WSU Football Mid-Season Report Cards: Position Grades (Defense)

Secondary

Aug 31, 2013; Auburn, AL, USA; Auburn Tigers running back Corey Grant (20) is brought down by Washington State Cougars safety Deone Bucannon (20) and Washington State Cougars cornerback Damante Horton (6) at Jordan Hare Stadium. The Tigers defeated the Cougars 31-24. Mandatory Credit: Shanna Lockwood-USA TODAY Sports

The Cougar secondary has been the surprise of the team, no question about it. The Cougs have not been one-dimensional here either. Four players at corner and four at safety have played important minutes, so if something were to happen to anyone in the second half of the season the defense wouldn’t be totally hopeless.

Damante Horton is back and is now tied with Jason David atop the WSU record books after bringing back his 2nd and 3rd interceptions to the house this season. It truly is amazing how often he has had his hands on the football this season, always seems to be in the right position.

Of course everybody knew about Deone Bucannon coming into the season, but even he has outperformed expectation. “Buc” is tied for the national lead with 4 interceptions and tied for 14th nationally with 56 tackles. The extra 25 lbs that he put on this Summer helped him tremendously as well, as every running back who has touched the ball this season can attest to. He’s made several bone-crushing hits this season and even more impressively has not received a single 15 yard add on, something he had major issues with last season.

The rest have been extremely solid, but still have breakdowns of massive proportion from time to time, leading to huge plays for the other team. Still, based on what we saw last season, this has to be considered a major victory and must receive a pretty high score.

DB’s get a B+