Former guard takes over as Cougars starting center

WSU football |

PULLMAN — Washington State still hasn't announced publicly who its starting quarterback will be this season.

But the guy calling the shots for the group of men tasked with protecting that quarterback — the starting center, or the "quarterback of the offensive line," as offensive-line coach Clay McGuire calls it — appears well established.

Perhaps the biggest change up front from a year ago is the transition of walk-on junior Elliott Bosch from Ferris High School to the starting center position, where he's taken nearly all of the snaps with the No. 1 offense during camp.

Paul Wulff and his former coaching staff thought about using Bosch at center for a time, but moved him back to guard because of a lack of reps.

But once coach Mike Leach arrived with his staff, the plan changed. Bosch still played guard during the spring, but that's when the idea was installed — Bosch was going to be a center.

"They knew I needed to get more work and they wanted me to have the summer to work on it," said Bosch, who is 6 feet 4 and 271 pounds. "Just numbers-wise, it worked out better when I played guard in the spring, but I think the idea was the whole time for me to play center."

By Christian Caple Spokesman-Review

By Christian Caple
Spokesman-Review