The no. 23 Washington State Cougars will start the follow up to their excellent 2018 season when they host the New Mexico State Aggies. Game time is set for 10:00 EST on Saturday, August 31, at Martin Stadium in Pullman, Washington. Fans can find the game on the Pac-12 Network.
Oddsmakers list the Cougars as 32-point favorites at home with an over/under of 64.5 points. Be sure to check out all of the college football odds for the first week of games.
The Cougars enjoyed a breakout season of sorts in 2018. Mike Leach has built a respectable program during his seven seasons at Wazzou, taking the team to five bowl games during that time. But Washington State took another step in 2018, tying for the top spot in the Pac-12 North with only a loss to Washington keeping them from the conference title game. Following a bowl win, the Cougars finished 11-2 and ranked 10th in the country.
Of course, now Leach has the difficult task of maintaining that success. The Cougars won the Pac-10 in 1997 and 2002, but haven’t tasted much success otherwise. Leach and company have to prove that last season wasn’t an aberration and that they can remain competitive in a Pac-12 North division that begins the season with three other teams ranked in the top-25.
Meanwhile, Doug Martin is starting to run out of chances at New Mexico State. In five seasons, Martin has led the Aggies to just one winning season and one bowl appearances. In the other four seasons, the Aggies haven’t won more than three games, putting Martin’s record with NMSU at 20-53 through five seasons.
Last year was New Mexico State’s first season as an independent after leaving the Sun Belt. The Aggies went 3-9, beating only UTEP, Liberty, and Alcorn State. They were undoubtedly one of the worst teams in college football a year ago, and they might have a hard time proving otherwise in 2019, especially with Washington State and Alabama the first two teams on their schedule.
To be honest, I don’t know if Washington State is going to match last season’s success. But I know that it won’t matter for their season opener. Leach’s teams are almost always able to score points, and they should have no problem doing it against a team that couldn’t stop anybody last year. Honestly, the spread would have to be close to 40 before I’d even think about learning toward New Mexico State. The Cougars will cover the spread with ease.
A year ago, Washington State installed grad transfer Gardner Minshew at quarterback and turned him into a Heisman candidate. Obviously, he leaves big shoes to fill after throwing for nearly 4,800 yards and 38 touchdowns. But Minshew’s success is also a sign that just about anybody could get plugged into Leach’s air-raid offense and have success.
Senior Anthony Gordon won the WSU quarterback competition during training camp and will get the start against New Mexico State. He has just five career pass attempts, so nobody will be sure what to expect from Gordon until he has a few games under his belt. However, the Cougars will give him plenty of support. Washington State returns four of their starters on the offensive line and half a dozen receivers who were part of their rotation last season. Even if there are questions about Gordon, there are few questions about the rest of the offense.
It’ll help that Gordon and the Wazzou offense will play their first game against New Mexico State. The Aggies were atrocious defensively last season and then lost a handful of their best players. The NMSU secondary is actually in decent shape, more so than their linebackers, so the Aggies may actually benefit from Washington State being a pass-heavy team. However, they haven’t seen many passing attacks like the one the Cougars have, and the New Mexico State defense is bound to crack sooner or later.
To be fair, the Aggies have an intriguing quarterback in Josh Adkins. They also return seven other starters from an offense that started to come around late in the 2018 season. New Mexico State will have a lot of continuity on the offensive line and some capable playmakers around Adkins. However, there’s still a lot of distance between what the Aggies were in 2018 and what can be considered a viable offense.
We also can’t overlook the Washington State defense. While the Wazzou offense gets most of the headlines, the Cougars have slowly but surely improved on that side of the ball in recent years. They bring enough back from last year for there to be no glaring holes or pressing questions, at least against a team like New Mexico State.
Barring a disastrous debut from their new quarterback, I don’t think Washington State will have much of a problem covering the spread against New Mexico State. Even if Gordon struggles, the Cougars have other options at quarterback they can try. This will be one of the more lopsided matchups of the opening weekend, and I feel confident in Washington State being able to cover.