PULLMAN, Wash. — When talking about recruiting classes the past few months, we've talked a lot about Gonzaga. And rightly so, they have an extremely good recruiting class coming in.
Today, we're turning our attention to another team on the recruiting front: Washington State football.
The summer is when they begin to build their recruiting class. This is where they stand.
WHO'S COMMITTED
Overall, WSU has eight verbal commits in the 2020 class. Four have committed this summer. The latest commit is wide receiver Cedrick Pellum, who verballed earlier this week.
The class has two wide receiver commits, two defensive back commits, two offensive line commits, one running back commit, and one defensive line commit. Their highest rated commit according to 247 Sports is running back Jyden King, who committed in March. All eight of the players verbally committed are three star recruits.
NEEDS THAT HAVE BEEN ADDRESSED
The main question is how do these players address needs for the team in the 2020 season. All of the information you're about to read is based off WSU's spring football roster on their website, which is currently their most up to date public roster. There may be a few things that have changed, but overall it's pretty accurate.
The team will lose four wide receivers after this year. Those four wide receivers are Easop Winston, Dez Patmon, Brandon Arconado, and Calvin Jackson. All those names should be familiar to WSU fans. WSU is always going to load of up wide receivers. That's just how this offense works. Having two wide receiver commits this early seems par for the course.
The team will lose two offensive linemen going into 2020, most notably Frederick Mauigoa, the team's All Pac-12 honorable mention center. They shore up those scholarships with the two OL commits.
They're actually adding another defensive back as Marcus Strong is the only one of that group graduating. As stated above, they have two DBs as commits right now.
The running back was a huge position in WSU's offense last season, but with the early departure of James Williams, they have a rather untested group. If you count the full back listed on the roster, then there are seven running backs coming into this season. Only one, Max Borghi, has played significant minutes for the Cougs. Adding another one to the mix certainly doesn't hurt.
SCHOLARSHIP SITUATION
The next obvious question is what other areas do the Cougars need to recruit in this cycle.
But before we get into that, we need to know how many scholarships this team has to give out.
According to the spring roster, there are 14 seniors and one graduate student on this roster. That stat also includes Jalen Thompson's scholarship, who was drafted Tuesday. We don't know if there are any seniors not on scholarship so just to make a guess-timate between transfers and graduation, I'd say WSU has 15-20 scholarships to give out next season. That's not a ton, especially with eight players already committed.
NEEDS THAT NEED TO BE ADDRESSED
The number one thing I see this class adding is at least one quarterback. I know that's seems like an obvious thing to say, but they'll lost three quarterbacks to graduation next year: Gage Gubrud, Anthony Gordon and Trey Tinsley. I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up adding two QBs.
I also expect them to add two more linebackers, as two linebackers are graduating in this class as well.
Same situation with the defensive line. Two are leaving. They already have one DL commit in the class, but I wouldn't be surprised if they went out and got at least three guys for that position group.