After stunning loss to Utah State, is Caden Pinnick the right QB to start for WSU? | Analysis

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Oct. 10—LOGAN, Utah — Caden Pinnick seems like a thoughtful young man. He's poised and articulate, eloquent and respectful, understanding of his role within the ecosystem of his team and what his struggles mean for the bigger picture.

There is little doubt about this: He will go on to be successful in life, wherever that takes him, and he will look back at his tenure as Washington State's quarterback as a time in his life when he learned a lot about himself. There may even come a time when he laughs about it, secure enough in himself to shake his head and smile.

But after Pinnick's latest performance, unable to guide WSU to anything resembling a credible offense in a stunning 17-16 defeat to Utah State here on Friday night, his coaches may not be doing right by him — or by the program — in continuing to roll him out there every weekend. It's the third straight loss for the Cougars, who have four offensive touchdowns in five games against FBS competition in head coach Kirby Moore's debut season.

"It's really unfair for these guys to come out and bust their butt every week of practice, and for me not to pick it up on my end," said Pinnick, who was made available to the media for the first time in three weeks. "When I look back on it, there's a lot of things I can control, whether that's calming people down and just (saying) things will be all right. We're gonna get this drive going."

At the center of it all is Pinnick, who completed 23 of 36 passes in this loss. In years past at WSU, if you read that the quarterback finished with those numbers, you would think he racked up 300 or 400 yards. You'd think he passed for two or three touchdowns. You'd think that even if the Cougars lost, they played an exciting brand of football, at the very least entertaining fans who watched in person or on TV.

This WSU team is not checking any of those boxes. Pinnick totaled only 156 yards. He didn't throw for any touchdowns. His team lost, and with the exception of a long touchdown rush from running back Leo Pulalasi in the second quarter, this was not entertaining football. If anything, it was boring and unimaginative, a vanilla product from a rotten offense.

WSU, which totaled only 64 total yards of offense in the second half, never looked to have any offensive rhythm in this game. That would be a problem in a vacuum. But the games are played on the field, which is where things have looked even worse for the Cougs, who have now lost 11 total turnovers on the season. Their quarterback either can't or won't stretch the field vertically. They can't avoid penalties, racking up 13 for 113 yards in this game. And they can't get any consistency from their running backs, whose offseason retention was hailed as one of Moore's top accomplishments in his first few weeks on the job.

This forces Moore to answer some tough questions. Here is one posed to him: What makes him want to keep sticking with Pinnick at QB, rather than look at quarterbacks Julian Dugger or Owen Eshelman?

"Well, first, again, we gotta evaluate everything on offense," said Moore, whose team blew a 16-3 halftime lead. "That's the most important thing, in the second halves, why we're doing what we're doing from an execution standpoint. Because there's not just the quarterback. There's runs that break, and you get called for a hold. So you gotta look at what went wrong there, and there was opportunities throughout the offense to score in the second half."

Washington State Cougars defensive tackle Jirah Leaupepetele (98) loses his helmet on a sack of Utah State Aggies quarterback Grady Brosterhous (9) during the second half of a college football game on Friday, Oct 9, 2026, at Maverik Stadium in Logan, Utah. Utah State won the game 17-16. (Tyler Tjomsland/The Spokesman-Review)

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