WSU Nothing Special In Loss To Oklahoma State

A new era of Washington State football began Saturday afternoon on the field turf of Qwest Field for head man, Coach Paul Wulff. 

The beginning is over.

By the time the final gun sounded, few Cougar fans were looking up at the scoreboard.  The outcome was determined before the end of the third quarter.  All that was left to determine in the fourth quarter was the final score, 39-13.

What happened.

Special team play, that's what happened. 

The defense played a heckuva game until they ran out of gas.  With the WSU offense sputtering and being shut down in the first half, the defense spent too much time on the field trying to stop the no huddle offense of Oklahoma State.

If you look at the box score, Dan Wagner did a nice job filling in for last year's punter Reid Forrest.  Wagner averaged a respectable 39 yards a punt on eight tries.  None of those punts went more the 15 yards high allowing OSU returners to rack-up big yardage on the series of line drives off Wagner's foot.  Not good.

Just when it looked like the Cougar offense was ready to make a game of it when they scored their first touchdown on a nice toss by Gary Rogers to Brandon Gibson in the corner of the endzone.  But no.  Wade Penner's PAT attempt was drilled wide of the goal posts.

Not only did the punting game look bad, now the kicking game looked sad.

It got worse in a special way.

The ensuing kickoff featured one of the worst efforts by any Cougar special team in recent memory.  OSU returner Cox took the kickoff straight up the middle, 90 yards, untouched.

Holy crap!

It's unfair to point the finger at the Cougar special teams, but life isn't fair. 

Special team play was just awful.  Awful.

There were some nice things to take away for the game.

Though WSU isn't very deep on defense, they played with tremendous energy and heart.

Dwight Tardy broke off some very nice runs behind an offensive line that played well.

It's great to have Brandon Gibson back for a final season.  The NFL's loss is Cougar fan's gain.

The Cougs didn't finish the way Coach Wulff would like, but they played spirited football for about three and a half quarters.

Next weekend is a "real" home game at Martin Stadium.  No more home games to play in Seattle.  That's the good news. 

The tough news?

Next weekend Coach Wulff will have to prepare his team to play a very, very good California Golden Bears team.