The Washington State defense gets better marks this week after the Cougars' 24-13 loss at Nevada thanks to an OK if not great performance, with a little extra credit given the bind it was put in by WSU's offense.

Even with a 55-yard run by quarterback Cody Fajardo the Wolf Pack only averaged 3.8 yards per rush and only 4.2 yards per offensive play.

The defense forced a three-and-out five times, held Nevada on 12 of 18 third-down opportunities, and gave the offense plenty of chances to win.

But the offense ended a 12-game streak of scoring at least 24 points, which would have been enough to send the game to overtime.

Our individual unit grades are after the jump.

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Quarterback: When the offense attempts nearly 60 passes in a game, responsibility for a lack of scoring falls squarely on the quarterback. Connor Halliday threw two interceptions – one bounced off receiver Rickey Galvin's hands, but later Galvin broke up a possible interception so we'll call it a wash – the first of which gave Nevada a first easy-score and a lead the Wolf Pack never relinquished. Halliday also had a couple questionable instances in which he ran out of bounds, losing yards, rather than throwing the ball away. Grade: D

Running backs: WSU's goal is to average five yards per carry and they did exactly that, collecting 60 yards on 12 runs thanks to a Theron West's 19-yard rush and a 17-yard scamper by Jamal Morrow. But the running backs only added 17 receiving yards, and that number needs to get higher. Last season WSU's offense took off when Marcus Mason started making big plays in the passing game, and in the Air Raid the running backs can still get the most touches on the team. Grade: C

Wide receivers: The wide receivers were without two players of starting caliber with Gabe Marks and River Cracraft both standing on the sidelines. Marks hasn't played all season after leading the Cougars in catches and yards last year, while Cracraft was replaced by Robert Lewis, who performed reasonably well in his first career start with eight receptions for 81 yards. Still, Cracraft is a consistent playmaker for the Cougars and who knows if he could have made a big play that would have jump-started the offense. Vince Mayle seemed to make such a play, hauling in WSU's lone touchdown of the day with his fingertips. Statistically the Cougars will always have solid receiving numbers in the Air Raid offense, but there were two costly drops that didn't help the team sustain drives. Furthermore, they need to get better as a group using their hands to create separation in the red zone or the Cougars will continue to score close to the opposing end zone. Grade: C

Offensive line: After an encouraging performance against Rutgers the offensive line took a big step back against Nevada. Put simply, if this unit does not significantly improve then it will be a minor miracle if Halliday plays in every game. Four sacks against a Mountain West team is bad and it could have been worse. Those plays where Halliday runs out of bounds when he should throw it away are almost always a result of a line that isn't giving him and the receivers time to make the offense work. On the plus side the run blocking was better. Grade: D+

Defensive line: The Cougars failed to come up with a sack against Nevada, but that's not necessarily an indictment given that the pass rushers had to contain mobile quarterback Cody Fajardo. The Cougars gave up just 3.8 yards per rush, a good number, and that's including Fajardo's 55-yard run. Overall, Friday was a good day for the defensive line and a big improvement since week one. Grade: B

Linebackers: Darryl Monroe still needs to play better and the fact that the coaches subbed Jeremiah Allison in as often as they did indicates that he isn't performing as well as they would like, neither does the fact that he only had five tackles against a team that was running the ball all game. As a whole, however, the linebackers were much better in terms of diagnosing plays and missed fewer tackles. However the linebackers were out of place on Fajardo's run, leaving the middle wide open. Grade: B-

Secondary: The defensive backs weren't asked to do very much with Fajardo only attempting 21 passes. The safety went the wrong way one the Nevada quarterback's big run, but other than that there weren't any real screw-ups and the unit didn’t give up a pass longer than 22 yards. However, through two games the group still hasn't recorded an interception and that's a concern. Grade: B

Special teams: Kicker Erik Powell missed a pair of field goals in the second half – if he'd made both the Cougars could have led – leading to the debut of Quentin Breshears, who made his 38-yard attempt. Rickey Galvin had a nice 14-yard punt return and Kristoff Williams returned a kickoff 36 yards. Jordan Dascalo had another good day punting the ball. Grade: B-

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