WSU rewind: After Cougs’ win over Toledo, their shorthanded offensive line’s efforts shouldn’t go unnoticed

PULLMAN – As far as jobs on a football field go, offensive line ranks among the most thankless. When a quarterback has time to throw, he’s praised for making the right reads. When he doesn’t, the blame immediately goes to the offensive line, the mistakes the group is making, the ways it could be overmatched.

That trend ends in this space, which will be dedicated to examining the ways Washington State’s offensive line contributed to a 28-7 win over Toledo on Saturday afternoon.

First things first: The Cougars are awfully shorthanded up front. They have now played three straight games without their starting right tackle, fifth-year senior Christian Hilborn, who is out with a knee injury. They also played Saturday’s game without his backup, Division II transfer Jaylin Caldwell, who exited early from the previous game with his own injury.

That has forced coaches to shuffle the deck, to play guys way out of position. Just as they did when Caldwell got hurt against Virginia, they moved left guard Jonny Lester to right tackle and swapped in third-year sophomore Noah Dunham at left guard. That resulted in this offensive line: left tackle Ashton Tripp, left guard Dunham, center Brock Dieu, right guard AJ Vaipulu and right tackle Lester.

We should also note this: Lester said he had only played tackle in practice. Never in a game, not even in high school, where he starred at Northwest Christian in Spokane. So when we talk about his game, about how he fits into this grouping, keep that in mind.

Overall, WSU finished with a Pro Football Focus pass-blocking grade of just 39.9 against Toledo, which is staggeringly low. But that number is dragged down by the outing from Vaipulu, who gave up one sack on six pressures, good for a pass-blocking grade of 0.0. He was one of just three offensive linemen to record at least 30 snaps and finish with that grade in Week 9. He’s now slogged through back-to-back forgettable games.

But outside of that, the Cougars turned in a game to remember up front, especially considering the circumstances. Their front five permitted only three pressures otherwise, two from Lester and one from Dunham, the two guys being asked to do more than they were even two weeks ago. Dieu earned a clean sheet with zero pressures, landing him a pass-blocking grade of 84, the team’s best in this game.

That gives us a chance to spotlight Dieu, and it might be overdue. On the season, the fifth-year senior has earned three pass-blocking grades of above 80, which is an awesome mark. He has permitted a pair of sacks, but those came against Washington and Ole Miss, both of which have WSU beat in personnel and depth. Otherwise, Dieu has yielded only three pressures in eight games, a remarkable stretch for a relatively undersized guy playing one of the toughest positions in the trenches.

His endurance should not go understated. Nor should his versatility. He burst onto the scene in 2023, when he earned playing time at right guard. He started the first 10 games of the 2024 season at that position, but injuries befell that WSU offensive line, prompting him to move to center. He played that position in each of the Cougars’ final three games of that fall, and he’s stuck there ever since, and you would hardly know it because of how solid he’s been.

“Brock is very supportive and Hilborn – they’re both very supportive of me,” Lester said. “They want me to be the best version of myself that I can be. I would say the biggest thing is during practice, they’re getting on me about doing the right thing all the time and just trying to make me be a better player.”

The Cougars’ front five also deserves some credit for this trend: WSU has now eclipsed 100 yards rushing in each of its last four games. On one drive in Saturday’s game, the Cougars chewed up more than 6½ minutes of game time on a 12-play series, 10 of which came on the ground. Their offensive line should take pride in that, and to hear Lester tell it, they do. “It gives me a sense of pride that we’re able to do that,” he said.

But WSU was hardly perfect up front. The main culprit has been Vaipulu. In last week’s game against Virginia, he was flagged for three straight penalties in crunch time: false start, false start, holding. That tanked a crucial drive. A week later, he’s looking at the worst possible pass-blocking grade, and while his run-blocking grade was a bit better at 49.1, even that mark leaves much to be desired.

If the Cougars want to earn bowl eligibility – with several winnable games remaining in their final four regular-season contests, they likely can – Vaipulu will have to be better. But it’s also true that the Cougs are doing well to make the most of a tough hand they’ve been dealt. Their efforts don’t go unnoticed here.

“When it happened in the game last week,” Lester said of his mid-game move to tackle, “my mindset was kinda like, I’m not expected to do great, so I might as well just play as hard as I can, and try to be a (nuisance) to the defensive linemen. I think I played fairly well for switching mid-game to right tackle. This week, I worked a lot on the pass pro aspect, because that’s obviously the hardest part of the game at tackle. So just trying to get down my kicks, different sets I can take, different jumps, hand placement, it’s all a lot different than guard. So just working on that this past week.”