Kris Kracht isn’t just WSU football’s new mental performance coach. He’s a difference maker.

PULLMAN — Over the past few months, Hudson Cedarland has learned his performance number is a six. In the spring, he switched positions and joined Washington State’s tight ends, a position that forces him to process all manner of signals before the snap: motions, shifts, trades.

“Mentally,” Cedarland said, “you have to be aware of what’s going on.”

So even as he prepares for his fourth season at WSU, Hudson has learned he can’t get too amped up before the snap, lest he lose focus of his assignments. But he also can’t let himself relax too much, otherwise he won’t have the energy he needs to get off the ball quickly and make his block, run his route, execute his responsibilities.

He knows because he’s felt his head stretched to both ends of the spectrum. He’s made spectacular plays, flourishes that launch his adrenaline to a 10. He’s also made brutal mistakes, blunders that plummet his mental state to a 2. A former linebacker, Cedarland is trying to establish himself in a position group where he has zero experience, which can prompt him to try too hard, leading to mountaintops of ecstasy and valleys of anguish.

“I’m just trying to slow those things down with breathing exercises,” Cedarland said. “Mentally, using different tactics to just separate that last play to the next play. I think I’m in the best mental spot that I’ve ever been in when playing a sport – with him as a resource.”

Cedarland is referring to the engineer behind the mental revolution on WSU’s football team, director of mental performance Kris Kracht, who followed head coach Jimmy Rogers from South Dakota State to WSU last winter. In six months on the job, Kracht has introduced to the Cougars a new way of tackling the challenges of thriving as a college football player: By sharpening their minds and using them as tools, the same as quarterbacks use their arms and kickers use their feet, anchoring players with performance numbers that help them regulate their emotions on the field.

A North Dakota native, Kracht has a master’s degree in applied sport psychology from Adams State (Colorado) University and a master’s in communication studies and journalism from South Dakota State. Both prepared him for SDSU’s mental performance coaching role, which he held from 2021-2024. In late December, Rogers took WSU’s head coaching job and brought Kracht along with him.

Kracht might sound like a counselor of sorts, but the word coach is in his title for a reason. He’s around WSU players in the weight room every day. During the season, he’ll be on the sidelines during games, helping players refocus where necessary. He’s a constant presence in practices for the same purposes. He may not be on the headset dialing up a Cover 2 look, but to hear those around him tell it, he’s making the same kind of impact.

“We’ve heard a lot about the success he’s seen in athletes as far as mental performance and the tools that he gives us, and the lasting effect it can do for all aspects of life,” WSU defensive tackle Bryson Lamb said. “He hits it on the head pretty well on that it’s not just for football, but it’s for real life, as far as in times that you’re experiencing external stressors, on how to handle that with breathing, thinking and separating situations into more tasks to complete on, ‘This is what needs to get done.’ It’s just been very helpful.”

In a few months at WSU, Kracht has earned the respect of players and coaches alike because everyone agrees on the difference he’s making – and the ones he figures to make come the fall, when WSU faces stiff road tests against the likes of Ole Miss and Virginia, plus home matchups against rival Washington and conference foe Oregon State. He isn’t just a therapist, valuable as that role could be on its own. He’s a game-changing assistant coach.

There are many examples to illustrate the point, but let’s start with a preparation tool Kracht used in 2022, when South Dakota State was preparing for a season-opening road matchup with Iowa. From the floors to the lockers to the urinals, the Hawkeyes’ visitors locker room is painted entirely pink, a purposeful measure to reduce aggressiveness in opponents’ psychologies. Since it was installed some 30 years ago, the pink-colored environment has annoyed opposing coaches and players.

Leading up to the game, Kracht knew he needed to prepare his guys for what those conditions would be like, to help them visualize them. So at SDSU’s Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium, he had the tunnel leading to the field lined in a similar shade of pink, allowing the Jackrabbits to compose themselves, to understand what they would be walking into.

“So when our guys got in that environment,” Kracht said, “they’re like, ‘Hey, Kris, this looks like a shade of white.’ Because the brain had said, “Hey, I’ve been here before.’ And now it doesn’t really panic in that moment.”

South Dakota State kept things close in a 7-3 loss, setting the stage for an FCS national championship season under former coach John Stiegelmeier. He retired after the season, paving the way for Rogers, who followed with another national title season.

At WSU, Kracht may not be changing the colors of facilities, but he’s using his paintbrush in similarly effective ways. During the Cougars’ winter workouts, Kracht held all kinds of meetings with players. On Wednesdays, he held what he called DNA group sessions, which involved players from different backgrounds — WSU returners, South Dakota State transfers and transfers from other schools — mixing and getting to know each other.

“It was a great way to get to know people,” Lamb said. “I had Angel Johnson, Trey Ridley (both SDSU transfers), got to know them a lot more, their story, where they’re from. I think that’s huge.”

On top of what he termed “hallway psychology,” where he chats with players before and after lifts and practices, Kracht also meets 1-on-1 with players interested in doing so. This is where he forms some of his closer relationships, where he helps players address needs specific to their lives. For Cedarland, it’s where he learned to internalize one of the more pressing issues in his quest to earn playing time.

During several meetings, Cedarland told Kracht he was facing a unique dilemma: He’s a veteran on the team, headed into his fourth season, with the beard and frustrating injury history to match. But he’s new at tight end, and many of his counterparts have much more experience. Sophomore Trey Leckner appeared in all 12 games last season, two as a starter; senior Andre Dollar has 25 games of experience; and Michigan State transfer Ademola Faleye, who joined the team in January, has played 32 games of college tight end.

That prompted Cedarland to question himself, to wonder how much credibility he has to speak up. If he tried to step up as a leader, would he be taken seriously? He didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes.

In response, Kracht told Cedarland he understood where he was coming from, that experience helps build credibility, which in turn makes better leaders. But Kracht also helped Cedarland understand that he has some experience other tight ends in the room don’t. Cedarland has been at WSU the longest – his freshman season, which he redshirted, was in 2022 – which allows him to speak with authority on being a Coug, on places to eat in Pullman, on what being a college football player is all about.

Kracht’s ability to breathe confidence into players from all types of backgrounds is a window into the new environment WSU coaches are building throughout the program. On the fifth floor of the Cougar Football Complex, which houses coaches’ offices, Kracht works out of a spacious room with transparent glass for walls, like he’s operating in a fishbowl. Walk past that and you find rows of offices, where players feel comfortable chatting with coaches in their free time.

“Whenever I go to the fifth floor, I don’t feel like I’m in the principal’s office,” Lamb said. “I’d say that’s the biggest one. It’s always good vibes up there. Every coach, you can talk to, you can go in. When I’m on my path to a certain office, I’m always saying, ‘Hello, how’s it going?’ It’s been really great, and it’s nice to have a whole floor now open up to me.”

“Like Bryson was saying,” Cedarland added, “it’s not the principal where you feel like, ‘OK, I had a bad practice today. I’m about to get … chewed out in film,’ you know what I mean? It’s not like that at all.

“Last year, I never really felt comfortable always going up there and just talking with coaches. Now sometimes, like during winter training and in spring ball, because I was online for school, if I ever had an awkward spacing or free time during the day, you just go up, sit in the GA’s room and just talk with them about practice, do whatever. Just kinda poke your head into different coaches’ offices, see what they’re up to. It’s just nice to be able to have that relationship with them off the football field.”

It’s a tricky balancing act, though. By all accounts, Kracht is approachable and warm — Lamb described him as “a really nice guy, a very, very cool person” — but he also understands players are facing serious hurdles. Some young players, like Leckner, have promising futures ahead of them. Other veterans, like Cedarland and SDSU transfer safety Tucker Large, feel the clocks ticking on their careers.

That’s the reason for another theme of Kracht’s work: pressure principles. It can apply to players wanting to make the most out of their final years of eligibility, such as Large. It can relate to pressure-packed games, like WSU’s home game with archrival Washington in September, Pullman’s first Apple Cup in three years. “There’s the clock that reminds me on the daily,” Kracht said, referring to an Apple Cup countdown timer stationed on the doorway leading to the coaches’ offices. In mid-May, when Kracht chatted for this story, it began with a bright red 129 days.

“How do we deal with that outside noise that certainly surrounds college football and hopefully our program?” Kracht said.

Like an offensive coordinator who doesn’t want to reveal his favorite third-down calls, Kracht keeps some parts of his work private for competitive advantage purposes — “We’ve got some principles that are internal, that we’ll keep,” he said about managing pressure — but he keeps players open-minded to his work, to thriving under pressure, by simplifying the messaging. He acknowledges that as much as the stigma around mental health may be fading in 2025, it certainly still hovers over groups like college football players, some of whom have internalized that chatting about their struggles amounts to some kind of weakness.

To break though, Kracht likes to compare building mental strength to building physical strength. He draws an analogy to visitors to the doctor’s office. At least ideally, you don’t only go to the doctor when you’re sick. You also go when you feel good to make sure you’re healthy. It’s the same as Cougar players hitting the weight room: They don’t go there when they feel weak. They go to build strength, to maintain it.

Too often, Kracht said, he gets asked to speak to groups such as high school teams that recently blew a two-score lead in the fourth quarter. Maybe the team has a quarterback who’s talented, but his mental instability keeps him from reaching his potential.

“That suggests to me that something is wrong,” Kracht said, “when in reality, it’s not about what’s wrong. It’s about, how do we build mental strength? Because I think too often it’s like, ‘Well, you have it and he doesn’t.’ That isn’t how this works. Mental strength can be learned. It can be taught. It’s a skill.”

Which is why he works with WSU players on ways to stay composed on the field, in the middle of tight games. He can do plenty on his own. One of Kracht’s favorite stories, illustrating that he’s doing something right, happened during the 2023 FCS national semifinals, when SDSU was locked in a tight game with Montana State, another perennial FCS powerhouse.

Kracht walked over to the offensive line, whose starters were smiling. Guard Mason McCormick looked at Kracht and said, “Are we having fun yet?”

“To be blunt,” Kracht said, “one guy farted. I was like, OK, these guys are loose. I was like, OK, great.”

That’s the kind of impact Kracht plans to have at Washington State, which is preparing for a quasi-independent schedule this fall, unlike any in program history. The Cougs have several tough games lined up, visiting Ole Miss and Virginia for the first time and playing Oregon State twice, but Kracht thinks the Cougs can contend for a national title, the same sentiment Rogers expressed at his introductory news conference in January.

To get there, Kracht will work with Rogers each week on preparation. Not in the Xs and Os, but in helping players compose themselves for the opponent and environment that awaits them, the maw of Ole Miss’ Vaught-Hemingway Stadium or the familiar haunts of Martin Stadium. Since 2022, when Kracht earned Rogers’ trust and stayed on his SDSU staff, he’s felt comfortable enough to speak up when they don’t see eye to eye, signaling the importance Rogers sees in Kracht and his work.

In Pullman, it’s beginning to bear fruit. During one spring practice, Lamb recalls, he felt himself getting overwhelmed with installing new schemes and plays. A season ago, he had finally broken out on the Cougars’ defensive line. He appeared in all 13 games, one as a starter. A few months later, he was learning a whole new set of concepts under WSU’s new coaches.

In the moment, Lamb felt himself getting frustrated. That’s about when he thought back to techniques he had learned with Kracht. He slowed his breathing down, told himself to calm down.

“When I got calm, I got level-headed again. I got back to my old self,” Lamb said. “I was like, ‘That was really nice. That was helpful.’

Turns out, Kracht knows his work is making a difference when players relax. Sometimes they even fart.