WSU tight ends, cornerbacks make big plays on Day 2 of fall camp

PULLMAN – If there’s one position group that Washington State coach Jimmy Rogers asks to master several crafts, the honors belong to the tight ends.

The way Rogers and tight ends coach Chris Meyers see things, the Cougars’ tight ends should be able to block well enough to work as an extension of the offensive line. They need to know the playbook and memorize presnap motions and shifts. But they also need to be credible receivers, to keep opposing secondaries honest.

“I’ve seen a lot of really, really special ones be developed over the years,” Rogers said, “and I feel like we do a good job of doing that.”

In the afternoon session of WSU’s Thursday practice, the team’s second of fall camp, transfer tight end Ademola Faleye made his coach look like a genius. In one 7-on-7 period, the 6-foot-7 Faleye was running a route angling toward the sideline when the pass came hurtling toward him. It was off-target, forcing Faleye to free one arm and leap.

Not a problem for Faleye, who stuck one hand in the air, brought the ball down and secured it before going to the ground. That got a rise out of his teammates, who hollered in celebration. It perhaps signaled that the Cougars’ tight ends are ahead of schedule – or at least the top-end talent is establishing itself.

Fifth-year senior Faleye, who saw limited action on offense in his one year as a Spartan, ran with WSU’s first-team offense during spring practices. It’s no surprise he’s doing the same during fall camp – the first two practices have been split into two-a-days and coaches are shuffling personnel, so a true first-team unit has yet to materialize – but it’s a promising sign, an indication that perhaps Rogers and offensive coordinator Danny Freund’s vision for the offense is coming together early on.

“I thought it was way better than yesterday,” Rogers said after practice, comparing Thursday’s session to Wednesday’s. “Just the urgency. Probably some of it is just understanding the organization and the tempo with a lot of new players, including the freshmen, in both practices. And over the course of a practice, one mistake inside of it makes it feel like you’re not performing the way you should. When you look at it, it could be just one person.

“So today was much cleaner, from the start to the finish. The focus was better. Individual (drills) was better. Overall, organization and execution inside of team (periods) was much better as well. Pleased with the day, but we gotta match it tomorrow.”

The Cougars are making a change to Friday’s practice. Rogers planned the first three days around the same structure, one morning session and one afternoon session, giving quarterbacks chances to mesh with their groups. But Rogers is wary of injuries, and he said “a couple things happened here and there” on the injury front in Thursday’s practice, prompting him to make Friday’s practice one session, set for the morning.

“You start to lose people due to soft-tissue or just random injuries, you start to potentially jeopardize the whole group and everybody’s health,” said Rogers, who did not elaborate on which players got nicked up during practice. “So a couple things happened here and there. I gotta make sure that we manage the overall health of the team.”

During the first two days of fall camp, no new Cougars have sustained significant injuries. Out are SMU transfer defensive tackle Mike Sandjo, freshman linebacker Jovan Clark and freshman defensive tackle Connor Sullivan, same as they were on Wednesday.

In other news, WSU’s defense enjoyed an improved day of practice. The highlight belonged to SMU transfer cornerback AJ Davis, who had an interception for the second straight day. Rogers joked that in both instances, Davis was at the right place at the right time – “the pick landed in his lap,” Rogers said on Wednesday – but Davis has been turning heads in any case.

A redshirt junior, Davis spent the first three years of his career at SMU, which made last season’s College Football Playoff. But Davis never got the chance to play in that atmosphere because he left early in a win over Pittsburgh with a head/neck injury in Week 10. After appearing in 10 games, many on special teams, he never returned that season.

Thanks to a wayward day from WSU’s quarterbacks, Davis wasn’t the only Cougars defender with an interception.

In the morning practice, redshirt freshman linebacker Jack Ellison dove to pick off redshirt sophomore QB Jaxon Potter during a 7-on-7 drill.

Still, it wasn’t all bad for the Cougs’ quarterbacks. Rutgers transfer Ajani Sheppard, one of the four quarterbacks vying for snaps this fall, changed the complexion with a completion to freshman wideout Kaden Harken. It traveled some 40 yards for a touchdown, underscoring the arm talent of Sheppard, a 6-2 native of the Bronx in New York City.

“We all have the same mindset, and we all have the same end goals,” said fifth-year senior running back Angel Johnson, who is back in action after missing spring ball recovering from surgery to repair an ankle injury. “It was good just to be around the same guys that, regardless of if you came from SDSU or you were already here, same guys that have the same goals in mind and going from there.”

WSU creates two new positions dedicated to NIL developments

The Cougars are adding two new positions to their athletic department, both dedicated solely to harnessing the power of name, image and likeness (NIL) developments at WSU, according to a Thursday release. One position is the director of Playfly Max (under new radio broadcast and ticket sales rights holder Playfly) and the other is director of NIL services.

Deputy athletics director Ike Ukaegbu will oversee NIL efforts moving forward, per the release.

“We are committed to elevating the student-athlete experience at WSU and a robust NIL program is crucial to that effort,” WSU AD Anne McCoy said via release. “We look to be innovative, strategic and collaborative in our approach and appreciate the efforts of all involved to make this beneficial to our student-athletes.”

The difference between the two roles is mainly the employer. One will work for Playfly and one will work for WSU, meaning the Playfly employee will focus more on working out NIL deals for athletes while the WSU employee will do that and help athletes build personal brands and educate them on the importance of financial literacy, with both jobs coordinating with each other.

In the wake of House v. NCAA settlement, which paves the way for universities to begin directly paying athletes and went into effect earlier this summer, the Cougars aren’t entirely changing up their NIL approach. They’re still working with their main NIL collective, the Cougar Collective.

But under the new rules, a new organization called the College Sports Commission was created to handle regulation of NIL issues.

The CSC worked with Deloitte to launch NIL Go, a portal designed to ensure that NIL deals amount to “fair market value” and serve a valid business purpose.