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While most of the attention of Cougar Nation was focused on football, Wazzu soccer took to the field at 5pm in their opening match in the race of the College Cup. Your #15 Cougs (14-2-4, Pac-12 7-1-3) took a 1-0 lead in the first half. The score didn't indicate their level of dominance over Montana (13-6-1, 7-1-1). However, the play of WSU did show on the scoreboard where they posted an additional two goals for a final victory tally of 3-0. Wazzu outshot the Grizzles 20-2 and their aggressive offense earned them a 12-0 margin on corner kicks. Next up for WSU is Tennessee. The Cougs tournament run will continue on a neutral field in Ann Arbor, MI. Head Coach Todd Schulenberger said this about his team's performance, "We were in complete control of the game, they had two shots to our 20. What’s concerning is we forced some things tonight. We tried to play too much down the middle at times. You know they played five in the back sometimes six so it made it difficult so (give) credit to them. But we solved it and it took one. I knew once one hit I felt good we could get a couple more.”
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Cougar football played before a national audience Saturday in a game with College Football Playoff implications. Oregon is the only Pac-12 team with a shot to play for a national title and a win by WSU in Eugene would put an end to those aspirations. In a hotly competitive contest, the Cougs defense never found an answer to stop the Ducks running game. Oregon rushed for 306 yards en route to a decisive 38-24 conference victory and a virtual lock on the Pac-12 North title. Here's some stats and facts from the game:
POSTGAME NOTES
WASHINGTON STATE AT NO. 3 OREGON – NOV. 13, 2021
GAME NOTES
• WSU Captains: Jahad Woods, Liam Ryan, Travell Harris, Jaylen Watson
• Oregon won the toss and deferred, WSU elected to receive
TEAM NOTES
• WSU recorded 2 more takeaways (2 fumbles) to push their season total to 22 takeaways including 13 fumble recoveries
PLAYER NOTES
• Notable consecutive start streaks: LT Liam Ryan (40), RT Abraham Lucas (40), MIKE Justus Rogers (27)
• Jahad Woods made his 49th career start, breaking OL Micah Hanam’s (2007-10) WSU record for starts of 48
• Konner Gomness started at center, his 5th start of the season and first since the win at Cal
• Ma’ake Fifita started at right guard, his 2nd career start, started at Utah earlier this season
• Travell Harris matched a season-high with 8 catches for 109 yards, to record his 2nd 100-yard game this season (Oregon State), 3rd of his career
• Harris tallied 212 all-purpose yards, pushing his career all-purpose yards to 4,023, 4th-most in WSU history
• Jahad Woods recorded 12 tackles to push his career total to 403, 4th-most in WSU history
• Woods recorded his 3rd-straight double-digit tackle game, 4th of the season, and 15th of his career
• Woods forced a fumble, his 9th career forced fumble, tying Ron Lee and DeWayne Patterson for most in WSU history
• Jaylen Watson recorded his team-leading 3rd fumble recovery
• Brennan Jackson recorded 1 sack, pushing his season total to 3.5
• Dean Janikowski made his only FG attempt (34), pushed his season total to 10 FG
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There are some notable takeaways from this game. Washington State hasn't defeated a team ranked in the AP Top 25 since No. 25 Iowa State in the 2018 Alamo Bowl. The Cougars last defeated a team in the top 10 in 2017, when they upset No. 5 Southern California in Pullman, Washington. ... Washington State was coming off a bye. Last year in Pullman, the Cougars led 19-14 at halftime but the then-No. 11 Ducks pulled away in the second half, with Dye catching two second-half touchdown passes, to win 43-29.
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Here's how the folks at AP saw the game:
https://sports.mynorthwest.com/1528578/no-5-oregon-downs-wsu-cougars-38-24-with-big-2nd-half/ -
Interim Coach Jake Dickert had this to say after the game:
https://247sports.com/college/washington-state/Article/Jake-Dickert-WSU-football-I-take-full-responsibility-gotta-have-better-answers-for-our-guys-175319428/ -
Jeff Nusser had the following comments on the game. I tend to dismiss his one comment about Anthony Brown causing "Fans (to be) perennially terrified of the mobile QB against WSU’s defense". The comment may be accurate but is not unique to analyzing the defense of Washington State. Virtually every college defensive coordinator in the country fears a dual-threat quarterback. Yes, Brown is a dual-threat quarterback who will terrorize defenses all season.
https://www.cougcenter.com/wsu-vs-oregon/2021/11/13/22780960/wsu-cougars-vs-oregon-ducks-recap-final-score -
One of the best recaps of this frustrating Cougar defeat was penned by Barry Bolton. Though I'm rarely on the same page with Bolton, we saw this one pretty much the same.
https://247sports.com/college/washington-state/Article/Plenty-of-Cougar-fight-but-WSU-loses-battle-in-the-trenches-in-setback-to-No-3-Oregon-175314490/
- It seems fitting to put together a list of coaches who branch off of the Mike Leach coaching tree. Perspective on his football genius can easily be determined by a cursory glance:
Dave Aranda/Baylor head coach – Graduate assistant coach under Leach from 2000-02 at Texas Tech
Neal Brown/West Virginia head coach – Played under Leach in 1998 when Leach was offensive coordinator at Kentucky
Sonny Cumbie/Louisiana Tech head coach – Played under Leach at Texas Tech from 2000-03 and later served as a graduate assistant coach under Leach
Sonny Dykes/TCU head coach – Coached wide receivers and later was the co-offensive coordinator at Texas Tech under Leach from 2000-06
Josh Heupel/Tennessee head coach – Played under Leach at Oklahoma in 1999 when Leach was the offensive coordinator for the Sooners
Dana Holgorsen/Houston head coach – Coached alongside Leach as assistants at Valdosta State from 1993-95, then served as a wide receivers coach and offensive coordinator under Leach from ...
- The news of former WSU Coach Mike Leach passing at the young age of 61 is very, very sad. I had the pleasure of writing about the Cougs when Leach was at the helm. To say that he was a unique person doesn't begin to describe the multi-faceted dimension of the man.
In terms of coaching football, Leach led his teams in a way that had most other coaches scratching their heads. His offensive creativity gave a multitude of defensive coordinators ulcers. To say that his techniques for molding student-athletes into football players were unusual would be accurate. Making guys run sprints in a sand pit named "Leach Beach" is a prime example. Crazy as that sounds, his players had fewer ankle injuries over the course of the season than any team in football. Only Mike Leach could get players to hit the beach. And if you look at the coaching tree that branches out from Leach, you'd find a myriad of men who owe him for their start in the profession.
When you examine the way Leach represented the schools ...
- Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, so Wazzu's loss yesterday to UNLV by a score of 74-70 was just that, a loss. However, there were plenty of reasons to applaud both the performance and the progress the Cougs are making over the past few games. Let's get the bad observation out of the way. WSU turned the ball over a ridiculous 22 times. No one is going to beat many teams with such wreckless play, especially against a team that posted a 9-0 record going into the contest. Some of those errors might be attributed to Coach Kyle Smith going with a different lineup almost every game because of player injuries. Facts are facts and when there isn't a steady lineup, players struggle to play team ball. On the bright side, Wazzu shot a respectable 54.2% from the field, coupled with a very nice 56.5% from behind the arc. On defense, WSU held UNLV to just 30.4% from behind the arc and 50.9% overall. The Cougs outrebounded the Rebels by a margin of 33-20. Despite being down by ...
