WSU Football | Cougars Head To San Antonio Confident

Thursday afternoon Coach Paul Wulff was ready for a conference with media once again.The Washington State Cougar football coach was raring to go and seem to catch the media napping. If a Pac-10 official would have been in the room, a flag would have been thrown for either a delay or false start following unexpected silence after the first question.

Those of us in the media might have been off our game, but Coach Wulff wasn't. Once the conference got up a head of steam, he had plenty to say.

The status of the offensive line for WSU continues to be better news. Much of this season the OL has been the unit hardest hit by a plague of injuries.

Last week, offensive guards BJ Guerra and Zack Williams returned to the gridiron on either side of Kenny Alfred at center. Though neither is quite up to full speed yet, they are two effective players. Their play enhances what Alfred can do as well.

Two question marks for Coach Harold Etheridge's OL are Steven Ayers and Tyson Pencer. Both are looking good in practice this week. But both are still a little gimpy. Ayers will rotate in with Micah Hannam at right tackle after competing for the start this week. The same situation exists at left tackle where Pencer and Alex Reitnouer will rotate to keep fresh. Coach Wulff praised the progress freshman Reitnouer is making and expects him to develop into a really fine football player.

With the loss of Louis Bland for the season, there's competition for the starting middle linebacker, or MIKE, between Mike Ledgerwood and Alex Hoffman-Ellis. The job will go to whoever performs best in practice this week. With just one practice remaining before leaving for San Antonio, Hoffman-Ellis will probably start the game with Ledgerwood rotating in when the situation calls for it.

Numerous folks have been quick to observe and point out Notre Dame has given up a lot of passing yards on defense this season. The issue came up once again today. Coach Wulff made it pretty clear those stats don't tell the real story of what's going on with Coach Charlie Weiss' defense.

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"The thing about them is that they’ll give up some yards in the middle of the field in the passing game at times. They get really stingy when it gets down in to the red zone. Sometimes in the passing game they’ll bend a little bit, but they don’t break. They don’t give up a lot of big plays in the passing game. They give up yardage, but not big plays and are pretty stingy in the red zone. That’s the one thing they’re willing to do. It’s a philosophy…but ultimately they don’t give up a lot of points on the scoreboard. They do a good job." - WSU Coach Paul Wulff

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As often as the situation with the Irish giving up passing yardage has come up, there is one issue with Washington State which has escalated to becoming overblown and over-used. Once again Coach Wulff was asked about how he plans to get the team ready for the opening kickoff. Exasperated, here's what he had to say about the Cougs starting games slow.

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"What we’re trying to do is just continue to improve from week to week. I know that sounds cliché but it’s the truth. There’s enough that if these guys keep playing and will continue to make big strides, I just think that’s what’s going to happen. We’ve pressed the issue of starting fast and playing fast. I think there’s been too much talk about it. We just need to go play football and quit using it as a crutch or an excuse that if we don’t start fast, well, here we go again. We just need to get out there and play strong and play early. That’s really it." - Coach Wulff

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With the Cougs going out of conference for this game and flying down to the Alamodome, Coach Wulff was asked if the team might be effected by the travel.

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"I think that if the game was in the morning, a 12 o’clock or 1 o’clock game and it’d be a 9 or 10 o’clock kickoff our time I think it’d be a bigger issue. But the fact that it’s going to be 4:30pm out west and 6:30pm in San Antonio, it shouldn’t really have an impact with our players. Time-wise, it’s like in the middle of practice time for us anyway. I don’t think it will. Obviously the travel is a little longer than a Pac-10 game but I really don’t think based on the start time it should have an impact." - Coach Wulff

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Coach Wulff sounds confident the team will be prepared to play their best football of the season this Saturday.

Could be the confidence shown by Washington State's head football coach is contagious. Ted Miller of ESPN was so bold to suggest reasons why "Washington State may shock the world:" To find out Miller's reasons that a WSU victory Saturday could happen, click HERE and scroll down the page to his story titled, "What to watch in the Pac-10".

A wise man once said, "That's why they play the game."

Originally published in Lew Wright's column on Examiner.com