During a 1-7 season, what keeps WSU players motivated to keep playing?
· Yahoo Sports
Oct. 27—PULLMAN — Trey Leckner admits that when he was younger, years before he began to flourish as Washington State's premier pass-catching tight end, the noise could get to him sometimes. He was in high school, at Glacier Peak over in Snohomish, and he internalized some of the criticism.
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That type of noise doesn't bother him much these days, he said, in large part because of the journey it took for him to arrive at WSU. He redshirted his true freshman year in 2023, then began to ascend toward the back half of the following year, then earned a starting role in 2025. He missed the first four games of this season, his redshirt junior campaign.
When you watch him play, you wouldn't know it. He caught a key fourth-down conversion over the weekend, in WSU's 31-10 loss to Boise State, giving him these numbers in four games: 12 catches for 98 yards, including an 18-yard reception. He's been the same kind of downfield threat that made him such an enticing prospect years ago.
"I think just getting older and being in the locker room," Leckner said earlier this week, "being around a lot of really good players, obviously through 2023 and on. Just picking their brain and having good mentors, whether it's players or coaches. Just being around it for so long."
Leckner's veteran presence is surely coming in handy this season, a 1-7 campaign for WSU, which is still looking for its first FBS win of the season. Head coach Kirby Moore and the Cougars had few issues cruising past FCS Duquesne in mid-September, but since then, they've dropped five in a row.
They've tried changing play-callers. They've tried changing quarterbacks. The Cougs' offense has enjoyed some improvement since Moore benched Caden Pinnick for Owen Eshelman at quarterback, but in two games with that move, it hasn't resulted in wins for WSU.
The only sure thing this WSU season has yielded is criticism: From fans, from media, from college football observers at large. The Cougs' is a high-profile program, even in their new era within the reimagined Pac-12, which means they hear about it when things are going as poorly as they are now. They may sign up for it when they agree to such a platform, sure, especially when they accept such big paydays in the new NIL era. But that doesn't mean they're immune to criticism.
Ahead of WSU's next game, a road matchup with San Diego State, that brings up two key questions: How do these Cougars handle the noise? And without a bowl game to play for, what keeps them motivated?
"Regardless (of) what the prize is or whatever that we're playing for, I want to win. I know all the guys in the locker room want to win, and the coaches want to win," Leckner said. "So I think just the will to win. I think we have all the seniors, all the seniors that are still playing. We wanna send them out on a good note, and we wanna build momentum going into next year."
This WSU team rosters 14 seniors, including key pieces like linebacker Keith Brown, offensive linemen Jonny Lester and Jaylin Caldwell, receivers Daniel Blood and Darrius Clemons, defensive end Linus Zunk, defensive tackles Paul Hutson III and Damarjhe Lewis and tight end Jack Pedersen, plus cornerbacks Khamari Terrell and Jalil Tucker. All of those guys have played important roles for this team.
All three players who spoke to the media on Monday — Leckner, defensive end Matyus McLain and nickelback Jamarey Smith — agreed they're motivated to keep playing for their seniors. They want to finish things right, especially for Brown, who is playing his sixth and final season of college football.
Fun fact about Brown: He's played 482 snaps this season, which is the 12th most in the country among linebackers. It's the third-most in the Pac-12. That underscores how reliable he has been this season, particularly in WSU's last two games, making 15 tackles against Oregon State and nine against Boise State.
"Playing for the guys, playing for the seniors," McLain said. "This is their last four games ever, could be ever. Playing for guys like Linus, Keith Brown. Gotta keep playing for those guys, and then just the guys in the locker room. You just gotta keep playing for everybody around you."
Technically speaking, WSU isn't entirely out of the bowl game picture. If they were to win out and end the regular season 5-7, they could make a bowl if there aren't enough 6-6 teams to fill all the bowl slots. But the Cougars would also need to meet certain Academic Progress Rate standards, and they would need to decide if such a thing would benefit the program to begin with.
But that's a long way off for WSU, which needs to beat an FBS team first before anything else can happen. The Cougars' next task is a road tilt with the San Diego State Aztecs, who are favored to win the game, making the Cougars an underdog as they often have been this season.
"No offense to you guys, but you guys, the media people aren't in our corner like our coaches are, and like we are for each other," McLain said. "So really leaning on the brotherhood and the people in this building for the support that you need throughout that is really what it is."
"I kinda block it out," Smith said. "I worry about just what we have going on in the building and preparing week-by-week. Things that happened last week, to me, don't really matter now. We're on to San Diego State, bigger and better things. So just trying to prepare for that and dominate each and every week."