Four months have passed since Cougar football dropped its final game of the 2014 season in embarrassing fashion, however, spring has arrived, signaling a fresh start for a promising young team looking to make the next step in Head Coach Mike Leach’s tenure.

Washington State is coming off of a disappointing season in which many predicted the Cougars would take the next step forward after finishing 6-7 and appearing in a bowl game in the 2013 season. That wasn’t the case as the Cougars finished 3-9 in Leach’s third season as head coach.

Fortunately for the Cougar faithful, preparation for the 2015-16 season begins today with the first spring practice. The Cougars will return seven starters on the offensive side of the ball including the entire starting offensive line from last year. Notable offense losses include quarterback Connor Halliday and wide receivers Vince Mayle, Isiah Myers and Rickey Galvin.

With the offensive line returning every member, including seniors Joe Dahl and Gunnar Eklund, the quarterback and wide receiver positions are the most notable spots up for grabs. Now a redshirt sophomore, quarterback Luke Falk would seem to have the edge after garnering game experience last season after Halliday was lost for the season due to injury. However, Leach said the quarterback position will split first team reps between Falk and redshirt freshman Peyton Bender – both quarterbacks received high praise from their coach.

“Luke (Falk) finished out last year really good, probably as impressively as any freshman I’ve ever dealt with,” Leach said. “Probably any freshman ever, of course Luke’s five games as a freshman is probably better than any freshman in history, but we’re looking forward to having each guy. Peyton’s (Bender) really talented, the ball comes off his hand really fast, he’s got just a real electric arm so we’re excited to see that too.”

Falk was impressive in his five games last season, throwing for 1,859 yards with 13 touchdowns versus seven interceptions and a completion rate of 64.2 percent. Falk started the final three games of the season after taking over for Halliday. Bender redshirted last season and hails from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and stands six feet tall, weighing 186 pounds. Freshman quarterback Tyler Hilinski is another player to keep an eye on, however, Leach generally likes to redshirt his quarterbacks in their first season.

The wide receiving corps will return junior wide receiver River Cracraft and redshirt senior Dom Williams. Also returning will be junior wide receiver Gabe Marks who redshirted last season after catching 74 passes for 807 yards and seven touchdowns as a sophomore. Marks should provide a significant boost to the receiving tandem that will see sophomore wide receiver Calvin Green and redshirt senior Tyler Baker returning as well.

Redshirt sophomore running backs Jamal Morrow and Gerard Wicks seem to be the frontrunners at running back after seeing the majority of action at the position last year.

Defensively, WSU loses defensive tackle Xavier Cooper as the most notable departure. They will return a total of seven starters on defense from last season including senior linebackers Jeremiah Allison and Kache Palacio. Allison was an All-Pac-12 Honoree while Palacio led the team in sacks with six.

The Cougars will see a new face heading the defense as former Missouri safety coach Alex Grinch will take over as the new defensive coordinator. Grinch will be joined by new outside linebackers coach Roy Manning as well.

Grinch’s biggest task will be to find his core group of starters in the youthful Cougar secondary. The Cougars played multiple freshmen last season in the secondary and they never quite figured out a solid unit to use going forward. There is plenty of talent among the group that will return sophomore cornerbacks Marcellus Pippins, Pat Porter and Charleston White.

The safety position will see senior Taylor Taliulu, redshirt sophomore Darius Lemora, and sophomore Sulaiman Hameed among the candidates to take the two starting jobs. Despite the inexperience, Leach believes with hard work that this can be a successful and improved secondary from last season.

“We have good bodies, we have good athleticism out there, we have talent out there,” Leach said. “We don’t have the wealth of experience there that we’d like and even from last year it’s somewhat limited so one of the biggest challenges to raise experience level this spring and try to manufacture so that it accelerates beyond the game reps that they’ve had so we don’t have the game reps we’d like in all these guys.

“But if we’re great in the film room, if we’re great at technique, if we’re great at our drills and we do a great job of developing our skills then you put us ahead of people that are more experienced but are less conscientious of those things,” Leach said.

The Cougars will have their first practice today and will practice on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays leading up to their spring game on April 25 in Spokane.