WSU cashes in by getting several commitments off the chips list, including blue-chipper Gino Simone

Before his long 2-11 season, before he suffered through all the blowouts, before he resorted to campus quarterback tryouts, Paul Wulff might have solidified Washington State football's future with one weekend in August.

On one weekend, a herd of the state's top recruits visited Pullman. Among those on the trip: Skyline's Gino Simone, Scout.com's top-ranked player in the state; Bellevue's Jamal Atofau, the top defensive player for the state powerhouse; Ferndale's Casey Locker, the athletic cousin of Washington quarterback Jake Locker; and Gonzaga Prep's Travis Long, the most athletic lineman to come out of Spokane in years.

"We called ourselves 'The cream of the crop,' " Atofau said.

Said Simone: "And almost every guy on that trip committed."

In addition to the blue, red and white chips on The Seattle Times' annual list of the top 100 senior football recruits, two more colors clearly dominate this year's list: crimson and gray.

Seven of the top 25 recruits that make up The Times' blue and red chips have already given verbal commitments to the Cougars for next season. Only three have committed to Washington.

A year ago, Washington got commitments from 11 of the 32 blue and red chips, while only four went to Washington State.

Feb. 4 is the first day that seniors can sign letters of intent.

"It's a night-and-day difference," said Greg Biggins, a Pac-10 recruiting analyst for ESPNRise.com.

Though the consensus is that this is a down year for in-state talent — the total of three blue-chip recruits ties 2002 for the lowest in 12 years — the Cougars brought in six of Scout.com's top 10 recruits from Washington.

That not only says something about the boondoggle that was the winless final season for Tyrone Willingham at Washington, but also the way Washington State persisted through its nightmare of a season. Despite going 2-11, Washington State managed to land the Cougars' second-best class since 1999, Cougfan.com senior editor Barry Bolton said.

"What became apparent early on last year was they hit the road with a fury, and they haven't stopped," Bolton said. "They work very hard at it. These guys live, breathe and eat recruiting."

Wulff's staff had already established relationships with Washington high-school football programs from its time at Eastern Washington. And the Cougars coaches were aggressive once they took over, getting in an early offer to almost every recruit.

That paid off with Simone, a versatile receiver from Class 4A state champion Skyline of Sammamish and one of the three blue chips. The Cougars were a close second to UNLV in offering Simone a scholarship, and they followed often with handwritten letters.

"When one would come, they would all come — from every coach, coaches that I hadn't even talked to," Simone said. "It just showed that they know what they're doing, and they want to get guys bad."

For some recruits like Simone, they saw potential in Wulff's energy and personality. Simone remembers a group of recruits giving Wulff a hard time about Wulff's celebration of Washington State's only Pac-10 victory — in double overtime against winless Washington — and Wulff laughed it off.

"That was the thing that sold me the most: When you went there, the coaches kind of let their guard down a bit," Simone said.

Yet as well as Washington State sold itself, its recruits still had to watch the Cougars suffer through some of the most humiliating losses in the program's history. Several opened up their recruitment again, and many considered reneging on their commitments.

"It was tough — there was no doubt about it," Simone said.

But Wulff and his staff countered by showing recruits how many players they redshirted to ensure that the Cougars don't have another season like it. They made the argument that this group, Wulff's first full class as Washington State coach, could be the class that turns WSU back into a winner.

"Honestly, I wanted to be a part of something big," Atofau said. "I wanted to be part of the foundation that started it, when we turned Washington State around."

Tom Wyrwich: 206-515-5653 or twyrwich@seattletimes.com