Cougs Weekly: Kirby Moore previews matchup with Utah St.

It’s been a rough start to the season for the 1-4 WSU Cougars, but they’re hoping to get their season on track when they hit the road for the first Pac-12 game away from Martin Stadium this year.

Kirby Moore making major change to WSU Cougars’ struggling offense

The Cougars take on the 1-4 Utah State Aggies at 6 p.m. Friday in Logan, Utah. Head coach Kirby Moore previewed the matchup when he joined former WSU wide receiver Michael Bumpus on Seattle Sports for the latest edition of Cougs Weekly.

Get ready for RPOs

Utah State features a balanced attack on offense spearheaded by dual-threat quarterback Grady Brosterhous. The senior has completed 57.8% of his passes (67 of 116) for 764 yards, six touchdowns and six interceptions. He’s also second on the team with 232 yards rushing.

Brosterhous’ top receiving target this year is Eli Wood, who has 388 yards and four TDs on 30 receptions.

“They’re really creative. They do a lot of different stuff every week (and it) starts with the quarterback,” Moore said. “They run the quarterback, there’s some (run-pass options) as well. So, you got to really be on top of your rules because they’re going to stress those heavily, and they’re going to give you some presentations that you maybe haven’t practiced during the week, so you got to do a really good job communicating.”

Moore said WSU saw a lot of RPOs when it faced Arizona two weeks ago, though Utah State does it a little differently.

“It’s probably a little bit even more of a quarterback run element with it for Utah State,” Moore said. “Arizona was more handing it to the back. Utah State, they’re going to spread you out. They can even be in (an) empty (set) on some of those presentations. RPO, and then if it’s not there, the quarterback’s going to run maybe even a gap scheme.”

Defensive-minded coach

Head coach Bronco Mendenhall is in his first year leading the Aggies and has been a head coach at the FBS level in every season since 2005. Prior to that, he he served as the defensive coordinator at Oregon State, New Mexico and BYU, among other defensive coaching roles at the college level.

Utah State’s defense ranks near the bottom of the country in many categories, but that’s partially a byproduct of facing a challenging opening schedule that included games against three ranked teams.

In the Aggies’ lone win this season, the defense forced three turnovers to help lead a 21-10 win over Troy.

“On defense, they move quite a bit,” Moore said. “Bronco Mendenhall is a defensive guy, so you see probably his influence on the defense. They’ve had some difficult games. They played at Washington, at Utah, at Boise, so all those had some challenges. They battled, though, throughout those games.”

WSU’s offense figures to have a bit of a different look when it takes on Utah State. Moore announced Monday that he would be taking over play-calling duties from offensive coordinator Matt Miller.

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