Nick Rolovich ideal successor to Mike Leach at Washington State

Less than a week after Mike Leach’s official departure for Mississippi State, Washington State has landed on Nick Rolovich as their new football coach.

Mike Leach’s departure to become the new head coach at Mississippi State left Washington State in search of a new football coach at a later than usual stage. But they’ve moved quickly, with Bruce Feldman of The Athletic first to report late Monday night that Nick Rolovich is expected to be the next Cougars’ football coach.

Pete Thamel of Yahoo! Sports has added Rolovich will get a five-year deal worth nearly $3 million per year. After making $600,000 this past season.

Rolovich comes to Washington State after four seasons as the head coach at Hawaii, where he had a 28-27 record. This season, with a 10-5 record that included wins over Pac-12 schools Oregon State and Arizona, the Rainbow Warriors reached double-digit wins for the first time since 2010 and played in their first Mountain West title game. The team went to three bowl games in Rolovich’s four seasons.

Leach’s Air Raid system was very prolific and successful at Washington State, and Rolovich will bring the similarly pass-heavy Run-and-Shoot with him from Hawaii. He learned the system playing quarterback for and later serving as a low-level assistant under June Jones, and installed it when he came back to the islands as head coach.

Hawaii had the fifth-ranked passing attack in the country this season (337.1 yards per game), as Washington State came in No. 1 (437.2 yards per game). Over the past two seasons, only Washington State attempted more passes than Hawaii. So the new head coach that’s coming to Pullman is cut from the same cloth as the old one in terms of offensive philosophy.

Feldman has added a tidbit that suggests Rolovich is like Leach as a personality too, while also citing the new coach’s ability to evaluate talent, citing him being the first to offer Justin Herbert and Kedon Slovis and second for Sam Darnold.

If it’s an absolutely seamless fit Washington State wanted as they replaced Leach, and why wouldn’t they have wanted that, it seems to have found it in Rolovich.

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