Washington State’s football program is clearly in better shape today than it was five years ago, but how far has it risen on the national scale? Stewart Mandel, of Sports Illustrated, released his “pecking order” of the 66 power five and independent football programs and had WSU in the last grouping.
Mandel puts each program into one of four tiers, from most prestigious to least: kings, barons, knights and peasants. The Cougs were among the peasants just like they were when the rankings were previously updated in 2012. Only in 2007, when Mandel first wrote the column, was WSU a knight of college football, and we all know what happened after that.