On eve of fall camp, WSU coach Kirby Moore says team will announce starting QB before season-opener, plus other injury news

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Aug. 5—PULLMAN — When Washington State has selected a starting quarterback, ending what will be a three-man race, coaches will make the announcement ahead of the team's season opener.

That's the word from first-year WSU coach Kirby Moore, who said Wednesday that coaches plan to decide between Caden Pinnick, Owen Eshelman and Julian Dugger by Aug. 24 — the first day of the semester — with an announcement to follow.

WSU's season opener is Sept. 6 at rival Washington.

"I think throughout fall camp, at some point, the starting quarterback is going to present himself, and that could be after the third or fourth practice. That could be after practice 12," Moore said Wednesday, on the eve of the Cougars' fall camp, which kicks off Thursday morning.

It's a bit newsworthy thanks to the approach from Moore's predecessor, former coach Jimmy Rogers, who only announced the team's starting quarterback moments before kickoff of the Cougars' season opener in a TV interview. This fall, the quarterback who takes the Cougars' first snaps will be no surprise.

Moore and offensive coordinator/QBs coach Matt Miller will have a few weeks to evaluate Pinnick, a transfer from UC Davis where he won Big Sky Freshman of the Year honors, as well as returners Eshelman and Dugger. Pinnick often took first-team reps in WSU's spring slate back in April, but much could change between then and now.

"It's about executing on the field," Moore said. "Naturally, at the quarterback position, is there a leadership component to it? Yes. You gotta be who you are at the same time. And it's about making the simple plays, and a lot of times the quarterback gets too much credit and too much blame.

"It's operating the offense in a timely fashion. Staying on schedule in the run game, making sure the things that we gotta do at the line of scrimmage we're doing correctly, and then in the pass game, get the ball to our playmakers. Let them make plays for you out in space. Every once in a while, give him a 50-50 ball and let a guy go make a play."

In other news, Moore said redshirt junior tight end Trey Leckner is expected to miss the first half of the season with a foot injury. Leckner missed all of spring practices with the injury, then re-injured the foot in a non-contact incident, Moore said, leading Leckner to undergo surgery.

It's a costly development for the Cougars, who were expecting the Snohomish native to take a nice leap this fall. Listed at 6-foot-3 and 243 pounds, Leckner is best as a pass-catcher, hauling in 24 catches for 186 yards and three touchdowns last fall. He looked primed for an even bigger season in his third year of action with Washington State.

Instead, the Cougars will likely turn to veteran UCLA transfer Jack Pedersen, who submitted one of the team's best individual spring slates earlier this year. A hulking 6-foot-5 and 248 pounds, Pedersen is a versatile tight end who often found himself catching touchdown passes in the spring. Look for him to enjoy a standout fall camp, though fellow tight ends Beau Baker and Hudson Cedarland will vie for meaningful snaps too.

Transfer wide receiver Ryan McKendry and tight end Cash Landau are also expected to miss the beginning of fall camp, according to Moore, who added that transfer offensive lineman Kalolo Ta'aga is set to be out "a good amount of fall camp." A transfer from USC and Utah, Ta'aga also missed the majority of the Cougars' spring practices, though it's unclear if it's the same injury.

Those three players are entirely capable of doing so, but they weren't expected to make instant splashes at WSU, which has other players ready to compete right away at those positions. McKendry was one of four wideouts to transfer to the Cougars during the offseason, and because of the talent on the roster, Landau and Ta'aga may still be a season away from earning significant roles with the program.

For WSU, the best injury news concerns offensive lineman Jaylin Caldwell, who is back healthy and ready to compete, Moore said. Caldwell spent the first three years of his career at Division-II Grand Valley State before transferring last year to WSU, where injuries forced him into the starting lineup for two games last fall, but then he went down with his own injury against Virginia. That kept him out of the Cougars' spring practices.

But now he's healthy again, which might mean a competition at the right tackle spot between Caldwell and veteran tackle Max McCree. A transfer from UW, McCree battled injuries for two years before transferring in the winter to WSU, where he flipped from left tackle to right tackle. He's made the transition seamlessly, looking the part of a skilled veteran in earlier practices.

"I'm really excited about Jaylin," Moore said. "I think this summer he's done a really good job working with the training staff, with the weight staff. His body fat is down. You look at just how he's moving, he's doing a lot of extra work. We talk about doing more than what's expected. A lot of times, I'm peeking out my window, and Jaylin's out there on the field doing extra work."

As for what a WSU fall camp will look like under Moore? During Wednesday's media day, one theme kept resurfacing: improvement and game-like situations.

"The big thing throughout fall camp is I want to make sure we have as many competitive situational situations that come up," Moore said, "whether it be end-of-half, end-of-game, put the ball down and play it, two-point plays. All the different things that can come up, whether it's offense, defense, special teams — at times, putting some stress on the players and the coaches to adjust quickly because that's how the game's gonna operate.

"So we want to make sure we're doing that. There's gonna be certain things that have to be scripted, and then there's other things that we gotta put the ball down and we gotta adapt, adjust, improvise from a playing standpoint and a coaching standpoint."

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