Cougs look for a few good men

PULLMAN – Not much time is left for Washington State to round out its football recruiting class before national letter of intent day on Feb. 7. And, fortunately for the Cougars, there aren’t many spots left to fill.

Thanks to a surge of oral commitments after the conclusion of the season in November, WSU has, according to Cougfan.com, secured 21 oral commitments.

And, as WSU recruiting coordinator Greg Peterson said in an interview on Thursday, the school is looking to fill no more than 23 or 24 slots.

“We feel good about the young men we’ve got so far,” Peterson said. “We’re still recruiting some secondary players. The next couple of weeks we have some guys coming in, feel good about who they are, and hopefully they’ll have a great experience over their weekend visits and we can close this class.”

Once again, it seems that the Cougars have focused on trying to improve their situation in the defensive backfield, and as is almost always the case, doing so has been difficult. WSU received a pair of commitments this week from high school seniors, but before that it had not secured a pure cornerback.

However, its top-rated commitment, based on the Scout.com recruiting rankings, is five-star junior-college defender Terry Mixon, who could end up at either safety or cornerback.

Mixon is one of six junior college players from whom WSU has either received commitments or letters of intent. Two of them, tight end Devin Frischknecht and offensive lineman Vaughn Lesuma, are already in class and should be able to participate in spring practices, which begin on March 22.

But Peterson emphasized that the junior college recruits are only in positions where WSU feels immediate help is needed.

“Any time you take a junior college transfer, those guys are brought in specifically with the idea that they’re going to play right away,” he said. “You don’t want to redshirt a transfer. So you’ve got to do a good job evaluating athletically what type of young man they are and how they fit into your program.”

In addition to the desire for help in the defensive backfield, WSU has also put an obvious stress on acquiring additional help for its defensive line. Last season, multiple injuries at that position stretched the Cougars perilously thin for much of the Pac-10 season, and they may have helped cause the November slide that sent WSU from 6-3 to a .500 finish without a bowl game.

Four players who project to the defensive line have committed to the Cougars, and a fifth, defensive end Luis Vasquez, was one of the highest-rated players in the class before he changed his mind and signed a letter of intent with Arizona State at the last minute in December.

Not that Peterson or the WSU staff needed a reminder, but the Vasquez situation served as yet another warning that the recruiting business is fickle, and nothing is assured until players are on campus and in pads.

“I don’t know if it’s different out here in the Pac-10 or the West Coast,” said Peterson, who joined WSU last spring after more than a decade on staff at Kansas State. “But being in the Big 12 for the previous 12 seasons, you have to keep committing those recruits until you get that letter of intent.

“We want young men that want to be at Washington State because they feel good about our football team.”