August 1 – In July, it was Christmas for Washington State football.
The Cougs kicked off fall camp Wednesday morning at Rogers Field, with approximately 120 players resuming football activities for the first time in 96 days.
“You have a hard time falling asleep that first night, like the butterflies you get, you go back to it like it’s the first time you put the pads on,” sixth-year linebacker Kyle Thornton said. “This is like Christmas Day for us. It’s amazing.”
With clear blue skies and temperatures in the mid-80s, the Cougs got to work 31 days before the season opener against Portland State on Aug. 31 at Gesa Field.
The first day of fall camp offers a return to something familiar, with football activities after a summer of strength and conditioning, and a peek at what’s new.
New to schools in the 2024 NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision is radio helmet communication. Quarterback John Mateer had a chance to wear a helmet radio during Wednesday’s practice.
“I was really excited to come here,” Mateer said. “On our ride, right. We have the new helmets, you know, they’re talking to us through the helmets. Like, I was getting a little overstimulated. There’s so much going on and I was so excited and nervous to get there, I dropped a photo in the walkthrough and I was like ‘oooh’, but you know, it takes a little mistake like that to really lock in and realize that I have a job to do and I can just be excited about being here, so after that I was excited. , it’s fun, it’s football.”
Mateer and Eckhaus in the QB competition
Mateer split reps with Bryant (RI) senior transfer Zevi Eckhaus. The duo is locked in a starting QB competition. Mateer took reps with the first team and Eckhaus took photos with the second team.
Each QB completed 10 of 17 passes, with the duo facing seven-on-seven action and 11-on-11 full snaps.
Mateer said he felt good about the offense’s performance.
“Yes, without a doubt,” he said. “We did really well. KW (Kyle Williams) was really good, man. He caught probably five or six passes, getting open.”
Mateer connected with Williams several times, overcoming coverage and creating plays. The senior receiver enters his final fall camp and is second in WSU as the Cougars’ leading pass catcher.
The Cougs went helmet-only for Day 1 and will do so again today. They add shoulder pads on Friday and wear full shoulder pads on August 6th.
As for the QB competition between Mateer and Eckhaus, Mateer said there is no bad blood.
“I wouldn’t say he’s my best friend — like, I hang out with a lot of strikers — but I mean, there’s nothing against him,” he said. “It’s not like I don’t like him. Yeah, he’s a great guy.”
New rules
The Cougs will have to adjust to several new rules approved by the NCAA earlier this year, including the use of helmet radios by a player on the field for offense and defense, tablets on the sideline and a two-minute warning.
Dickert said WSU received the helmet radios last week and will opt to use them only when attacking QBs.
“You’ve got to get these guys, like I said, to play a certain way without talking too much in their heads. So there is a balance,” Dickert said. “This first fight will be big to really understand the mechanics of all these things.”
As for the two-minute warning, Dickert said the Cougs “need to give it their all.”
“It’s a bit of a simplified offensive strategy when you look at it; the defense has been very different,” he said.
Emerging leaders
In his second year at the Palouse after a three-year junior college career, cornerback Stephen Hall has emerged as a dynamic player and a likely starter for the Cougs.
“He has emerged as one of the best leaders on this football team, and not because of what he wants to accomplish, but because of what he wants that group in those corners to do,” Dickert said. “And I think he just gave his leadership wisdom every day and I thought that was really evident today, on the first day.”
Hall contributed two pass breakups on the first day of fall camp.
Thornton enters 2024 as the defensive leader. The sixth-year Coug was a semifinalist for the Burlsworth Trophy, reserved for the best college football player to play the game.
Thornton joined the late Mike Leach’s Cougars in 2019, earned a scholarship in 2021 and was a starter in 2023. He represented the Cougs at the Pac-12 media event alongside Williams and Dickert.
“The cool thing about Kyle’s story isn’t just that he was a walk-on and now he’s a starter — it’s that he’s still improving,” Dickert said. “Every day he tries to improve, and he has done that, whether physically (or) mentally as a leader. Proud of that kid and what he’s going to give us this year.”
Williams and Thornton formed the Cougars’ Kyle contingent in Las Vegas for the Pac-12 media event in July. In his senior year, Williams has a chance to pilot the Cougs’ trajectory with more than just catching and blocking.
“You can’t just be about yourself. I showed them a clip this morning about an NFL guy: ‘You’re a great player, show other people how to be great players and why you’re a great player, and then we’ll have a team of great players,’” Dickert said “I think he’s done a great job so far.”
Although fall camp operates in first team, second team, and reserve/role capacity, all reps taken by individual players count the same, with coaches watching closely.
“So the first four days, we’re really investing a lot of time into trying to identify four to six guys that can really help this team right now,” Dickert said. “I told the players, ‘In a difficult situation, in the first game, you can’t discover who you are. You have to show us every day, and it’s my job to make it really difficult for you to reveal yourself.'”
