Washington State's annual Crimson and Gray spring football game is Saturday at Albi Stadium in Spokane, and coach Mike Leach expects to run 80 to 100 plays.

The No. 1 offense will face the No. 1 defense during the game, with the No. 2's facing each other, Leach said this week. The Cougars will also play with a game clock in the first half.

The offense, led by quarterback Jeff Tuel, has made good progress picking up Leach's high-powered pass attack, Leach said.

"Overall, we've progressed quicker than I expected," Leach said. "We're beginning to develop some depth."

The key during spring drills is to provide players with the basic skills they need to work on during the summer months, Leach said.

"We've had the opportunity to fuel them up with the techniques and plays we want them to do," Leach said.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the spring was that quarterback Connor Halliday, expected to battle Tuel for the starting job, was not able to practice much because he is still recovering from a liver injury suffered last season.

That left Tuel and David Gilbertson to take most of the snaps this spring.

Tuel said he is picking up Leach's offensive schemes.

"It's not too bad," Tuel said of the learning curve. "Once you get through the first week it's repetitive from there."

"The biggest thing I am working on now is speeding up my reads," Tuel said.

Leach has brought a lot of excitement to the WSU program since he was hired to replace the fired Paul Wulff four months ago.

"It's taken a turn for the best," Tuel said. "We are real excited about the future."

One of the most excited is tight end Andrei Lintz, who figures to see plenty of balls thrown to him inside this season. The 252-pound Lintz has pronounced himself ecstatic with all the attention so far. He had only seven catches last season, but has caught a lot of balls this spring.

Leach told reporters that Lintz must play like a scavenging grizzly bear.

"He needs to be like those grizzly bears in Yellowstone Park that start tipping over Dumpsters and throwing garbage out of them at the lodges," Leach said. "We're going to stick a Dumpster in front of him full of goodies, but he's going to have to shred that thing, tip it over and dig into it to get at them."

The spring game is scheduled at 1 p.m. PDT. The final spring workout will be Tuesday in Pullman.