PULLMAN — Kaden Beatty set his phone down, looked around his room and flexed to himself. As the clock neared midnight on the East Coast, Beatty let his excitement rush over him.
Let’s go! he said to himself.
It was the first week of January, and about 15 minutes into a phone call with Jalon Bibbs, Beatty had just learned Bibbs was no longer recruiting him to play defensive tackle at South Dakota State. Bibbs had recently accepted the defensive tackles coaching job at Washington State, and Bibbs wanted him to become a Cougar.
The previous week, Beatty had entered the transfer portal after two years at Kent State, where he followed a redshirt year with something of a breakout campaign, giving himself a chance to play on a bigger stage this fall. When he realized the opportunity would be coming from WSU — only a few hours away from his godfather, who lives in Seattle, and a team he remembered watching in late-night Pac-12 action — he could hardly keep it together.
Some seven months later, Beatty still looks like he just got off the phone. With unbridled excitement and a sharp sense for trash talk, he’s channeling the same type of enthusiasm to the Cougars’ fall camp, which he’s used to carve out a role on their defensive line. Likely a second-teamer after the ninth day of camp, which wrapped up on Friday afternoon, Beatty has blossomed into a strong contender for snaps this season.
“This is definitely the best one, for sure,” Beatty said, referring to WSU’s fall camp in comparison to previous ones he’s taken part in. “Just from taking care of our bodies to also, we’re grinding on the field, but the nutrition they give us…. From the top down, honestly, it’s overall just a great experience, and better than what I’ve been at.”
Beatty’s emergence underscored the theme of Friday’s practice, which in large part belonged to the Cougars’ defensive line and defensive ends, perhaps the position group turning over the most talent from last season. The top candidates to earn starting jobs include DTs Bryson Lamb and Max Baloun and DEs Raam Stevenson and Buddha Peleti, all of whom coach Jimmy Rogers shouted out Friday.
But as the Cougs take the weekend off and prepare for next week, the final week of fall camp before they start preparing for their season-opener against Idaho, Rogers is staying mum on the statuses of position battles, saying only that “there are guys that are rising above one another.”
“And that’s kind of what I just got done talking to them about,” Rogers said. “I have every position group vote on the guy that they feel like is a great leader, and there’s a couple in every single group. But those same couple guys are the same guys that live their life the right way to be able to come out and execute on a day-to-day basis.”
After nine days of fall camp, Baloun looks the part. During one team period in Friday’s practice, he blew up a run play and stacked it up. He’s done so on too many occasions to count. At 6-6 and 285 pounds, he’s one of the Cougars’ most imposing players up front, and he plays like it.
Several of the WSU offense’s runs got stuffed, a credit to linemen like Lamb, Baloun and Darrion Dalton. On the edge, New Mexico State transfer Malaki Ta’ase also continues to turn heads, generating pressure on a consistent basis. Defensive ends Jack Janikowski and Michael Hughes, both of whom have been running with the second- and third-team groups, have “shown flashes,” Rogers said.
“Malaki has done an unbelievable job in a short time here. He continuously gets better,” Rogers said. “It’s important for us to have the depth at that group. At times, especially the age and era that we’re living in with so much social media and following behind this that it’s really important for the players to be a starter. There’s a connection on that side of the ball right now that I think is special.”
Part of that comes from the leadership of Bibbs, Rogers said, the man who led the charge in recruiting Beatty out of Kent State. Beatty is a native of Chesapeake, Virginia, where he flourished into one of the state’s top defensive tackles in the class of 2023.
As his senior year unfolded and he totaled 97 tackles (65 for loss), 19 sacks and seven forced fumbles, earning Division-II state player of the year honors, Beatty figured he’d hear from schools like Virginia and James Madison — both of which are on WSU’s schedule this fall.
“Didn’t happen,” Beatty said, “and we’re gonna make them pay.”
Large, Reeder limited in practice
For the fourth straight day, veteran safety Tucker Large was limited in Friday’s practice. Fellow veteran safety Cale Reeder was also limited. But both are in their fifth years working with Rogers, following him from South Dakota State to WSU, and the head coach is prioritizing their health over all.
“I don’t need to see Tucker Large take a million reps,” Rogers said. “I’ve been with him forever. He’s an impact player for us. I want to make sure he’s 100% before we put him out in these settings. Because the closer we just get to game time, he’ll get feeling better and better.
“The bigger thing isn’t the reps, it’s just keeping his cardio up and making sure he feels comfortable. It’s really similar with him and Reeder. Those are guys with so much reps, and I think it’s extremely important with the skill that we have on that back end that we continue to build depth.”
That means more opportunities for freshman safeties like Trillion Sorrell, who could well see the field this fall, as well as Kyle Peterson, Damarius Russell and Trey Ridley, who is a redshirt freshman. With those players in the fold, the Cougs’ safety corps should be in good hands for years to come.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
