WSU hosts Spring Showcase as football practices wrap up

It’s a new era in WSU football, what with Jimmy Rogers at the helm and all. It’s also a new era in college football with teams—including WSU—foregoing their annual spring game for a watered down version. Basically, WSU will host an open practice today at Gesa Field for fans to get one last look at the team before summer begins.

You can blame NIL and the transfer portal for much (all?) of this. As Rogers has put it, putting more guys on film for other schools to poach after a spring game doesn’t do his program any good, and it’s his job to watch over his program. There’s also the threat of injuries in games like these.

So if you’re headed to Pullman today, you won’t see the traditional Crimson vs. Gray game. But WSU has enhanced the day to make it fan-friendly, with a beer garden, concessions and a football clinic for kids after the practice, much like they did in Spokane a couple weeks ago.

Having been to the kids clinic in Spokane, I can tell you it was amazing and very well-run. If you’re in and around Pullman today (the practice begins at 1 p.m.), and you have kids who need some energy release, I highly recommend heading to Gesa Field.

So we won’t really learn much after today, but did we ever really learn much after the traditional spring games of the past? Not really. There are a lot of new faces learning a new system this spring, and the offensive and defensive lines are being rebuilt. You may be able to glean some info from watching practice, but the Andrei Lintz All-Star team is a thing of the past.

Speaking of the defensive line, The Spokesman-Review’s Greg Woods had an interesting feature on edge rusher Isaac Terrell this week. We should be seeing a lot more from Terrell this season, and it sounds like he’s happy to still be in Pullman under a new coaching staff:

“To be honest, Dickert wasn’t my favorite coach I’ve had,” Terrell said. “He just wasn’t very personal, and didn’t almost feel like a real person. It was like the tension was always tight when he was around, just kind of always analyzing everything. So it just didn’t feel like he was so much of a person.”

Well then!

We’ll also see former highly-touted linebacker Hudson Cedarland now lining up at tight end. Woods had another great feature on Cedarland, who was thisclose to leaving the program this past offseason.

They’re calling it the Spring Showcase, and it’s free to attend. Here’s all the information you need to know as you plan your Saturday.

Checking in on WSU Baseball

It’s been a rough go for WSU’s baseball team, which started the season 0-8. They followed that up by winning five of their next six games, but it’s hard to dig out of that big of a hole.

Last night down in New Mexico, things looked to be going well, thanks to a grand slam home run by Gavin Roy to give WSU an 8-3 lead. Just look at the reaction from the poor pitcher, and don’t let the play-by-play guy get you too excited:

Alas, the arms couldn’t hold on and WSU dropped this one 10-9. The Cougs sit at 13-20 this season.