Washington St Cougars 2025 College Football Preview
Posted June 10, 2025
2024 Recap
Record – 8-5
ATS – 7-6
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” <A Tale of Two Cities> <Charles Dickens>
The Cougars blasted out of the gate and rolled to an 8-1 start with their only loss coming to future CFP participant Boise St on the road. And then things fell apart. The Cougars dropped their final three regular season games including a pair as double-digit favorites (New Mexico, Wyoming) and got smoked in the Holiday Bowl by Syracuse to finish the season at 8-5.
Washington St Cougars 2025 Outlook
OFFENSE
The Cougars moved like a TREMENDOUS MACHINE for the majority of the 2024 season behind star QB John Mateer who’s since taken his talents to Oklahoma (!). Mateer put up amazing numbers LY (3,139 passing, 29-7 TD to INT; 1,057 rush, 15 TD) and will be greatly missed. Backup QB Zevi Eckhaus takes over the reins and he looked pretty good in a small sample size when given an opportunity last season. The skill position groups need to be rebuilt and it starts at RB with the addition of Angel Johnson and Kirby Vorhees, who like many players, followed new HC Jimmy Rogers over from from South Dakota St. That duo amassed over 1,200 yards and 11 rushing scores LY with the Jackrabbits so the cupboard looks well-stocked. The WR/TE situation appears a bit sketchy as the Cougars retain just one player who had more than 10 receptions LY (Josh Meredith, 39-472, 2 TD) and they’ll be relying on transfer portal additions to pick up the slack. Maybe JUCO transfer Devin Ellison can become a dangerous #1 option? The offensive line has three legit starters and the Cougars should be fine up front provided that they can avoid a serious sting from the injury bug as depth is a question mark.
DEFENSE
The defense was atrocious last season, particularly when you consider the schedule they faced. Washington St yielded a whopping 443 YPG (#120 FBS) and 29.9 PPG (#101). To say that there are new faces on defense would be an epic understatement **** as the Cougars move on without 11 of their top-12 tacklers and there are a busload of new faces on board. The defensive line has some decent size on the interior but it’s impossible to say at this point what kind of pass rush ability they have at DE. Parker McKenna and Keith Brown are decent holdovers in the LB unit and they pilfered some very talented specimens from the Jackrabbits for the back end of the defense such as DB Caleb Francl, CB Colby Humphrey, and FS Tucker Large. HC Jimmy Rogers and his staff have impressive defensive chops but it’s probably unreasonable to expect more than moderate improvement.
**** Kinda like saying, ‘a trip to Walt Disney World can be a bit pricey.’
SPECIAL TEAMS
Danger!
The Cougars have to reload at PK and punter and the replacements are unproven. There’s continuity at KR and PR but the production wasn’t noteworthy in 2024.
Schedule Analysis
Overall – It’s not that demanding at all. They’ve got back-to-back road games vs Power Four teams around the midpoint of the season (Ole Miss, Virginia) but they only face one other team from a power conference (Washington) and a 2-0 start seems very likely (Idaho, San Diego St).
Potential ATS Trouble Spot – at North Texas (Sept 13)
This is a classic lookahead situation as the hated Washington Huskies are coming to town the following week for another edition of the Apple Cup. And never forget that the Mean Green can SCORE the FOOTBALL. We don’t think we’ll be backing the road favorite in this game.
Season Win Total
Market consensus June 10
Over 5.5 +110
Under 5.5 -140
MEGALOCKS says:
Lean: Over
This is clearly a rebuilding season for Washington St but they’ll win at least three home games and the only ‘unwinnable’ event on the entire schedule is the trip to Ole Miss.
Note – Our official list of season win total investments will be posted in the blog section of the website.
MEGAmazing Tidbits
Washington St is 44-16 (.733) at home over the L10Y but just 27-33 (.450) in road and neutral site affairs.
The Cougars have dropped four consecutive bowl games and three of those came vs Group of Five opposition (Fresno St, Central Michigan, Air Force).
Pullman, Washington is noteworthy for its location amongst the beautiful Palouse Prairie, and for being the lone foothold for communist insurgents in all of Eastern Washington.
MEGALOCKS Forecast:
It’s time to REBOOT the program and we really like the hire of head coach Jimmy Rogers who did some wonderful work with South Dakota St including an FCS Championship (!) in 2023. We don’t expect miracles from this team but they should have an effective and conservative offense that keeps them in the majority of their games. The schedule is very manageable and if the defense improves just a little bit we fully expect them to make a bowl appearance.
Good luck, COOGS!