On the surface, this was supposed to be a particularly dark week for our neighbors eight miles east.
The news of Mike Leach’s departure for warmer pastures at Mississippi State University was not altogether astonishing, but any separation with the swashbuckling Washington State University head football coach would be difficult to swallow. Add in Leach’s new home in the despised Southeastern Conference (SEC) and there is plenty of sour taste to be found in and around Pullman.
However, the Cougars may have found a rather well-fitting successor in former Hawaii head coach and quarterback Nick Rolovich.
Hawaii’s football program is now as notorious for vicious cycles in and out of bowl contention, as it is for intimidating pregame rituals. Rolovich reignited the program upon re-arrival in 2016. After benefiting from June Jones’s run-and-shoot system as a quarterback in the early 2000s, Rolovich ascended through Hawaii’s coaching ranks to interim offensive coordinator before taking the same job on a permanent basis at Nevada.
Following his return to Honolulu, Rolovich elevated the Rainbow Warriors from an 11-39 stretch in the four years preceding his return, to a 28-27 record from 2016-2019 that included a 2-1 bowl record.
Like Leach before him, Leach brings one of those unique offensive systems
that athletic departments so desperately crave. After a 3-9 season in 2017, Rolovich reinstalled the run-and-shoot at Hawaii, which focuses less on simple reads and quick throws of a traditional spread offense and more on pre-snap motion and in-play adjustments. The system worked wonders for Hawaii.
They finished twenty-fourth out of 130 FBS teams in points scored for the season. If there is one form of continuity WSU football fans can expect from one regime to the next, it has to be exciting and high-scoring teams.
Ideally, Rolovich will bring this same system with him to Pullman, where Leach had plenty of success but exhibited a stubbornness that may have put a definite ceiling on the Cougars.
Many pundits unveiled long and distinguished lists of potential successors, often circling newly-minted USC offensive coordinator Graham Harrell as a prodigal son of the air raid.
However, Harrell didn’t present immediate solutions to the problems Leach has left in his wake. WSU fans would have been able to expect more of the same, but probably without Leach’s legendary appearances in the classroom.
Harrell is the ideal endpoint of the Leach spread offense. He still holds NCAA passing records including average passes completed per game in a season, and three seasons with more than 4,000 passing yards during the height of Leach’s tenure at Texas Tech.
Picking up where his old mentor left off at WSU is a natural enough progression, but Harrell has a mere two seasons of offensive coordinator work under his belt at a Sun Belt school.
His offensive prowess remains, after taking the University of North Texas from a bottom- feeder offensive unit to the nineteenth best in the nation in 2017 but has since fallen off to fifty-second on a points-per-game basis. Add in his lack of knowledge covering WSU’s weakness at defense, and Harrell seems like even less of a head coach candidate.
Rolovich is as close to an ideal hire as there could have been for WSU athletic director Pat Chun. With a reputation as a successful pedigree and plenty of exposure to innovative offenses, Rolovich would have been highly sought by many bigger schools after one more successful season at Hawaii. Bringing him to the Palouse now, is a win for the Cougars.
This story has been updated to reflect Pat Chun’s, WSU athletic director, correct name.
Jonah Baker can be reached at arg-sports.uidaho.edu or on Twitter @jonahpbaker