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Opinion: Jayden de Laura will be WSU's starting QB

KREM 2's Karthik Venkataraman breaks down why he thinks de Laura will start for the Cougs next Saturday against Oregon State.

PULLMAN, Wash. — Washington State is just a week away from its first football game of the season when they'll take on Oregon State.

We still don’t know who the starting quarterback will be. The team knows, but it’s a secret for now.

That doesn’t mean we can't guess who it is. My prediction is Jayden de Laura and here is why.

THE SCRIMMAGES

First off, let’s start with what we know from the scrimmages.

Obviously, this doesn’t give us a full picture into practice every day, but it’s evidence. This has been a three player competition so far and here's how the stats break down in the two scrimmages.

Jayden de Laura went 20 of 27,179 passing yards, 47 rushing yards, three total touchdowns. Two of the touchdowns were passing, the other was a rushing touchdown.

Cammon Cooper went 11 of 22, 171 passing yards, one passing touchdown, three interceptions.

Gunner Cruz went 16 of 33, 118 passing yards, zero touchdowns and zero interceptions.

Cumulatively, de Laura is the guy with the best numbers. The one statistic that stands out the most, no interceptions.

The other thing is that de Laura is a dual threat and can get the job done running the ball too.


SYSTEM FAMILIARITY

The Run and Shoot offense is the system head coach Nick Rolovich and his staff use.

The  quarterback played prep ball in Hawaii while Rolovich coached at the University of Hawaii.

From his sophomore year in high school, de Laura has been studying this offensive scheme because they ran it at his high school.

That’s quite the head start on an offensive system and how to read coverages compared to the other quarterbacks for WSU. There are some differences in how his  high school ran it compared to Rolovich's scheme, but there is no denying de Laura has an upper hand with this system.

Rolovich, offensive coordinator Brian Smith and QB coach Craig Stuttzman know de Laura well. After all, they recruited him to play at Hawaii before the quarterback and coaching staff ended up coming to WSU.

So if I had a guess based on these reasons, de Laura will be the starter. We'll wait and see.

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