Cougar football has done it again. With their dominating performance of Arizona Friday night, WSU is going bowling once again this year. What a wonderful habit! As you might expect, there are numerous articles posted to the interwebs extolling the wonders of a team that has fought through some tough times this season. Before reading what pundits had to say about your Cougs, here's some facts for you:
POSTGAME NOTES
ARIZONA AT WASHINGTON STATE – NOVEMBER 19, 2021
GAME NOTES:
• WSU Captains: Abraham Lucas, Daniel Isom, Jahad Woods, Liam Ryan
• WSU won the toss and elected to receive
TEAM NOTES:
• WSU is bowl eligible for the sixth time in the last seven years (2020)
• WSU blocked a punt for the 1st time since 2020 at Oregon State (Dillion Sherman)
• WSU recorded a safety for the 1st time since 2016 against Oregon (Hercules Mata’afa sack)
PLAYER NOTES:
• Notable consecutive start streaks: LT Liam Ryan (41), RT Abraham Lucas (41), MIKE Justus Rogers (27)
• Jahad Woods and Justus Rogers both appeared in their 54th career game, tying Peyton Pelluer for most in WSU history
• Travion Brown, Justus Rogers and Francisco Mauigoa started at linebacker, 2nd starts of the season for Brown and Mauigoa, both started against Stanford
• Jayden de Laura threw for a career-high 4 TD (8, 43, 31, 78)
• Max Borghi rushed for a career-high 139 yards and 2 TD (26,2), his 5th career 100-yard game and 1st since 2019
• Borghi scored 2 TD to push his career TD total to 39, passing Gabe Marks (38) for 2nd-most in WSU history, trails Steve Broussard’s record of 41
• Borghi rushed for 2 TD, pushing his career rushing TD total to 30, 2nd-most in WSU history, trails Steve Broussard (33)
• Travell Harris caught 6 passes to push his career reception total to 171, passing Jared Karstetter for 10th-most in WSU history
• Harris caught 2 TD (8, 31) to push his team-leading total to 9, most in the Pac-12
• Harris tallied 99 all-purpose yards to push his career total to 4,122, 4th-most in WSU history
• Jahad Woods recorded 12 tackles, 1.5 for loss, forced a fumble and picked off a pass
• Woods recorded 1.5 tackles-for-loss to push his career total to 36, passing Peyton Pelluer and Rien Long for 7th-most in WSU history
• Woods recorded his 4th-straight double-digit tackle effort, 5th of the season and 16th of his career
• Quinn Roff recorded 2 tackles-for-loss including 1 sack
• Christian Mejia recorded his 2nd career sack and 1st of the season
For those who didn't get to watch the foggy Friday festival that can be Cougar football, here's a nice video recap of the game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9FwGmqtPrg
Here's a sampling of articles:
Colton Clark turned in a terrific recap of the game complete with authentic post-game comments from players and the head coach.
https://www.khq.com/sports/washington_state_university/its-great-to-go-out-on-that-note-washington-state-seniors-produce-highlights-cougars-reach/article_a0e31b7e-d72d-5171-8586-9c44b7be0ce4.html
Jamey Vinnick penned an outstanding recap that includes poignant comments:
https://247sports.com/college/washington-state/Article/WSU-football-seniors-final-home-game-win-bowl-eligibility-meant-everything-175743087/
For those who didn't get a chance to watch the Pac-12 Network broadcast, you missed the debut of a budding star for the network. Former UCLA All-American running back Maurice Jones-Drew was brilliant. His insights were spot on. Sure, at times he was a little wonky with his descriptions. He sounded like a seasoned pro without a bias for either team on the field. Hopefully, he'll be on the mike for many more Wazzu games in the future. Chances are that won't be the case. He may turn into the "A" team color commentator for the Pac-12 Network. If you didn't notice up to this point, Washington State rarely gets "A" team announcers. That's another discussion for another day.
Enjoy your weekend with those you care about!
Go Cougs!!!
- 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 ...
