Washington State Cougars 2012 Evaluations: Safety Deone Bucannon

Aug 30, 2012; Provo, UT, USA; Washington State Cougars safety Deone Bucannon (20) walks off the field after losing to the Brigham Young Cougars 30-6 at Lavell Edwards Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Statistics:

12 games, 64 solo tackles, 42 assisted, 4 int.

What he did in 2012: Deone was once again a huge part of our defense in 2012.  He showed up time and time again making a ton of tackles in key situations and played pretty good lock down defense.  He struggled in the penalty department as we know after his first brutal hit against a defenseless Eastern Washington receiver he was benched and he had a few more instances later in the year.  Of course this isn’t the first year he’s had problems with it, he had the same thing happen vs SMU and other teams in years past.  Even with being benched here and there he played a huge role for our defense and helped them out perform expectations at some points last year.

What I expect in 2013: This hard hitting safety will most likely be the best defensive player we have next year.  I expect him to step it up and pick up his coverage game along with picking off a few more passes.  Hopefully he wont have the same issues with penalties as he will be a senior and a leader of this defense.  I expect him to make or break our defense, everything will fall on him and he needs another huge year of racking up tackles in order to benefit our defense and take them to the next level.