On Day 1 of WSU fall camp, LB Keith Brown shows leadership and position battles get underway

PULLMAN – Keith Brown’s eyes were burning and his heart was racing. His face had turned red under the Wednesday afternoon sun, which skyrocketed temperatures well past 90 degrees on Washington State’s first day of fall camp, making even one of the Cougars’ best-conditioned athletes feel he was hitting the wall.

But right before his sixth play of a grueling stretch of eight straight, the veteran linebacker realized something.

“It’s my last year,” Brown said he told himself. “You know what, no one cares. Let’s just do it.”

So Brown finished the play, one of the final in the second part of the Cougars’ first day of fall camp. The camp was split into two sessions – one in the morning and one in the afternoon, which will be the structure for each of the next two days before WSU practices once per day beginning Saturday.

In first-year head coach Jimmy Rogers’ eyes, it’s a way to give quarterbacks space to run with their respective units – “to have a voice of their own without another person there to where they feel like it’s combative,” he said.

“The first day is always kinda the first day. Guys have anxiety and guys have the jitters of just being out here,” Rogers said after Wednesday’s helmets-only practice, which will be the same as the next three sessions.

“I’d say the urgency and the effort in Group 1 was probably better. Overall, proud of the offense’s ability to respond with maybe slightly less numbers in the second practice. It will come together, and there’s gonna be some rotation inside of these practices, from guys jumping from one to the next.”

In position battles at several spots, from quarterback to offensive line to defensive line, Rogers likely has one senior on which he can rely. Entering his second and final season at WSU, Brown has taken it upon himself to point his new teammates in the right direction, to use his roller-coaster experience in college football to lead a roster full of 74 newcomers.

To Brown, a likely starter in the Cougs’ new 4-3 scheme, that means pushing himself in the hard moments. It also means being OK with making mistakes, which he hopes his younger teammates will come to internalize.

But above all, he takes pride in keeping his stamina up, maintaining a level of effort that rubs off on everyone around him.

“I just tell myself, no one cares how tired I am,” Brown said. “The D-line doesn’t care how tired I am. I still gotta make the calls, tell them where to go, line up. If my guy next to me is tired, stuff like that, gotta be able to pick him up.

“If I can be in good enough shape to stand tall, look like I’m not tired, even though I could be dying inside.”

That kind of leadership likely bodes well for WSU, which is using these first few days of camp to establish new defensive schemes and techniques. Coaches are also evaluating performances at all manner of positions, but none will grab headlines more than the quarterback spot, where four players are vying for snaps this fall.

The front-runner is likely incumbent senior Zevi Eckhaus, the Cougars’ QB2 last season before vaulting into the starter’s position for the Holiday Bowl. Flanking him are transfer Julian Dugger, who practiced alongside Eckhaus in the morning session, as well as transfer Ajani Sheppard and returner Jaxon Potter, both of whom practiced in the afternoon.

Rogers didn’t say much about his evaluation of the quarterbacks’ Day 1 outings – “You guys are gonna ask me the same question every day. I’m not gonna give you an answer really on any of it until we continue to move through (fall camp),” he said – but Eckhaus was open about his self-assessment. He complimented freshman safety Kyle Peterson on the interception he had against him, but Eckhaus also knows he’ll have to be better.

“I tried to force a ball low, and he made a good play,” Eckhaus said. “I gotta be smarter in those situations and understanding, ‘Hey, you don’t gotta force every ball.’ It’s OK to take the check-down. Sometimes the check-down is the best play, and the check-down will probably get more than what I was trying to throw.”

Eckhaus and the other quarterbacks threw much more of those types of short-yardage passes than any other, often to wide receivers and running backs in the flat as the Cougs get the hang of their new offense. WSU quarterbacks didn’t jump off the page in Wednesday’s practice because they didn’t get many chances to.

Sheppard did cash in on one opportunity to air it out. He dropped back and spotted Oregon State transfer wideout Jeremiah Noga streaking down the sideline. Cal Poly transfer cornerback Kai Rappolla was running with him, nearly stride-for-stride, but Sheppard’s toss landed squarely in the chest of Noga, who secured it and angled out of bounds for a completion of some 40 yards.

That sent the crimson-clad WSU offense hollering praise for Noga, a strong candidate to earn a starting role in offensive coordinator Danny Freund’s unit. Among that group, other standouts include running backs Angel Johnson and Kirby Vorhees, plus junior college transfer tight end Jesiah Cornwell, who was part of Dugger’s set.

And in what could be a preview of the Cougars’ starting offensive line group, WSU’s first-teamers included right tackle Christian Hilborn, right guard Noah Dunham, center Brock Dieu, left guard Jonny Lester and right tackle Ashton Tripp. New Mexico State transfer guard AJ Vaipulu, expected to compete for starting snaps as well, played in the afternoon.

The Cougars’ other position battles will continue Thursday. They’ll be able to rely on the consistency of Brown, who feels the gravity of his role, the importance of his direction among scores of newcomers.

“You always wanna be remembered as this great player and all this crazy stuff, like accolades and what I’ve done and how many tackles I’ve got,” Brown said. “But for me, I just wanna be able to leave an impact on all my teammates. When I leave here and a freshman who has five years left here, what can they say about me five years from now? I just wanna be known as a guy who cares about my teammates and always comes to work every day.”