In every sport known to man, fans love a good underdog story, and it’s especially visible in one like college football, where there is typically less competitive equality. It’s with that in mind that we see the name Washington State enter the scene, as there is perhaps no better example of how unfair the modern CFB landscape can be.
If you haven’t been following the latest headlines surrounding the Cougars, allow me to fill you in; it all started when the Pac-12 completely and utterly collapsed as it's programs fled to the ACC and Big Ten, leaving just the Cougars and Oregon State behind and forcing them to piece together weak schedules through the Mountain West.
After a full season under those circumstances, Wazzu lost both its coaching staff and a handful of players to a struggling Wake Forest, setting its identity for 2025 back a country mile.
Last but not least, we had the recent news of the Pac-12 being set to rebound with several Group-of-5-level programs in 2026, and while that could be viewed as a more wholesome shift in this whole debacle, it nonetheless officializes Washington State’s exclusion from the Power leagues—as it should go without saying that the new Pac-12 could not be further from being one with how it's to-be members sit today.
To summarize, the Cougs are doomed to become, dare I say, a Group-of-6 squad and have been stripped of any solidity they had last season, with it all feeling as if it happened overnight.
But while the turn of events is mighty humbling, it—just like in any other underdog story—makes you want to root for them, as any heights they reach from beyond this point will weigh all the more from the turmoil they’ve had to overcome in doing so.
With that said, there doesn’t appear to be much to overcome in 2025, as Wazzu has a schedule manageable enough that making the postseason should be easy money, regardless of how well the new talent and coaching staff adjust.
However, if the Cougs can then take that momentum into a 2026 that would see them better-structured, and they swiftly stand out as one of the Pac’s top teams, they could find themselves in the company of someone like Boise State or Memphis: Little guys, but not ones to be trifled with.
Following their “relegation,” that’s about as good of an arc as I can realistically imagine them achieving in the foreseeable future, but with how fun that’d be to experience, I sure hope I’m right.