Ward picking UM over FSU, Ohio State, or other schools seemed equally unlikely. Kid is weighing going to the nfl to be a mid round pick against trying another year in cfb to raise his draft stock. We had a 7 win season and a horrendous offense with TVD, but he took Miami’s offer. And he is now likely going to be the #3 pick in the draft. Probably would have won Heisman too if not for Cristobal hiring Guidry.
Ward and Mateer talk (Mateer has said this). And Mateer has said he loves seeing how Ward dominated cfb. So Cristobal has pulled a rabbit out of his hat before.
Also, it may be hard to believe but there is also chance Mateer isn’t all-in on Arbuckle. A lot of WSU fans are happy to see him go, they think he didn’t maximize Mateer’s ability. WSU lost its last 3 games in a row to truly pathetic teams.
Wasn’t too long ago WSU was in the running for a playoff spot having only 1 loss to BSU. Should easily have run the table from there and finished with 1 loss, but they ended up losing to University of New Mexico, Oregon State, and 3-9 Wyoming (where WSU only scored 14 pts!). A lot of that was them having a Guidry-like defense but that last one was really bad.