In today's newsletter ...

• Sit back and enjoy

• What Else We Liked

  • Takeaway comes up clutch again

• Who Impressed

  • Fa’alili Fa’amoe

• What Needs Work

  • Taking the offense on the road

  • That shambolic surface

  • Short yardage runs

• Up Next

  • Bye!

Sit back and enjoy

During the throes of a game, not only is it real difficult to remember to look for the forest amongst the trees, nobody really wants to do that. Like, for example, when your two-TD-favorite Washington State Cougars are trailing by 12 early in the fourth quarter on the road against San Diego State.

The vibes were very much not good. The Aztecs were supposed to be a bad offensive team that over-relied on the run, and here they were throwing the ball all over the yard with a true freshman QB — and making it look pretty easy — while also finally getting some legit traction¹ in the run game. In just the Turd Quarter™, San Diego State outgained the Cougs 123-21, moving the ball at a 7.2 yards per play clip — including 7.8 yards per passing attempt.

Given that SDSU had run the ball on more than 50% of its plays this season, I did not foresee them throwing it 65% of the time. Apparently, neither did the Cougars, and two minutes into the final frame, they found themselves trailing 26-14 after allowing three touchdowns without reply.

Coming out of the locker room for the second half, the WSU offense had been putrid — three drives, three sacks allowed, 1.4 yards per play, three punts. If momentum in sports was as real as so many believe, the Cougars would have been toast. This fourth quarter would have looked just like the one in Boise.

Alas. The Cougars were not toast!

Only 87 seconds later, WSU answered back with a four-play, 80-yard TD drive. Three minutes later, Buddah Al-Uqdah flipped the field with an improbable interception. Three minutes after that, WSU was in the end zone again — adding on a tricky two-point conversion, to boot.

The Aztecs, which had been in such control the entire second half, suddenly trailed by three. They derailed a promising comeback drive of their own with an illegal block, punted, and the Cougs put the nail in the coffin by running the clock down to 30 seconds before a roughing the punter penalty killed the game off for good.

San Diego State — like San Jose State before them — has to be wondering how on earth they walked out of the stadium with a loss, especially given that they were the ones pulling out close victories in their previous two contests.

Just like I don’t really believe in momentum, I also don’t really put too much stock in a team being “clutch” as a reason why they do (or don’t) win close games. Close contests introduce variance, and variance can land on either side of the coin thanks to a whole host of factors that are outside of a team’s control. But I do believe in toughness, grit, and resiliency, and it’s undeniable that this is a tough, gritty, and resilient bunch of players — something that can escape our consciousness when games are going badly for a time.

What else could explain these guys going through the experience of being exiled into college football purgatory, nomads without a home, only to fight and scrap and claw their way to a 7-1 record — and now a No. 22 ranking? One only need to look westward to Corvallis, Oregon, to see a team that hasn’t coped with this unprecedented transition nearly as well.

As we head into this second bye week (seriously, could this season be any weirder?), take a moment to appreciate how cool all of this is.

Being 7-1 — with an Apple Cup win already in our pockets — is awesome.

Being ranked in the top 25 — for the first time in more than a year — is awesome.

With everything that has gone on outside the program, to be on track for an excellent bowl game and also still have an outside shot at making the College Football Playoff is incredible, and something to celebrate.

There are only four games left, and there’s no guarantee a season like this will come around again as we continue to push on into the great unknown. It wasn’t a perfect performance; you could say it wasn’t even a good performance⁴ , and it’s perfectly appropriate to pick apart the weak spots.

Just don’t let it steal your joy. This is fun as hell. Enjoy it for all it’s worth.

What Else We Liked

Takeaway comes up clutch again

With a bye week to prepare for WSU, San Diego State head coach Sean Lewis decided his team needed to change up its offensive philosophy. Gone was the ground and pound, clock-draining approach that we referenced in both our podcast and the Gameday Guide² ; in its place was an uptempo attack that put the ball in the air repeatedly.

It almost worked. But the choice to throw it a bunch always comes with some risk; the saying, “three things can happen when you throw the ball and two of them are bad,” is hackneyed, but if you’re a team that doesn’t specialize in throwing it, and your path to winning also relies heavily on not giving the ball away … you’re playing with fire to some degree if you’re going to put it in the air on 65% of your plays.

In the first half, Kapena Gushiken would have had himself a pick-six if he’d just caught an overthrow that hit him in the bread basket. The Aztecs dodged a bullet.

It took until 8:35 to go in the game for SDSU’s pass-happy attack to finally backfire again, but when it did, the Cougs were ready — thanks to a masterclass in defensive strategy from WSU.

Facing 3rd and 14, the Cougars brought blitz pressure from the edge. Danny O’Neil, as he had all game, threw into the blitz at a quick slant. But it wasn’t wide open this time — Al-Uqdah, who had been showing pressure at the line, quickly dropped back to the exact spot where WSU anticipated the slant would be.

O’Neil threw the ball the blind … right to Al-Uqdah’s hands. And just as a muffed punt turnover had juiced SDSU’s comeback, this interception — which set the Cougs up with decent field position on their own 37 — greased the skids for their own surge back into the lead.

I made a big deal last week about how relying on turnovers isn’t really the best long-term strategy, and that ultimately you’re relying on the offense to make a mistake. And through three and half quarters, it wasn’t looking great. But I did note that you can do things to increase the likelihood of a mistake, and WSU did exactly that with the game on the line. Whatever you think of the job defensive coordinator Jeff Schmedding is doing, he deserves a major high five for that one.

Who Impressed

Fa’alili Fa’amoe

It’s been a long, long road back to the field for the big right tackle … and the ride hasn’t always been smooth as he’s struggled to shake off the rust that comes from suffering an injury in the spring that ends up holding you out until the fourth game of the following season. The inconsistency that plagued him through his first handful of games seemed to finally be set aside on Saturday as he turned in his best performance of the season.

The TV broadcast made a big deal out of Trey White’s sack total coming into the game, but he left with just a half sack.³ The analyst on the call noted that the Cougs did some creative things to neutralize White, including getting help from tight ends and running backs, but we’ve seen enough offensive linemen get whipped to know that if they’re playing badly, it doesn’t actually matter what kind of help you give.

Additionally, when the Cougs needed hard yards, they ran to the right — including a pair of critical Mateer runs in the last couple of drives of the fourth quarter.

I had my doubts as to whether he was really ready to come back. Given everything he’s been through, it’s very cool to see Dickert’s faith in the big fella pay off.

What Needs Work

Taking the offense on the road

For whatever reason, the Cougs struggle on offense when they leave Pullman. Even if we take Portland State out of the equation, it looks like this (data courtesy cfbstats.com):

That’s a pretty extreme split, and I’m not sure what to make of it. One explanation could be that the offense was at its best early on, and we played a bunch of home games early. To wit, the rushing yards disparity is largely due to Mateer’s legs, and teams have largely figured out how to contain that and keep him from getting loose for the monster runs.

But that’s not all of it, especially after we saw the team slice up Hawaii last week. The Rainbow Warriors aren’t good, and they’ve got their own troubles when they come to the mainland, but still — it’s jarring to have three consecutive weeks like this:

I have no idea how to explain it. I’m sure someone who played the game at the college level could explain the particular challenges that are presented by playing on the road. I’m also open to the idea that this is just mostly randomness in a seven-game sample.

But it sure doesn’t feel that way. To me, it feels like there’s just something lacking in the mentality department as they get into these games. Dickert has spoken at times about who’s “dictating” games, lamenting periodically that the Cougs let the other team dictate the game to them. It feels like the offense can sometimes get in that kind of a rut away from home; after the furious start to Saturday’s game that ended with a trick play TD on the first drive, it felt a bit like the Cougs eased their foot off the gas, settling into a tempo that was preferred by SDSU.

It would be pretty shocking if the Cougs didn’t have an excellent game at home against Utah State in two weeks, so we’ll have to wait until they go to New Mexico the week after that to see if they change things up at all.

That shambolic surface

You all saw it. I had no idea why someone would decide to drop a bunch of sand over the top of grass like that, but then I learned about “top dressing,” and I guess they were trying to fix some poorly laid sod or something? Anyway, it was an embarrassment that isn’t befitting what seems like a gorgeous facility in Snapdragon Stadium.

The sad irony of it all is that the surface seemed to be gobbling up SDSU’s players left and right as the injuries piled up for the Aztecs.

Figure it out, San Diego.

Short yardage runs

Can we please, for the love of everything holy and good, stop giving the ball to running backs other than Djouvensky Schlenbaker in short yardage situations? He’s clearly the best option there, something that WSU seemed to understand early in the season when they used him in that role.

But then he got hurt, missed a couple of games, and struggled to wedge his way into carries upon his return. The Cougs had more short-yardage issues on Saturday in the first half, and you’ll never guess what happened when Schlenbaker got his first carry of the game, on a 3rd and 1.

He put his head down like a sledgehammer and converted the first down with a gain of three.

Please. Give him. The ball.

Up Next

Bye!

Because of the weird calendar this year that features a late Thanksgiving, there’s an extra Saturday in the football season, which means everyone gets two byes. WSU’s comes just a few weeks after the last one, which is definitely super weird.

Settle in for a stress-free football watching day next weekend — with a number in front of our name.

1  At least, as much traction as anyone could possibly get on that disaster of a surface.

2  I swear, we were not making it up! In their first six games, the Aztecs averaged about 30 dropbacks in their 64 plays (47%); Saturday, they dropped back 45 times in their 71 plays (63%).

3  It should be noted that Mateer stepped up into it and ended up only losing a yard on the play.

4  According to College Football Insiders, the Aztecs had a superior success rate in the loss, which is unusual — only about a quarter of games feature a win by the team with a worse success rate.