Washington State 2025 Player Spotlight: QB Zevi Eckhaus

Washington State's offense... and really its entire team... experienced a great resurgance in 2024 thanks to the play the quarterback position. John Mateer reignited a program that was in desperate need of a spark and the Cougs won eight games under his leadership and returned to a bowl game. Mateer, though, did not end up sticking around for that Holiday Bowl bout and instead it was his understudy... Zevi Eckhaus... who got thrown into the fire. Eckhaus, even in a loss, impressed versus Syracuse, throwing for 363 yards and accounting for four touchdowns.

Now, however, Eckhaus is no understudy. He will be the guy for Jimmy Rogers' new-look Washington State squad in 2025 and he's embracing his new leadership role in a way that he hopes comes naturally to not only himself but to the team around him.

"Obviously you want to try to make [it] a point of emphasis to display leadership as much as possible," Eckhaus told reporters after a Spring practice earlier this offseason. "But it doesn't want to be forced either. You have to be as natural as you can. You want the guys to know that it's genuine... that it's coming from a place of love and a place of challenge. That's what I try to do every single day."

These are qualities that the senior signal caller undoubtedly picked up along his lengthy and well-traveled college journey. Coming out of Culver City High School in California back in 2021, Eckhaus landed with the Bryant Bulldogs, a place where he made a real name for himself over three seasons.

During his freshman campaign, Eckhaus threw for 2,392 yards and 21 touchdowns along with just three interceptions, an effort that made him a finalist for that season's Jerry Rice Award; an honor handed out annually to the best freshman player in the FCS. In the two seasons to follow, Eckhaus would toss 54 more touchdowns and rack up over 6,000 more passing yards, taking home All-Conference honors and a league Offensive Player of the Year award in 2023.

All of that resulted him garnering attention from the next level and, following the 2023 season, Eckhaus chose Washington State as his new home. Now he has just one year of eligibility left and, instead of opting to finish it out elsewhere, Eckhaus will stay with the crimson and grey after briefly entering his name in the portal this offseason. Just two days after entering, he withdrew his name. Pullman, as he put it, is a place that is special to him.

"When you’re in a place like this, it’s not really about those things. It’s really about, ‘OK, well, how can we spend time together and enjoy making memories that last forever?’” he said in an interview. “We spend time with one another. We go fishing, we play cards, we have fun with one another... So it’s things like that that you really begin to appreciate a little bit more when you’re not in an environment like Los Angeles.”

His choosing to stay when so many others did not might be the decision that will have the single biggest impact on the Cougars moving into the 2025 season. With so much uncertainty floating about across its roster, Washington State knows it does not have to worry about the quarterback spot. It is in #4's hands and, if the finale to last season was any indication, he's ready for the job.