3 Takeaways From Jimmy Rogers' Introduction Press Conference At Washington State

After being hired in December to begin a new era of Washington State Cougars football, new head coach Jimmy Rogers took the mic on Thursday in Pullman in his first official press conference. Rogers was accompanied by WSU athletic director Anne McCoy to take questions from local media and lay out his vision as preparations for the 2025 season continue.

Here's what stood out from Rogers' official introduction to the Cougar faithful.

The L Word: Loyalty

With WSU's transfer portal losses and Jake Dickert's quick exit for the Wake Forest job shortly after John Mateer's departure, Cougar fans have every right to be skeptical of someone talking about how bought-in they are to the program. Rogers did not shy away from that, citing his extensive dedication to South Dakota State previously as evidence of his own loyalty and the value of the quality. Rogers played at SDSU from 2005 to 2009, then immediately joined the coaching staff where he stayed until now (save for one season as a graduate assistant at Florida Atlantic).

"I'm about people and I'm about as loyal as it gets. I know that word has been thrown around here and people don't want to hear it, but I don't know if you can show that after 19 years at one place building a national championship program day after day. So I do plan to do that here."

Keeping Old and New Players Bought In

Speaking of the transfer portal, Rogers addressed his efforts to keep as many of the players from last season's team as he could. He's been fairly successful to that end with ten Cougs withdrawing from the portal, including Holiday Bowl starting QB Zevi Eckhaus. Rogers also currently has roughly 16 new players coming to WSU from the portal, the majority of which are following him from SDSU.

"I think we're all living in a unique time of college athletics. Part of that is, if you make a coaching switch like what happened here with coach Jake Dickert, if it's done right, your players love you. The people make the logo. And I believe that. So when it's done right, the players want to follow you as well."

"My conversations with the players was just 'give me an opportunity.' Give us an opportunity to be a part of your life and allow us to embrace your goals and your aspirations. That's honestly why we all got into coaching is to push somebody else's dreams and aspirations ahead of our own and make their dreams ours...I spent a lot of time with this current roster just trying to talk them off the ledge to get back in with us and allow us to be a part of their life. We'll see how that shakes. The transfer portal is constant and it's crazy, but we didn't get into coaching to worry about the portal. We really got into coaching to be able to impact those that want to be a part of this and want to be a Coug."

The Scheme

On the X's and O's, Rogers spoke briefly to what fans can expect from his team this fall. Mainly, the former linebacker plans to utilize a lot of bodies on defense, and to find balance in the offensive attack in order to keep opposing defenses on their heels. SDSU had the #1 scoring defense (13.93 points per game) and the #4 scoring offense (36.7 ppg) in the FCS in 2024.

"I believe in creating the scheme around the players. I'll speak defensively. We will be multiple. We're a four-down front and 4-3, 4-2-5. At the end of the day, it's being able to know what an offense is doing attacking you. Protect yourself and be able to attack them and being very multiple in how you blitz and disguises....We will rotate the defensive line like a hockey lineup as soon as we end up getting the right guys in the door that we feel like can execute. That allows us to stay fresh. It allows us to continue to play with multiple people on the field and create a depth that will last throughout the course of the season."

"As far as offensively, we will use the whole 52 yards of width on the field and really stretch you out and line up in splits and motion to really kind of tell what you're in defensively and then attack you vertically and then also be able to run the football. I believe in running the football and I believe in getting one-on-one opportunities for your best players to have big plays.

The L Word: Loyalty

Keeping Old and New Players Bought In

The Scheme

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