Canadian Club

(This article appeared on www.cougzone.com.)

When he told the other schools offering him scholarships that he was headed to Pullman, new Cougar Tyson Pencer says he meant it. But some of them, apparently, wouldn't take the hint.

"I got the same letters over and over again from Boise State, Colorado, Oregon, and UCLA," Pencer said Saturday. "Oregon didn't start sending me stuff until after I committed. I guess they were hoping I'd change my mind."

Pencer committed to Bill Doba's Cougars way back in the fall, and said that since then, he's never wavered in his decision to play for Washington State. So after nary a second thought since October, was signing day a bit anticlimactic?


"I've been just waiting the last couple months for that day to finally come, and you finally realize, 'I'm signed with them, I'm ready to go,'" Pencer said. "I just gotta finish my grade 12 year, and now I'm breathing a big sigh of relief.

Pencer, a 6-foot-6, 227 lb. DE/TE from Delta Sands Secondary School just 20 miles across the Canadian border in British Columbia, hasn't been told yet where Doba's staff sees him fitting in to the Cougars' future.

"On defense, I love getting to hit people, and getting after the QB, chasing him down, and stuff like that," said Pencer. "But on offense, I like getting to make the big catches, and the big plays. I played RB for 10 years, so I'm used to getting the ball."

Indeed, Pencer was a RB/FB for the first ten years of his football career. When his high school coach realized that his future was at TE, he made the switch, and hasn't looked back.

"I wasn't the one scoring the TD or getting all the yards, but I was still getting the ball."

Pencer, currently at about 235-240 lbs., said that he hopes to arrive in Pullman for camp in the area of 260-265, which would give him the requisite size to compete at DE. He thinks that if he can gain the weight, and maintain his foot speed (4.62 40-yard dash), he can be a force on either side of the ball.

"I feel a little bit of pressure to get down there and represent Canada and people from my area, you know?" Pencer said.

According to Pencer, very few players from his area of Canada have made the transition to American D-I football for as long as he can remember.