WSU Football | Cougs nearly take one away from ASU losing 27-14

The Washington State Cougars competed head-to-head with Arizona State Saturday afternoon but came up on the short end of the scoreboard 27-14

Coach Paul Wulff faced his former college coach across the field in Martin Stadium. The student was trying to give the teacher a lesson.

It was the teacher, Coach Dennis Erickson and his Sun Devils delivering a lesson and escaping Pullman with a win.

Barely.

The defensive unit of ASU brought their 'A' game with them. They confused, befuddled, dominated and shut out the Cougs the entire first half yielding a mere 34 net yards of offense.

Washington State was able to generate a couple of touchdowns in the second half. One of those came on a school record 99 yard touchdown pass from Jeff Tuel to Johnny Forzani. Forzani showed his speed after hauling in Tuel's heave under pressure, something the Sun Devil defense applied to the Cougar offense all afternoon.

Both teams have yet to find a genuine starter at quarterback. Neither head coach found many answers based on the play in this game.

ASU starter senior Danny Sullivan had decent numbers connecting on 18 of 28 passes for 165 yards and a touchdown. But Sullivan was picked for three interceptions by a WSU defense that was flying all over the field. Coach Erickson gave his big freshman Brock Osweiler playing time in the first half. Osweiler didn't impress though he completed three of his four pass attempts.

Coach Wulff started true freshman Jeff Tuel for the second consecutive game. Behind an offensive line that was overmatched by the Sun Devils, Tuel played inconsistently and seemed rattled by the speed of the game.

With 6:05 left in the first half, sophomore Marshall Lobbestael took over at quarterback. Lobbestael quickly had the Cougs driving 59 yards toward a touchdown. He threw a short route to Daniel Blackledge for his fourth completion on the drive. But when Blackledge turned to go downfield he was rocked by ASU's Gerrell Robinson and fumbled the ball away to end the march.

Lobbestael continued at quarterback to begin the second half. However, without a running game the Sun Devils were using stunts with the defensive linemen that kept WSU off the scoreboard through most of three quarters.

When Tuel was put back in the game midway through the third quarter it was clear he was confident. In his first series back, Tuel called his own number on third and ten coming up a couple of feet short of the necessary yardage for a first down. As the offense came off the field, Tuel hoped to get another chance before ASU put the game out of reach.

The last game played at home by the Cougs was won by the defense. In creating six turnovers, they put out another great effort to repeat history for the second time this season.

Tuel's desire to get right back out on the field was fulfilled by a great interception by senior linebacker Andy Mattingly. ASU quarterback Sullivan was forced to hurry his throw by blitzing Coug safety Xavier Hicks giving the aggressive Mattingly a play on the ball.

It took Tuel just four plays to lead WSU to a touchdown.

Four plays.

Did I mention the last play of the drive was fourth and two from the ASU 23?

The drive resulted in a touchdown when Tuel lofted a pass into the corner of the endzone for Blackledge that sophomore Jared Karstetter jumped in front to snipe the reception and score.

It appeared the Washington State defense might have run out of gas early in the fourth quarter when they gave up a touchdown early on which put ASU up 27-7. They ran the ball at will on the drive and the Cougs were flagged for 15-yard penalty to help the Sun Devils along.

The ensuing kickoff was placed nicely up against the sideline and carromed off WSU freshman Carl Winston and out-of-bounds on the 5-yard line. That start was the setup for the 99-yard bomb putting Tuel and Forzani in the Washington State record book permanently with a play that can be matched but never exceeded.

Even if neither head coach came away with solid starting quarterback, there were some good signs for both Coach Erickson and Coach Wulff.

For Erickson, his defense recorded 12 sacks on the day.

For Wulff, his defense created six turnovers on the day.

After the game Coach Wulff talked about the play of his team.

"Defensively, (we) created a lot of turnovers and (we) tackled pretty well," said Wulff. "They did a lot of great things and the offense could never relieve them and take advantage of all the turnovers the defense was getting and keep that momentum going."

"It just shows you. We scored that (first) touchdown...and the defense comes out and that just lifted them so much. They even played better with more intensity."  - WSU Coach Wulff

"...our struggle has been creating any kind of big play on offense. Today you saw us have a lot of trickery in there. We tried to execute some things. We had some things available to us early in that department and we didn't capitalize on any of them. They were all makeable plays."

Here's where Cougar fans will have to face the truth. Today WSU faced a team that traveled with just seven first-year players. There were several times on offense today where the Cougs had seven first-year players on the field at the same time.

That's the situation, like it or not.

"We're playing some young, young guys that aren't ready to play. We're asking them to play. It puts pressure on everybody."

"We got beat up and demoralized and really whooped on our offensive front today. We just didn't give our quarterbacks or any of our skill guys a chance."

With a number of mistakes made by the young players on the Cougar OL, there were some good plays made as well. When Lobbestael come on in relief of Tuel, Jeff had time to listen to his coaches clarify what ASU was doing defensively. Tuel absorbed instruction and executed plays designed to counter what the Sun Devils were doing.

"I thought (Tuel) grew and played better in the second half. I was impressed by some of the throws he made. Considering the pressure, I thought he did some good things."

There will be plenty for WSU to build on coming off this loss. One play sure to get viewed repeatedly in the coming days, weeks and months was the length of the field touchdown play.

"We just (called) a quick play action and Johnny had a vertical route one-on-one outside. Jeff took the shot and (he's) got a nice arm. He just layed it out there. Johnny made a good play coming back to the ball just a little bit. The guy fell off the tackle. Johnny's got very good speed. I think we saw that as he was able to outrun everybody to the endzone."

More of those plays are needed by the Cougs.

Injury Report

The offensive line took a couple of hits in the Arizona State game.

Just before the end of the third quarter, senior center Kenny Alfred sustained a gash in the knee area. He was forced to the locker room to have the area cleaned and stitched. Alfred wasn't able to return to the game.

Brian Danaher, the junior from Colfax, suffered a second concussion of this season. Danaher has a history with concussions so extreme care will be taken in evaluating his situation.
Coach Wulff confirmed during post game interviews that Daniel Simmons sustained a broken bone but didn't have details.

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