The second half of the 2026 season for Washington State begins this Saturday as the Cougars travel down to Corvallis for a date with the Oregon State Beavers.
It will likely be the first of two meetings between the Northwest rivals, as they are scheduled to meet again in the final week of the regular season, but it can be flexed out.
As is tradition, WSU (1-5, 0-2 in Pac-12) released what uniforms they will be wearing on Wednesday afternoon. Though this time around, instead of their usual cinematic
style reveal with a player, they showed the equipment team packing up the gear.
It seems the combo will be a gray helmet, white jersey and gray pants. Upon a closer look, the logo on the helmet looks like the standard WSU logo with a white outline on it. For the first time since Week 2, this will not be a new uniform combo. The Cougars last wore this exact set—including the outline on the logo—in 2022 at Wisconsin. This will mark the second time WSU has worn this combo.
It will be the third appearance for the gray helmets this year. The first was paired with the script logo against Arizona in Week 4 and the second was the same helmet as this week in the loss against Fresno State. They also wore the gray pants in both of those games. WSU has worn the white road jersey in their first three road games, all losses. In total this will be the eighth time WSU has worn the gray helmet with the outline on the logo. They are 4-3 in those first seven games. The gray helmet itself is 20-14 since 2017, the white jersey is 18-34 and the gray pants are 15-9.
It is a little strange that WSU went with the video of the equipment staff packing up the combo rather than the traditional unveiling. Perhaps the original video featured a player who won’t be playing at Oregon State this week. Maybe Tony Freeman, who was lost for the season due to injury. Or just maybe, Caden Pinnick was the featured player. In case you missed it, head coach Kirby Moore announced earlier this week that Pinnick would not start this week at Oregon State. Instead, the Cougars will turn to redshirt freshman Owen Eschelman to lead the Cougars on Saturday.
Eshelman, from Norman, Oklahoma, who made his WSU debut for a couple handoffs against Duquesne, was originally committed to South Dakota State in the summer of 2024 under then head coach Jimmy Rogers. When Rogers left for WSU, Eshelman decommitted and followed Rogers to Pullman. He ended up staying in Pullman after Rogers left for Iowa State. In his senior season at Norman North, he threw for over 2600 yards and 29 touchdowns. He tacked on over 1300 rushing yards and 19 more touchdowns with his legs.
To say the 2026 season has been incredibly underwhelming for WSU would be an understatement. Perhaps Eshelman, and this uniform combo, will turn things around in Corvallis.
