TUESDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK: Like most breakups, it's best for Washington State to move past Jimmy Rogers

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Dec. 9—COMMENTARY

He said all the right things.

Heck, Jimmy Rogers was well on his way to doing all the right things, too, with a top 20 defense, a 5-1 record at Gesa Field and a season good enough to earn the Washington State football program its ninth bowl game berth in the last 10 full seasons and lay a foundation for a team that could compete for championships in the new Pac-12.

He may have been a real catch for the Cougs. However, there were signs that this was just not going to work out long-term.

So, after a 6-6 debut season at Wazzu, Rogers jumped on a plane to Ames, Iowa, to begin his tenure as Iowa State's head football coach.

And the cruelest revelation of them all? He was texting ISU the whole time.

"Me and (ISU athletic director) Jamie (Pollard), he used to text me prior to every game, like, 'Hey, good luck.' And I think that's pretty awesome for him to think that way," Rogers said during his Iowa State introductory news conference on Monday. "And I never expected it to happen this fast because of the job that Matt Campbell was doing, but I'm blessed to be here."

According to The Athletic, Pollard said that his friendship with Rogers began several years ago at an event organized by Rogers' agent, when he was the head coach at FCS South Dakota State.

"The first time I met him, he said to me, 'How do I become the head coach at Iowa State University?'" Pollard said, according to The Athletic. "I told him, you're probably going to need to go one more level (up) before you get here. And we stayed in contact. When I asked him why he was going to Washington State, he said, 'It was because you told me I needed to go to the next level.'"

When asked to clarify Pollard's comments during his introductory news conference on Monday, Rogers reiterated language from the statement he posted to his X (formerly Twitter) account.

"I didn't take the Washington State job and move across the country to abandon it in one year," Rogers said. "I didn't. I took that jump because I believed in that product and in what I could produce there."

However, Rogers spoke for about 10 seconds longer than he probably should have — something I appreciated from covering him the past year, because it was in his second wind answers where he really told you how he felt.

"I know nobody wants to hear it and I know I'll get bashed, but it is what it is," Rogers said. "Everybody will find a way to complain about something and I'm blessed to be here."

Those sentiments make the abrupt end of the Jimmy Rogers era at WSU after just one year not that surprising.

It's just another in a long line of gut punches for the Cougars, which has included the collapse of a century-old conference and its associated revenue, the downsizing of the WSU athletic department, a presidential transition, two athletic director transitions — one who defected to WSU's cross-state rival, the second of which is actively happening after President Elizabeth Cantwell fired Anne McCoy — and the departure of two head football coaches within 11 months of each other to Power Four jobs.

While many Coug fans are justifiably angry, the notion expressed on social media that Rogers did not care about Cougar football is a bit dramatic.

The nuance is that he cared about his players, his staff and the opportunity to win football games.

Rogers seemed bought in to boosting WSU back into a revered national brand and into the College Football Playoff spotlight.

He just didn't expect his dream job to open up this soon.

It's not just a pay raise, a massive resources boost and a ticket into the Power Four coaching circle that attracted Rogers to Ames, Iowa. Rogers said the chance for his kids to grow up hours away from their cousins and be rooted in the Midwest is important.

For someone who had spent all but two years of his adult life in Brookings, S.D., at South Dakota State, the Midwest return is something to understand on a human level.

It reminds me of Kyle Smith's reasoning for taking the Stanford job. Key difference: Smith left WSU men's basketball after five years and got the Cougs into the NCAA Tournament.

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Rogers left WSU after one year and achieved far less than he promised. His killer quote from his WSU introduction in January about "Being as loyal as it gets," and getting the Cougs to the CFP, has aged like spoiled milk.

WSU is not in the best of places financially, just two years removed from the Pac-12's splintering.

This fact no doubt bothered Rogers.

Rogers cited an NIL disparity when explaining why he kept his Apple Cup starting quarterback a secret in order to gain a competitive advantage and contend with the Washington Huskies' $20 million roster. That effort proved fruitless as the Cougars lost to UW 59-24 on Sept. 20 in Pullman.

However, it serves as evidence that WSU's compromised position, with what Pollard said on Monday was just $2.5 million in revenue sharing, did indeed bother Rogers.

ISU is giving him a pay raise, of course, and, according to Pollard's Monday comments, about $11.5 million more in revenue sharing to compensate top players.

With 75 new players, Rogers and his staff — most of whom followed him from South Dakota State to WSU — put together a respectable 2025 campaign.

However, like any breakup, WSU needs to move on and focus on itself and its future.

The chance to coach the Cougars in the first years of the new Pac-12, where success almost guarantees a shot at the expanded College Football Playoff, is a real selling point.

With WSU firing its athletic director in October, interim AD Jon Haarlow is overseeing the hiring and did not offer a firm timeline in a Sunday news conference.

A number of high-profile names are linked to Wazzu.

Pac-12 insider John Canzano reported that former UW and UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel has received a call about the job. He has been out of coaching for a while and is currently a TV analyst for CBS.

Former Cougar quarterback Luke Falk posted a sincere pitch on social media to be WSU's next head football coach.

The Pac-12's all-time leading passer has minimal coaching experience, but insisted that he was "the right man for the job."

Another name trending among fans is former WSU linebacker Johnny Nansen.

Nansen was a staple of the Palouse Posse defense in the 1990s and is presently Texas' co-defensive coordinator. His career has taken him to Idaho, UW and USC, among other legacy Pac-12 and Big Sky stops.

Whomever the Cougars hire, they would do well to find someone who truly values Pullman and is in it for the long term.

Even the great coaches in WSU history, such as Jim Walden (who also left WSU for Iowa State), Mike Price and the late Mike Leach, left WSU for another opportunity, but not before achieving remarkable success over a significant period.

The Cougars need a coach who wants to be in Pullman for more than just 1-3 years. WSU's financial position is not what it was in Leach's tenure, which has made Jake Dickert's dart for Wake Forest and Rogers' relocation to Iowa State sting.

This is the state of WSU football, but it doesn't have to be this way.

The right person, who in turn would assemble a team of suitable people, for the right time — the dawn of a revamped Pac-12 — could do wonders for Wazzu.

The Cougars just need to find them.

Taylor can be reached at 208-848-2268, staylor@lmtribune.com, or on X or Instagram @Sam_C_Taylor.

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