Do you want the Cougs to fire Kirby Moore already?

BEND, Ore. – I’m wrong a lot. I’ve proven that over and over again. And I hope this is another time when I’m misjudging what appears to be happening.

Based on what I saw over the weekend on social media, it sounds like there’s a growing sentiment among Coug fans that Kirby Moore needs to be fired, that he’s over his skis, a young coach who is never gonna be worth a damn – he’s Paul Wulff all over again.

And if he truly is the second coming of Wulff, a coach who compiled a 9-40 record in his four years as head coach, cut your losses now!

These shit-canning opinions stem from the Cougs being 1-6 and Moore refusing to make a quarterback change from Caden Pinnick to Owen Eshelman until it was too late to save the season.

With how well Eshelman played in his debut against the Beavers, it seems unfathomable that Moore would go with Pinnick as long as he did.

The cool kids catch-phrase is “coaching malpractice,” enough of a mistake to warrant a dismissal to some.

I hope it’s just a small portion of the fan base that feels that way – even if it turns out that they’re right down the road.

But for now, I think we’d be better served to throw all of our support behind Kirby Moore.

I agree that he screwed up by not benching Pinnick and playing Eshelman sooner than he did. That’s obvious.

But what about the things that factored into that? He won’t say as much – though I do wish someone would flat-out ask him about it – since Pinnick is the highest paid player on the team, is that why Moore stuck with him for so long?

Or from strictly a football standpoint, maybe Moore truly thought Pinnick gave his team the best chance to succeed. Clearly he was wrong about that too.

Maybe Eshelman didn’t show enough in practice to warrant a promotion ‘til now. I just assumed Eshleman and Julian Dugger must be worse than Pinnick.

Be honest – as much as we hoped Eshelman would shine like he did, would you have been surprised if he’d been a deer in the headlights and stunk in Corvallis?

We had reached the what-do-we-have-to-lose point in the season, and as it turned out, we found a gold mine in Eshelman.

I’m just gonna chalk it up to an error made by a young first-year head coach and not crucify him for it.

Consider the bigger picture. Moore came in after Jimmy Rogers left for Iowa State and didn’t have time to truly assemble his own recruiting class.

If school president Betsy Cantrell and athletic director Jon Haarlow, thought Moore was the best candidate, he deserves more than seven games to prove himself.

I’ll admit that I’d like to see more emotion and fire from Moore, but maybe that’s not in his personality and it wouldn’t be genuine if he suddenly turned into Lou Piniella.

I also think he’s subpar at the podium – every time he talks about his team, it’s boring monotone coach-speak.

But let’s give him some leeway, let’s cut him some slack, let’s not forget that he’s from Prosser! He grew up as a Coug fan. You can say so what to that, you can say that doesn’t matter if he can’t coach.

But it matters to me. Let’s ease up on him and remember that we gave Wulff four years. Believe it or not, I thought Wulff was ready to turn the corner in his fifth year when he got fired.

That’s something else I was wrong about since Mike Leach took over and transformed us into a highly competitive and entertaining team.

Do you remember what Wulff, a former Washington State offensive lineman, said when he got fired?

“We stick together and we don’t eat our own. I believe the innocence of Wazzu has been lost today.”

Let’s have a little faith and a lot more patience. Maybe we’ll end our four-game losing streak this Saturday by shocking Boise State and winning our last five games to go 6-6 and play in a bowl game.

Eshelman gives us a shot at an improbable finish, and we need to give Moore the time to show that he’s the right man for the job in Pullman.

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