Washington State remains a work in progress under coach Mike Leach

[imsoblue]

PULLMAN, Wash. (AP) — At the midpoint of Washington State's first season under coach Mike Leach, the Cougars remain a work in progress.

Washington State (2-4, 0-3 Pac-12) has problems all around, and so far has mostly failed to produce in the Air Raid offense that Leach made famous at Texas Tech.

The Cougars have twice been held without touchdowns, barely escaped FCS opponent Eastern Washington, and lost to Pac-12 doormat Colorado.

Talk of qualifying for a bowl game, prevalent after Leach was hired, is now muted.

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[Darrell KSR]

Lot of UK folks would love Leach. Surprised he's doing poorly.

[Catfan73]

That's a program that won a grand total of 14 games in the 5 years before Leach arrived. What did they expect? A bowl game? Really?

[Doc]

My stupid underdog this week.

[kritikalcat]

Leach has a hard road ahead of him with WSU. He's never had to turn around a program like that. People might forget, but Texas Tech was winning program under Spike Dykes, 6-5, 7-4, even some 9-win seasons when they were in the old SWC. I'm not sure which is harder, taking a 7 win program to a 9+ win program or turning around a 2 win program, but I think it's a different kind of job to do them. Leach no longer has the Texas recruiting base in his back yard (as much as Lubbock is close to anything else in TX).

More important, and I commented on this when he was hired. People see Mike Leach, think spread offense / passing game genius, he's going to really turn around WSU's offense by really having them air it out. The problem is that the passing game was already their strength. In fact it's gotten worse under Leach. The yards per game passing, TD:INT ratio, and yards/attempt are all down this year - with 2 experienced QBs returning.

[Catfan73]

Didn't Mike Price take Wazzou to the Rose Bowl right before he left for Alabama? They've been bad the last few years, but they haven't always been horrible. I think Leach will get them going in a couple of years.