Cougars Need Qb, And A Few Others To Share The Blame

OK, Shawn Deeds then. Play him. Didn’t he quarterback the Cougs past Cal a couple of decades ago?

Isn’t there a freshman quarterback on the roster? Birnbaum or something? Johnny Nansen, the linebacker, used to play quarterback, right? Or Jay Dumas - he throws a damn fine ball off the reverse.

Adam Bledsoe - white courtesy phone, please?

Student body tryouts?

Any other suggestions?

All the voices hollering for a quarterback change at Washington State got their wish Saturday - temporarily, anyway. Come the second quarter, starter Chad Davis sat and backup Ryan Leaf struggled, and after halftime they traded places again. Either way, the Cougars continued to befoul a glorious autumn afternoon at the foot of Strawberry Canyon.

The irony du jour in California’s 27-11 humiliation of WSU was that Davis’ position as the leader of the offense was actually strengthened - if only because the Cougars rallied around him to be so collectively awful.

“It’s not one guy - period,” said Davis. “And if that wasn’t proved today, then I don’t know how it can be. Write and say what you want, but that’s the bottom line.”

The bottom line may not be low enough to assess the state of the Cougs, losers of four straight games in which the degree of difficulty has nosedived significantly. Aside from being thoroughly outplayed by the ordinary-and-underachieving Bears, the Cougars also gave indications that the caulk is beginning to crack. Even coach Mike Price growled something about “if they want to self-destruct, they can self-destruct” - meaning to challenge his team, you’d have to suppose.

Hey, four straight losses is a perfect time for self- examination. What do you expect right now? Team Barney?

And remember, the Cougs rallied from the nadir of the Oregon State loss last year - the difference then being that there was a bowl game at the end of the tunnel.

This time, there wasn’t much left on the new grass of Memorial Stadium but a chalk outline, a flock of seagulls looking eerily like buzzards and an episode of Ricki Lake in rehearsal. Last year, it was Chad Eaton going off, much to the displeasure of some teammates.

Now it’s a different Chad.

Davis has heard the calls for a new QB, but Price’s decision “hurt me (because) it was unexpected.

“I wasn’t told about it,” Davis said. “If he’d have told me during the week, maybe so. But unexpectedly, that hurt. I was upset. He did it on his own. That was his decision.”

It was a decision Davis obviously disagreed with, based as it was on two first-quarter possessions during which Davis completed one pass for 9 yards. Leaf was even less productive - WSU didn’t gain a yard in the second quarter. While the defense was mired in its least inspired effort of the season, the offense had but one highlight - a 90-yard drive in the fourth quarter which, alas, ate up 7-1/2 minutes.

Davis took heart in that response.

“And (Cal coach Keith) Gilbertson told me, ‘You’ve improved so much. You’re a good football player. Don’t let other people bring you down in the papers or anything,”’ Davis reported. “I respect that. That’s big.”

But kind words from the coach whose team just whipped yours doesn’t solve the kind of problems the Cougars have right now.

“When things like this happen, (it reveals) a lot of character in a person and how people are going to react to it - and the way we react is getting beat 27-11 by Cal?” Davis said. “Don’t get me wrong - Cal played good today. But they’re 2-6.

“When that stuff happens, you have to look at yourself in the mirror. I’m talking from coach Price to myself to everyone else on the football team and coaching staff.”

Just how deeply Davis has looked, you decide.

“I don’t have ego problems,” he said. “If I’m wrong, I’ll admit it. I threw five interceptions the last two games and two of those were my fault.”

Remind us to adjust the statistics accordingly.

Davis’ deeply held belief is that a quarterback is only as good as the 10 teammates around him, and he’s hardly wrong. Even those calling for his head recognize as much. But he’s mistakenly equated being benched - if only for a quarter - with having to assume all the blame, rather than it being a case of Price merely trying to jump-start a moribund offense.

“He’s the coach,” Davis shrugged. “You do what he says. I respect coach Price and I believe in him. I don’t think it’s all his fault. I don’t think it’s his fault really at all.

“There’s too many times, too many situations, where we’re third down-and-long or second-and-long. You can’t succeed that way. When (defenses) are calling our plays out on the field, something’s wrong. It happened against Arizona and it happened today… . When that’s happening, you’ve got to make a change.”

“I’ve been in football a long time,” Davis said. “My dad’s a coach. He’s coached 27 years - he was a pro quarterback. He knows what’s going on, I know what’s going on, Coach Price even knows what’s going on. It ain’t one guy.”

Right again. But it doesn’t exclude one guy, either.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review