Some credit where it’s due

PULLMAN – The man whose graceful sentences long ago occupied this space – and may he rest in peace – used to take some good-natured barbs from the unaffiliated readers out there that he could gild whatever sort of loss Washington State might suffer on any given football Saturday.

Simply, he didn’t view looking for the bright spot as a shortcoming. Amazing, isn’t it?

There is even a legend that he led his story on a particularly lopsided Wazzu defeat at the hands of, oh, USC with a paragraph about the Cougars’ only touchdown. This inky relic has yet to be recovered, however.

Never in the intervening years has that approach been as tempting as it was Saturday.

The Cougars lost another football game in a long-ago lost season, and by a whopping 31 points.

After the first play of the second quarter, there was never a hint that they could win. They were outgained by more than 300 yards, made the opponent punt just once and allowed as much yardage each rushing play as they gained with every pass.

And it was progress.

Really.

And for all the rants and recriminations emanating from the citizens of Fanland as the record defeats mounted, they understood it, too. Progress – any sort of progress – is all they have come to look for. So the smallest Dad’s Day crowd in 17 years – 24,118 – suspended their boos and hung through an annoying drizzle and offered muffled but respectful applause as the Cougars chugged into the Martin Stadium tunnel 59-28 losers to Arizona.

If it didn’t feel so bad, it might feel good.

Which might be the best thing to come from the latest ordeal – that the Cougars haven’t accepted their lot.

For instance, the fact that they even led in a Pacific-10 Conference game for the first time in seven games this season wasn’t much of a pacifier.

“We want to win a Pac-10 game,” senior receiver Brandon Gibson said.

For maybe the first time under coach Paul Wulff, their body language on the field suggested they weren’t lip-synching that tune.

When quarterback Kevin Lopina threw a cringe-inducing interception on the game’s third play, the Cougars’ Romeo Pellum snatched one back two snaps later – the first turnover for Wazzu’s defense in almost a month. When that 7-0 lead turned into a 14-7 deficit and the inevitable rout seemed to be on, the Cougars answered with a tying touchdown in a matter of three plays.

And when the rout actually was on, the strangest thing happened.

They fought back a little.

“In the past, we haven’t done that,” Lopina said. “We’ve laid our heads down and just accepted that we’re going to lose this game. Today we were down, but we kept our heads up and kept attacking.”

The result was two second-half touchdowns. In six previous Pac-10 games, the Cougars had scored one. The 28 points were the most Arizona had allowed any opponent other than New Mexico.

This is a tricky matter, getting all a-dither about a football team merely competing. Standards have to be lowered considerably for that sort of celebration, not that the Cougars were celebrating. But as Lopina pointed out, this has been a deficiency every bit as damaging as stopping the run or keeping a quarterback in one piece.

“It’s a silver lining,” safety Chima Nwachukwu said. “We’re happy we competed, but there’s still something missing. But you can be happy with progress and still be far from satisfied.”

The Cougars have the same old mountains to climb, maybe even higher ones. Three defensive players who started last week were not available Saturday, and another played only a few snaps. Twenty-six players have made their first career starts. The Cougars can’t get out of a game without surrendering 300 yards rushing; meanwhile, 300 yards of their own offense remains the unreachable star.

Yet there was freshman Logwone Mitz running over Arizona’s Donald Horton on a 42-yard dash, and tight end Ben Woodard working open for a similar gain. And there was Lopina rolling and scrambling and finally taking it up the middle on four straight plays to finish off Wazzu’s final drive.

“We saw some playmakers today,” Lopina said. “Logwone ran the ball really well. I’ve got to work better on getting the receivers the ball for them to make plays. I was trying to make some things happen, but sometimes that can get me in trouble.”

Trouble is OK. Lack of passion is not.

“We showed some pulse,” center Kenny Alfred said. “We needed to find our heartbeat. We need to tie things together more, but I think the team showed itself and other people that we can play.”

And what took them so long?

“Who can really say?” he said. “Maybe it’s the transition to a new coaching staff. Ultimately, I think it’s the players on the team understanding that they have to be adults rather than children pointing away from themselves. They need to be accountable to their teammates and each other, and we’re starting to get that.”

So they’re starting to get it – let that be the lead.

But the 31 points they lost by – that’s still the bottom line.