Insider’s view on who new WSU coach Jimmy Rogers is

Jan 1, 2025, 12:56 PM

Editor, Seattle Sports

As 2025 begins, the WSU Cougars have their new head football coach in place.

It’s Jimmy Rogers, who is understandably quite unknown around these parts based on where he’s been in his career.

Now the WSU Cougars’ other QB is entering the transfer portal

Rogers just finished his second season as the head coach at his alma mater, South Dakota State, where he played linebacker from 2005-09 and had been on staff for all but one season since 2010. He won the national championship in his first season at the helm of the Jackrabbits in 2023, which was the second in a row for the FCS powerhouse, and was a part of the first of those back-to-back titles in 2022 as well as the team’s assistant head coach and defensive coordinator – the same year he was named FCS Coordinator of the Year.

It’s easy to look at Rogers’ résumé to get a base-level idea of who he is, but Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy dug deeper on Monday by talking to broadcaster Scotty Kwas, the sideline reporter for SDSU football, who gave some more personal insight into the man chosen to replace Jake Dickert in Pullman.

Here are three things Kwas shared about Rogers during the conversation.

What is the new WSU Cougars coach’s personality?

“Jimmy is a competitor. He is still that linebacker that was underrated, under-recruited, and wants to – I don’t know if prove something is (the right term), but he is a competitor. Whatever he wants to do, he wants to do it at an elite level, a championship level. He’s very stoic. … The first time you meet him, you might walk on eggshells a little bit. He’s kind of an intense individual.”

Who is Jimmy Rogers as a coach?

“He’s a defensive-minded guy, and he believes that linebacker, that D-line is at (a defense’s) core. If we’re going to talk about development, that’s what they love to do is develop these defensive guys. They’ve crafted the ability to take maybe an undersized safety, a guy at (cornerback) and move him to a safety and being able to interchange and interswap positions. So I think defensively, that’s where he’s going to live, that’s where his mind is.”

What is Jimmy Rogers’ offensive approach?

“I don’t know that he has the mindset of coming in, ‘This is what we’re going to run, let’s go get these kids.’ I think it’s like, ‘Let’s get the best athletes, (find out) what do they do (best), and then let’s build our offense around that.’ For years we’ve had this tight end (legacy at South Dakota State) – the Tucker Krafts, the Dallas Goederts – we’ve had this ‘Tight End U’ kind of two and three deep. Maybe didn’t have that kind of depth (later) but we had the running back room, so we switched to a running back (led mentality). But then you have a quarterback like Mark Gronowski that can do both; we even went to a two-quarterback set this year. ‘How do we get our best 11 (on the field)?’ – you’ll hear that from Jimmy, I’m sure.”