The Monday After: Making sense of the nonsensical

Before I get on with today’s regular Monday newsletter, I just want to acknowledge something real quick: The news of four AAC schools rebuffing the reimagined Pac-12 and Gonzaga reportedly joining the Pac-12 (for a full share, even without football!) dropped as I was finishing this up.

My quick thoughts are this: It’s bad bad bad. The top priority had to be creating a football conference that was clearly cut above the other G5s for CFP access, and that has failed. Unless they can somehow the AAC schools back to the table, this is going to be MWC+2+Gonzaga(?). Yuck.

Anyway, we’ll have some more thoughts on that when this shakes out a little bit more.

Until then, let’s enjoy our 4-0 football team!

In today's newsletter ...

• A head spinning four and a half hours

• What We Liked: Love — and accountability

• Who Impressed: Dean Janikowski

• What Needs Work: Nickels and safeties

• Up Next: No. 25 Boise State

A head spinning four and a half hours

As writers, we’re always looking for a hook — some kind of narrative that we can build our stories around. Sometimes, I sit down to write these things and the hook is so clear that the story basically writes itself. Other times, I have to grind a little bit to find the hook, because the game was just sort of meh, but I still have to try and write something interesting.

Then, there are games such as Friday night — where it’s like … how the f%$k do I even make sense out of what I just watched??

Even with a couple of days to process WSU’s 54-52 win over San Jose State in 2OT, I’m still not sure how to parse what happened. Comebacks of 14 points by both teams? This was like one of those fake boxing scenes in Rocky movies where one guy punches the other like 10 times in a row, then the other guy comes back with 10 in a row, and they aren’t just little jabs, they’re haymakers, and somehow both are still standing?

Here’s the win probability chart¹ from Friday night:

If you don’t look at a lot of win probability charts, you probably have no idea how crazy that is.² Both teams had 90%+ odds of going on to victory twice each!

• After recovering a fumble on a kickoff and holding a 21-10 lead with just under 5 minutes to go in the first half, ESPN estimated that a team of WSU’s quality against a team of SJSU’s quality had a 92% likelihood of winning — or, put another way, would go on to win in that scenario 92 times out of 100. We like those odds!

• About 20 minutes of game time later — aided by a questionable decision to fake a field goal and fueled by the emergence of SJSU’s star receiver Nick Nash — everything had flipped: WSU was somehow trailing 38-24 and it was SJSU with a 93% probability to win as the third quarter was ending. Oh no!

• Thirteen minutes — and three unanswered TDs by WSU! — after that, it was back to 91% for the Cougs, who now held the ball and 5-point lead with under three minutes to go. Whew. This game is basically locked up!

• Two minutes later — following the failure to pick up a first down, a punt, and giving up not just one insane pass and catch from Emmett Brown to Treyshun Hurry, but two, the second for a seeming impossible TD, plus a 2-pointer — it was 99.9% for SJSU, which now led by a field goal with under 30 seconds to go.

But oh, that 0.1%!

There’s always the temptation to do a lot of post hoc analysis in these situations, making big declarations about the heart of the team, how they always believed/never gave up, etc. Thing is, we already knew that about these guys. That’s not why they won this game. I mean, it was part of it, but let’s be real: They won because, when you’re facing one of these 1-in-1000 scenarios — where you’re holding the ball on your own 25 with only 20 seconds remaining after an incompletion on first down — you need at least a little bit of fortune.

You need your opponent — which should know that the only way WSU can create a problem is with a chunk pass? — to inexplicably play what looks like Cover 2, leaving that sideline pocket between the sitting corners and deep half safety wide open for WSU’s best receiver to run into, AND you then need your kicker — who earlier missed a PAT and has been shaky since last November — to come through with a long field goal at the very edge of his range.

The Cougs got both.

And somehow it got crazier from there?

I don’t know. Your mileage may vary on the craziness of dueling interceptions in overtime, followed up by a strip sack fumble recovery on SJSU’s 2-point try that could have extended the game. What I do know is that — broadly speaking — the nature of the contest was unsurprising. We all recognized in advance that this was a classic “trap” game; I’m sure the Cougs knew it themselves. The coaches surely did. But, unlike a video game or the things we dream up in our mind, the folks out on that field are actual people. And actual people have emotions and distractions and real life that can impact performance — something that’s doubly true for people in that 18- to 23-year old demographic that make up a college football team.

It’s part of why college sports so much fun and also maddening and unpredictable but also amazing.

Maybe in a perfect situation, the Cougs are nearly two TDs better than SJSU at home, as the Vegas line suggested.³ In the wake of emotional wins over Texas Tech and Washington, this was hardly a perfect situation — and that’s just on WSU’s side. It doesn’t even take into account that Brown and SJSU offensive coordinator Craig Stutzmann were playing and coaching against their former team, presumably with a little extra verve, or that SJSU’s other players very likely are feeling slighted for not being invited to the “new” Pac-12, much like we were the last two weeks.

It was pretty damn obvious from the start that this was anything but normal.

Yeah, WSU scored on its first drive to take an early 7-0 lead. But it took them 13 plays and nearly 6 minutes to go those 76 yards, a 5.8-yards-per-play grind that indicated the Cougs were, perhaps, not simply going to waltz into the end zone repeatedly. On the ensuing possession, the Spartans covered 75 yards in two plays thanks to a 66-yard TD run by Floyd Chalk IV straight up the gut.

Oh. Yeah. It’s going to be that kind of night.

But the reality is, no team is going to be performing at its peak for 12 games. It’s literally why the term “trap game” exists. What you hope for is that, on the nights when you’re not at your best, you can still figure out a way to win. And the Cougs did that, which is pretty massive for whatever the future holds for us this season. Our bowl game possibilities are the same as they have been in the old Pac-12, but now will be determined strictly by overall record. A win is a win is a win is a win, and every win matters.

In the end, that’s the only thing we need to make sense of. On a weekend where other non-Power 4 teams such as Northern Illinois and Memphis lost after big wins, the Cougars were not at their best and they still emerged from a severe test with their perfect record intact.

What We Liked: Love — and accountability

Many football coaches preach religiously about love and family and “play for the guy next to you” and all that sort of warm and fuzzy stuff. And every fan wants to believe that their coach is actually the one who is completely authentic and totally means it. It sounds great, and it makes us feel better about the guys we’re cheering for.

However, when it comes down to it, there’s very little evidence that most coaches are genuinely fostering that kind of an environment of mutual care.

WSU might be one of the exceptions.