Washington State football coach Mike Leach spoke to reporters after the Apple Cup. Select quotes after the jump.

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General thoughts on the game?

I thought it was a tightly contested game. I don’t think anybody’s improved as much in the last three weeks as we have but Washington’s a great team, I thought we played them well today. I thought it was a game that was sliced very thing and they came out on tope, which is unfortunate for us but we're going to continue to improve. And they deserve credit for that. But it was a very tight game and I thought well contested on both sides.

Any thoughts on using timeouts so early in both halves?

We thought we wanted to use timeouts early in both halves.

Did the Huskies make any second-half adjustments that allowed them to be so successful in the 3rd quarter?

Not really, I thought they played really well the third quarter. The biggest thing they did, we didn’t’ move the ball as well as we should have the third quarter. So we didn’t keep the drive going in the opportunities that we had. And then we let them off the hook on third down. We played them really well on third down the first half and then in the third quarter they had a big third quarter as far as converting third downs.

Was Bishop Sankey's 40-yard screen on third down critical?

I thought that was pretty big, and I do think that first drive of the third quarter, I think it was the first drive, where we had them third-and-long, if we’d kept them pinned back there it was going to increase the pressure on them and certainly the tempo and then they converted it and I think that was huge for them.

Do you think WSU is going to a bowl game?

I don’t speculate on that stuff, I mean there’s no question we ought to go to a bowl game.

How did the offensive line play?

I thought in spots they played really well. Of course, Washington's defensive front is really good. It was just a play here or there, we never really had consistent breakdowns, it would be one here or there, that type of thing.

 

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