Nov. 20 — PULLMAN — Not long after Washington State’s winning streak ended after New Mexico upset the Cougars last weekend, Jared Kaster gathered his offensive linemen for what he called a “heart to heart.”

Overall, WSU’s starting five had acquitted itself well, earning a Pro Football Focus pass-blocking grade of 89.8, the program’s best single-game grade in five full seasons. Quarterback John Mateer took just one sack, partly a product of the Lobos’ coverage-heavy scheme, but it didn’t go against the Cougars’ offensive line. It was their best outing of the season.

“As an offensive line, any time you lose a ballgame, we’re always going to put it on us,” said Kaster, WSU’s first-year offensive line coach. “We could have done better on the front end.”

So much is debatable. What is certain is that the Cougars have gotten creative up front. As they prepare for a road test against Oregon State this weekend, they are rotating personnel left and right in an effort to find the best combination.

By all accounts, they haven’t, prompting WSU to continue rotating personnel in its last two regular-season games.

Perhaps most importantly, WSU center Devin Kylany’s status is uncertain for Saturday’s game as he works through a foot/ankle injury that “limited” him the first few days of practice this week, head coach Jake Dickert said.

Kylany has been the heart of the group and provided stability to a unit that hasn’t had much of that this fall.

Below Kylany on the depth chart is 6-foot-5 redshirt freshman Noah Dunham, but the Cougars will look elsewhere if Kylany can’t play against Oregon State.

If so, WSU will move right guard Brock Dieu to center, Dickert said.

The Cougars will also move left guard Christian Hilborn to right guard and install Rod Tialavea at left guard, leaving left tackle Esa Pole and right tackle Fa’alili Fa’amoe at their regular stations. It would be Hilborn’s first time playing right guard since the 2021 Sun Bowl, his freshman season, and it would be Dieu’s first time playing center in his college career.

WSU would ask two of its best offensive linemen to be flexible in ways they haven’t been, at least not in their collegiate careers. It will be up to Hilborn and Dieu to handle those roles, especially protecting against an OSU pass rush that yielded two sacks last week in a loss to Air Force,

“That’s the level of trust that we have with Hilborn,” Kaster said. “Credit to him. It’s his action, his preparation, his work ethic, being able to be flexible like that and go out and make that play. So all the credit goes to those kids. It’s got nothing to do with me.”

Dieu was recruited as a center.

“Brock has done an incredible job of playing wherever he is,” Kaster said. “I probably wouldn’t play him too much at tackle, but he’s a kid that’s smart, that can make tackles. He’s done it in the spring, done it in fall camp.

“He’s a guy that’s been able to rotate anywhere, because that just shows you who Brock is. He’s a kid that wherever we want him to play, wherever we need him to play, he’s there for the team .”

In other circumstances, if Kylany had played this weekend, the Cougars planned to operate as they did last week against New Mexico.

Dickert and Kaster agree they can’t decide who is the best fit at left guard, Hilborn or Tialavea, so they rotated them against the Lobos — one series for Hilborn, one for Tialavea. They followed that script until the fourth quarter, when Pole left with a minor injury and moved Hilborn to left tackle and Tialavea to left guard.

Against New Mexico, Hilborn had 40 snaps and allowed no pressures, according to PFF, which assigned him a 91.0 pass-blocking grade — a career high. He also had a run blocking rating of 58.1, his fourth best mark of the season.

In 45 snaps against UNM, Tialavea allowed one rush and earned a PFF pass-blocking grade of 71.2. Coaches like him better as a run blocker, where he earned a below-average 53.1 grade. That made him the Cougars’ third-worst rated run blocker in the game, above tackles Pole and Fa’amoe.

“No one has really just established themselves,” Dickert said of Hilborn and Tialavea at left guard. “I thought they both played a lot more than they’re capable of last week. So we’re happy with both of them, but we’ll probably flip-flop for series going forward.”

Key back to play against OSU

Third-year linebacker Buddah Al-Uqdah is expected to be in action against Oregon State, Dickert said. Al-Uqdah came off the field late in the game against New Mexico with a shoulder injury, and he has been practicing in a yellow non-contact jersey this week, Dickert added.

He is an invaluable presence in the middle of the field for the Cougars, leading the team in takeaways with five, two interceptions and three forced fumbles.

Dickert will take a little more control of the defense this weekend

With WSU’s defense struggling, allowing 28 points to Utah State in a Nov. 9 win and 38 points to New Mexico in a loss last weekend, Dickert is poised to insert himself more into the team’s defensive game plan for the Cougars’ final two regular-season games , he said.

He stays aware of his role as head coach and lets defensive coordinator Jeff Schmedding call the defense, but Dickert said he’s “taking a little different approach” to closing out the regular season.

“I’ll probably be looking at a few more of the iPads on the sidelines so I can see exactly what’s going on,” Dickert said, “so I can give my input, ideas, all that kind of stuff.”

Dickert, who came to WSU as the team’s defensive coordinator in 2020, is a defensive-minded coach. He coached the 2020 and 2021 seasons as defensive coordinator until taking over as interim head coach in 2021, then accepted the full-time job after the season.

Late last season, when the Cougars’ defense struggled under Schmedding, Dickert said he asserted himself more on that side of the ball.

This year, as WSU tries to find ways to limit scoring production and slow mobile quarterbacks like UNM’s Devon Dampier, Dickert is doing something similar.