Living within our means

Things have been interesting down in Pullman in the last couple of weeks. A bunch of the football players put their names into the transfer portal and Coach Jake Dickert was announced as the new head football coach at Wake Forest. He now leads the Demon Deacons football team.

Now I’ve heard rumors like most everyone has about Dickert’s move to the North Carolina school. WF plays in the ACC conference in a stadium smaller than Gesa Field in Pullman. And historically they have had their ups and downs with a lot of downs. I’m sure that Coach Dickert thinks he can win in Winston-Salem and maybe he can or maybe he is looking for that one great season and find a job at better talent college with more NIL money and an awesome weight room. Good luck.

A bigger paycheck often means bigger headaches but maybe the fans at Wake Forest don’t expect wins on a weekly basis and are happy with a 6-6 record and a bowl invite we’ll see.

After reading a few things in the paper about how things went down in Pullman it almost sounded like Dickert might have stayed had the AD raised a couple of million more to keep Dickert there. But anytime a coach starts looking it will be hard to keep him satisfied if he thinks that the turf is greener in another part of the country. The ACC is not the Big 10 or SEC but there are enough teams to compete with that can make Saturdays miserable.

I believe WSU AD Anne McCoy made the right decision to not try to get into a bidding war to keep a football coach that started the season 8-1 and finished 8-4 losing to three very beatable teams. You can put the onus on others but as the head coach you need to point the finger at yourself when things go south.

McCoy has hired 37 year old Jimmy Rogers the former Head Coach for the South Dakota State Jackrabbits. SDSU was the 2023 FCS National Champion and the Jackrabbits made the semi-final this season. In three seasons as the coach Rogers’ SDSU teams went 37-3. He is bringing with him several of his assistants as well as some of the players he recruited there will now be Cougars.

I’m sure that some people would have hoped that McCoy could have grabbed an influential offensive or defensive coordinator but having someone with head coaching experience and quite successful should be something that most Cougar fans should be happy about. Finding a guy that still has some energy and is willing to take a cut in pay to get back into the game is not that easy.

College football has changed so much. Does a coach recruit a bunch of high school kids only to see them put their name into the transfer portal in a year or two worth it? Or does he just wait for the players that opt for the transfer portal at season’s end and recruit them? Well you need to have a team so you recruit the high schools and JC kids and hope that they don’t change their mind before spring practice or the season opener.

I watched an interview with Jim Larranaga, the highly successful basketball coach at George Mason and just recently the University of Miami Hurricanes. Larranaga stepped down last month as the Miami coach when the ‘Canes had a mediocre start to the season. At 75 the business part of the game had taken away the love of coaching. Anyway, during the interview Larranaga said that after the 2023 Final Four run made by his Miami team 8 players put their name into the transfer portal which stunned him. He asked the players if they didn’t like it at Miami. They told him that they loved it there but were looking at how much money they could make with the NIL. I know coaches get paid a lot of money but they get a lot of heat from the fans, alumni and the press and if they are married their spouse gets to hear that too. So what happens if the kid is making more NIL money than the coach? Fun times!

For WSU expect to see a lot of kids in the portal and coaches moving on after three years or so because of the difficulty to build a team for two to three years down the road. The program will need to stay within its budgetary means but it can still be a fun place to watch a game.

There will always be great coaches and great players but it looks like there will be very few ‘Cougs for Life’, unfortunately.

— Dale Anderson is a sports columnist from Ritzville. To contact him, email [email protected].