WSU's other QB of future eyes a win in Calif.

FOR THE SECOND TIME in a week, a young Cougar gun will be looking to turn heads in Southern California. Right on the heels of WSU’s quarterback of the present and foreseeable future, Jeff Tuel, impressing at the L.A. Coliseum comes Connor Halliday, the Cougs’ QB of the next generation. This Friday he’ll lead his Ferris Saxons into Anaheim and a showdown with perennial power Esperanza High.

This will be the second high-profile game this month between teams from Washington and California. Skyline of Sammamish, led by BYU-bound quarterback Jake Heaps, lost a tight one two weeks ago to Oak Christian, which features UW-bound QB Nick Montana.

Halliday, like Heaps and Montana, is one of the top-rated prep signal callers in the land. He is the No. 7 quarterback prospect on the West Coast in the eyes of Scout.com and is the No. 2-rated QB in the Pacific Northwest behind Heaps. Halliday is pegged at No. 39 among prep quarterbacks nationally.

Through four games this season, he has thrown for 1,007 yards and 10 TDs while completing a glossy 69 of 95 pass attempts. He has four interceptions. As a junior in 2008, Halliday threw for more than 2,400 yards -- the 11th-highest single-season output in Spokane history. Mind you, that history includes signal callers the likes of Mark Rypien, Ryne Sandberg, Ed Riley (Mike's brother), Jim Dorr, Denny Fitzpatrick, Bill Etter, Terry Campbell and Bill Diedrick.

Halliday is 6-5, 186 pounds and also a standout on Ferris’ stellar basketball team.

The Saxons are 3-1 this grid season and rated the No. 9 Class 4A team in the state. Esperanza, winner of four straight league titles, is 2-1 and rated No. 48 in California in its classification. Ferris is averaging 38 points per game and Esperanza, which emphasizes the ground attack on offense, is averaging 25.

In ESPN’s most recent rankings of the best overall athletic programs among the nation’s high schools, Esperanza was pegged at No. 30.

NOTABLES:

Halliday is one of 14 known verbal commitments in WSU’s 2010 class of recruits. It’s a class that, so far, has come together faster than any in Cougar history. The complete list is found HERE.

Asked the other day by CF.C if Tuel's promising emergence with the Cougars could give Halliday second thoughts about coming to WSU, a Spokane high school coach was emphatic: "Hell no. It actually helps the situation because with Tuel no longer redshirting it puts a another year of separation between him and Halliday." For more on Halliday, click HERE.