Christmas Morning Quarterback: Credit to the Cougars’ coaches past, present and future

“The traditional Pac-12 was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.”

While I am no Sir Charles Dickens, I invite you to consider Washington State’s 34-21 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl win over Utah State on Monday as a Cougar coaches’ “Christmas Carol,” if you will, in which Wazzu football’s stewards of past, present and future left an impression on Boise’s blue turf.

Among the rubble of college football’s castaway toys, in a year in which Washington State played schools from 10 different conferences and traveled over 16,000 miles to do so, the Cougars wrote their own story.

Credit for that feat lies chiefly with the student-athletes themselves, who endured a myriad of hardships no matter how long they called the Palouse home.

But none of those players would have been in a position to succeed if they did not have their coaches in their corner.

Jimmy Rogers, coach of Cougar football past

This month, Jimmy Rogers joined Jake Dickert as the second WSU head coach in as many seasons to secure a Power Four job.

Rogers spent just 11 months on the Palouse before an opportunity at Iowa State arose.

While some Cougar fans may be just as eager to compare Rogers to Ebenezer Scrooge, the reality is less black and white.

It is true that Rogers maintained an intense and stoic demeanor and ultimately left Wazzu for a higher-paying job after tabbing himself “as loyal as it gets” in his WSU introductory news conference. However, those who knew him best described a multifaceted man who cared deeply for his student-athletes, colleagues and family.

The sidelines of a Rogers-led practice often featured multiple coaches’ families.

“We all live extremely close to each other. There’s about 30 kids from ages zero to 10 (between those on) staff, which is insane. So there’s always something going on,” WSU safeties coach Pete Menage said in August. “It’s really turned into a big family.”

This family atmosphere is a chief reason why a bulk of his South Dakota State staff followed him from Brookings, S.D., to Pullman and why several, including Jesse Bobbit, WSU’s interim head coach for the last few weeks, will join him in Ames, Iowa.

After deleting his goodbye post on X and remarking that “people will find a way to complain about something,” in his ISU introduction, Rogers’ departure cast a bad light over what was a successful season.

The Cougars nearly beat three AP Top 25 teams, including College Football Playoff teams Ole Miss and James Madison.

Rogers reassembled a roster with 75 new players and implemented a defense that ranked No. 15 in the nation with 299.5 yards allowed per game.

He also hired Bobbit, the gentleman who coached one of the most dominant bowl game performances in WSU history.

Rogers’ absence also seemed to greatly impact offensive coordinator Danny Freund, who called a monster of a game in which WSU gained 628 total yards, passed the ball 47 times for 373 yards and racked up 255 yards rushing on 41 attempts.

WSU’s next-highest offensive output in terms of yards — and highest scoring outing — was its 36-13 win over San Diego State back in Week 2. Perhaps not coincidentally, that was the Cougs’ previous season high for passing attempts with Jaxon Potter letting it fly 42 times.

Perhaps Rogers was holding the offense back with his philosophy that simply did not match the Cougars’ personnel.

Thanks to an infusion of players from South Dakota State, including senior linebacker Caleb Francl and safeties Tucker Large, Matthew Durrance and Cale Reeder, the Cougars’ defense matched Rogers’ vision much more than the offense did.

While offensive strategy might not be Rogers’ wheelhouse, his defensive prowess and recruiting efforts brought each of his coaches and each of those difference-making defenders to Pullman to turn in what was far from the greatest season in Cougar football history, but certainly among the most unique.

“Not to discredit coach Rogers at all, when he was here, he did a phenomenal job in instilling everything that we were out there today,” said WSU quarterback Zevi Eckhaus, who passed for a season-high 334 yards on Monday. “But the biggest thing that better teams have is they’re player-led.”

Bobbit, Freund, coaches of Cougar present

With tears in his eyes shortly after basking in a bath of victory fries, Bobbit saluted his Cougar football team moments after their Potato Bowl victory.

“It’s about the people, it’s about the relationships,” Bobbit said in his postgame ESPN interview. “I look out here, I see all the faces — this is what I’m gonna miss.”

While Rogers left to kickstart his Iowa State tenure, Bobbit and WSU’s assistant coaches chose to finish the season.

That commitment did not go unnoticed. Potato Bowl MVP Joshua Meredith remembers Bobbit making scout team reps fun during his freshman year, when the Cougars’ interim coach was a WSU graduate assistant, and appreciated him for stepping up and leading WSU to its first bowl game victory since 2018.

His feelings were shared by Francl, WSU’s leading linebacker, who executed playcalls from Bobbit during each of the last three seasons, the first two of which at SDSU.

“Coach Bobbitt stepping up really just made it a smooth couple of weeks of bowl game prep,” Francl said. “So as seniors and leaders on the team, we really appreciated him stepping up in that role.”

Freund, who called the game from the sideline rather than the booth, seemed to enjoy every minute of his offensive master class, especially when he galloped down the sideline to celebrate backup QB Julian Dugger’s fourth-quarter rushing touchdown, which put WSU up by 20 points.

While Bobbit patrolled the sidelines, Menage called the defensive plays.

The Cougars dialed up some early pressures — which Francl said he enjoyed — and generated three sacks and four QB hurries, while containing the Aggies to 224 total yards.

“Coach Freund called an awesome game. Really let it loose. He was down on the field having fun, and coach Menage ... had some fun today. He called some pressures, and he did his thing,” Bobbit said. “Really proud of both of them. And it was awesome to have guys that I could just trust.”

Kirby Moore, coach of Cougar football yet to come

A lot is going to change for the Cougs in the next few weeks, months and years, but Monday marked a fitting close to a string of chaotic seasons. WSU’s new head coach, Kirby Moore, a Boise State alum, was back in his old stomping grounds on Monday as he prepares to take WSU into the new Pac-12 next season.

For Moore, attending the Potato Bowl was a unique experience. The 35-year-old first-year head coach, whom WSU had hired 10 days prior, spent the afternoon patrolling the sidelines, cheering on and encouraging his new program and talking to players, fans and the media.

It was Moore’s first college game in a long time in which he had no direct involvement with the on-field action.

“Meeting with guys, watching practice, because naturally, right after this game, everyone’s going home and for me, it’s developing as many relationships (as I can, and) meeting parents at the hotel,” Moore said. “After that, it’s like, ‘Hey, let’s just take it one day at a time in terms of our relationships that we’re developing from coach to player, coach to parent,’ and just look forward to doing that throughout the offseason.”

While patrolling the blue turf he used to call home, Moore appeared to talk to WSU freshman running back Maxwell Woods, among others. Woods capped his year with a season-high 117 yards on nine carries versus Utah State — the best individual game performance of any WSU running back this year.

Just as Scrooge was forever changed after encountering the three ghosts of past, present and future, so too might Cougar football be changed for the better post Potato Bowl. Though, of course, Moore offers a far less grim outlook than Scrooge received.

Monday was all about this year’s Cougs closing out their chapter with jubilation and setting a standard of what Cougar football could be year in and year out.

“We will talk about this 2025 season, everything we went through, but we can say that we ended it with a bowl game victory,” Meredith said. “So it’s gonna go down in history. Everyone’s gonna remember.”

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