WSU QB Jaxon Potter to enter transfer portal, ending three-year stay with Cougars
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Dec. 4—PULLMAN — Jaxon Potter has played his final snap at Washington State.
The quarterback plans to enter the transfer portal, a source confirmed to The Spokesman-Review on Thursday, ending his three-year stay with the Cougars. Potter started each of the first three games of this season for WSU.
On3 Sports was the first to report the news.
The transfer portal doesn't open until Jan. 2, but with regular seasons over across the country, players are beginning to make plans for the portal.
A redshirt sophomore from Huntington Beach, California, Potter earned the starting QB job out of fall camp and went 2-1 as a starter. All told, he completed 67 of 95 passes (71%) for 604 yards, four touchdowns and three interceptions.
But all three of those picks came in the first half of WSU's blowout loss to North Texas in September, prompting head coach Jimmy Rogers to bench Potter for veteran Zevi Eckhaus, who took over the QB reins the rest of the regular season. In his final game at WSU, Potter completed 16 of 23 passes for 139 yards and the three interceptions.
In his debut, Potter helped WSU sneak by nearby Idaho in a 13-10 victory. A week later, in the Cougars' blowout win over San Diego State, he connected on 28 of 42 passes for 257 yards and three touchdowns, torching an Aztec defense that went on to blossom as one of the best in the nation.
Potter has lots of great qualities as a quarterback, but mobility is not one of them. WSU coaches value that trait in a big way, which was another reason they pivoted away from Potter after Week 3. Potter is a true pocket-passer, which he showed to good effect, but the Cougars' offense wasn't the same with a QB who didn't feel comfortable running the ball.
Potter is the first known WSU player to enter the transfer portal since the end of the regular season, which the Cougars concluded with a 32-8 win over Oregon State last weekend. Washington State (6-6) will learn its bowl destination on Sunday.
With Potter on his way out and Eckhaus out of eligibility after this season, the Cougars don't have an obvious candidate for a 2026 QB. WSU's current QBs with eligibility include Julian Dugger, transfer Ajani Sheppard and freshmen Owen Eshelman and Dalton Anderson. Dugger played sparingly this season, used primarily as a gadget running QB, while the other three have yet to see the field at WSU.
Will the Cougars roll with one of those players next year? Or will they look for a QB in the transfer portal? Only time will tell.
Potter also found himself in the center of a wild QB saga. After WSU's loss to North Texas, Rogers told reporters that in the week of practice leading up to the Apple Cup, coaches would hold a QB competition between Potter, Eckhaus and Dugger to determine the starter for that game. Two days later, though, Rogers said coaches had already made their decision shortly after the North Texas game — meaning they didn't hold the competition Rogers indicated they would.
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