’t think you’re good. … I hope people understand it’s a time to work, not a time to joke around.”