Washington State has won at least eight football games in each of the last three seasons, the last of those ending with a Holiday Bowl loss to Michigan State in December.

Since then, WSU’s coaching staff has undergone incredible turnover for a program that hasn’t made a head coaching change. Mike Leach was a serious candidate for Tennessee’s then-vacant coaching job late last fall, but he wound up staying in Pullman for an upcoming seventh season. (The Tennessee AD who nearly hired him got fired.)

So Leach is still here. But he’s lost these six assistants over about six weeks:

Defensive coordinator Alex Grinch to Ohio State

Running backs coach Jim Mastro to Oregon

Offensive line coach Clay McGuire to Texas Tech

Outside receivers coach Derek Sage to UCLA

Outside linebackers coach Roy Manning to UCLA

Strength coach Jason Loscalzo to the Chicago Bears

That’s five out of nine on-field assistants from Washington State’s solid 2017 team gone, plus the head strength coach, who’s generally just as important. The losses have come out in a trickle since earlier in the winter, with Sage’s departure the latest to be reported. The first coach to officially go was Manning on Jan. 3.

For years, FBS staffs had numbered nine, not counting the head coach or his strength staff. Teams are allowed to have a 10th on-field assistant with full recruiting privileges starting this year, which is how Ohio State initially had space for Grinch. His move to Columbus had been rumored in December, but teams didn’t get that 10th slot until January.

WSU’s 10-man assistant staff will include six new faces in 2018. Someone new will run the weight room, too.

Leach replaced Grinch with former Minnesota head coach Tracy Claeys, and he’s brought on Utah State defensive backs coach Kendrick Shavers to coach safeties.

He hasn’t hired replacements for any of WSU’s other departures, according to the school’s staff directory. Washington State might be able to move a few remaining assistants around and structure its staff a little differently next year. Leach doesn’t have to hire people to do the same jobs, exactly, as the guys who have left. But he still has to add at least four or five new senior members of his staff, with spring practice just around the corner.

When head coaches change jobs, it’s normal for an entire staff of assistants to change, too — maybe with one or two holdovers from a program’s previous administration. It’s really rare for a team to lose this many assistants without having a change at the top.