Cougs need real victories

PULLMAN – Washington State proved something to a lot of people on Saturday evening by playing the No. 3-ranked USC Trojans down to the wire.

A 17-point underdog going in, few thought that the Cougars would be able to hang with USC. But had an Alex Brink Hail Mary traveled a few more yards, it’s possible WSU could have scored one of the biggest upset wins in program history.

As more than one Cougar pointed out afterwards, though, this loss looks just the same in the record book as the 40-14 drubbing at the hands of now-No. 2 Auburn to start the season. If anything, it goes down as a more damaging loss since it comes in a conference game.

That’s why, for all the attention heaped on that USC game and its mammoth potential to the Cougars, it’s this week’s much more understated affair at Oregon State that looms as the biggest game of the season.

To put it mildly, WSU has struggled in October in recent seasons. More accurately, it has lost every single one of its nine games during the month from the last two seasons. Doing so again this season would probably spell doom just as it did in 2004 and 2005.

But, with little help from the scheduling gods, the Cougars find themselves in an unenviable spot once again. After this week’s road game against the Beavers, the Cougars return home only to play the top two contenders for USC’s Pac-10 throne — California and Oregon — in back-to-back weeks. A road game at UCLA finishes off the month.

WSU will be a slight favorite this week, but Corvallis, Ore., has not treated the Cougars well in the last two seasons. Brink made his first career start there in 2004 and WSU played one of its worst games in recent memory, getting drubbed by a bowl-bound Oregon State team. And last season’s game still registers grumbles when brought up around Bohler Gym, as WSU’s second-half collapse in the Pac-10 opener set in motion a series of heartbreaking losses.

In neither of those two seasons, however, was the value of a win at Oregon State as obvious as it is this time around.

A victory would show that Saturday’s effort against USC was not a fluke and establish the Cougars as a legitimate bowl contender, one that would need only two wins in six games to reach the magic six-game win total. A loss would show that WSU might not be ready for the spotlight, however, and would set off obvious concerns of a prolonged slide given the opponents looming immediately afterwards.

Progress was made against USC, even in defeat. Now WSU has to turn a moral victory into a real one.