WSU fires defensive coordinator, loses offensive coordinator to Oklahoma

The Washington State football team lost both its coordinators in the same day as coach Jake Dickert dismissed defensive coordinator Jeff Schmedding and offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle took the same position at Oklahoma, WSU and OU announced respectively Monday.

The losses leave the Cougars (8-4) without a top defensive and offensive coach heading into their bowl game. The Cougs don’t yet know when or where they’ll be playing their first bowl game in two seasons.

This year, the WSU defense allowed 28 points per game, the 90th-best mark in the Football Bowl Subdivision. The Cougars allowed 255 passing yards per game (No. 116), 174 rushing yards per game (No. 96) and missed the seventh-most tackles in the nation with 157 whiffs through 12 games.

“After evaluating our program, we have not met the standard defensively, and I felt a change was needed for the best interest of the program,” Dickert said in a news release. “I informed Jeff this morning that he will no longer be the defensive coordinator and wish him well in his future.”

Dickert called Arbuckle a rising star in the industry during a midseason news conference, a reputation supported by the Cougars’ top-20 scoring and passing attack. Over the past two seasons combined, WSU ranked 10th nationally in passing yards per game (302.7) and 20th in scoring offense (34.2 points per game).

Former WSU quarterback Cam Ward passed for the fourth-most yards in the country last season in Arbuckle’s first year as OC and current Cougar QB John Mateer’s 44 total touchdowns are the most of any individual player in the country.

“Right off the bat, my first conversation with coach (Brent) Venables got me really excited,” Arbuckle said in an OU-released statement. “Hearing his vision for the program and the OU offense, I was in total alignment and ready to roll. To have this opportunity to join the University of Oklahoma football program, with its longstanding tradition of excellence, was so enticing to me and I wanted to be a part of it more than anything.”

Arbuckle started his coaching career at Houston Baptist and followed his mentor, Zach Kittley to Western Kentucky, rising to co-offensive coordinator in 2022 before arriving in Pullman.

In a fortuitous day for the former colleagues, Kittley became Flordia Atlantic’s next head coach today.

Kittley learned from former Texas Tech quarterback and coach Kliff Kingsbury and Kingsbury played QB for Leach when he was Texas Tech’s coach.

Leach was the Sooners' OC in 1999 before taking the helm of Tech.

The Cougars finished the regular season on a three-game losing streak, allowing a combined 79 points to New Mexico and Oregon State in back-to-back three-point defeats. WSU’s offense was shut out in the second half of a 15-14 loss to Wyoming on Saturday.

Dickert hired Arbuckle and Schmedding before the 2023 season after losing both of his coordinators to other openings. Schmedding is the first coordinator Dickert fired in his three years as head coach.

His first two hires at the coordinator spots — Eric Morris and Brian Ward — each left after one year in Pullman. Morris, WSU’s former OC, left to lead the North Texas football program and Ward became Arizona State’s defensive coordinator in 2023.

WSU will learn which bowl game it will play on Sunday.

Taylor can be reached at 208-848-2268, staylor@lmtribune.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @Sam_C_Taylor.