Bill Moos says better football facilities key to WSU's Pac-12 future

PULLMAN — Bill Moos has been athletic director at Washington State for less than a year, but that hasn't stopped him from dreaming big.

In fact, he has a vision of a Pullman utopia.

"In a perfect world, we would expand the stadium, renovate it and build the football facility all at the same time," Moos said Tuesday in his office just a long pass from Martin Stadium, the Cougars' football home.

Yet Moos, who has been an athletic director off-and-on for 18 years, also is a realist.

"That could be cost prohibitive," Moos said. "We're still exploring that."

Still, he's a realist with a plan, even if that plan is different from the one he inherited when he took over in February.

"We need to address facilities on our campus that are going to attract top talent," Moos said. "It's been my experience that is the formula that works best to build a solid program."

That's why Moos and the WSU athletic department have shifted gears and are moving forward with a football-only facility as a companion to the ongoing Martin Stadium Phase III development.

The idea melds the previously announced Phase III expansion — luxury boxes, covered and uncovered upgraded seating — with a more comprehensive, football-only facility in the 100,000-square-foot range that would include a new locker room, weight room, equipment storage, meeting areas and a training room.

"In this go-round, ideally, I would love to see the football building, the Phase III in one regard or another, adding suites, loge seats and not necessarily taking our capacity maybe more than 40,000," Moos said.

But perfection costs money, and the proposed football facility could be anywhere from the $30 million to $40 million range. The final cost of such a facility is undetermined, mainly due to a large variance depending on where it is located.

Moos sees progress

When it comes to the state of the football program, Moos is surprised it's not generating more comment.

"I'm not tired of hearing about it," Moos said, "because I'm not hearing enough about it. When I have a radio call-in show and there's one (call) about the state of our football program and nine about how we police the RV lot on game day, I'm starting to feel a little bit of apathy."

When asked about coach Paul Wulff's status in a recent interview, Moos peppers his response with terms like "most encouraged," "solid foundation" and "building for the future."

Most important, Moos said, "I see progress in the program."

"They had a lot of damage control to take care of," he added. "Not to throw stones at anyone, but there was a pretty big hole to dig out of and now we can be in a building mode."