Cougars commentary

PULLMAN – Does Washington State even want to play football?

If there is any label to be put on the 2024 Washington State football season, it would have to include, in some way, John Mateer’s name. Even, like Saturday and the two weeks previous, the close defeats.

Congrats to the Oregon State Beavers. They deserve to beat the Cougars once a decade.

We were promised points. But an upset? That didn’t seem in the cards.

It was bound to happen.

Early in the fourth quarter of Washington State’s eventual 29-26 win over San Diego State on an embarrassing field at the Aztecs’ Snapdragon Stadium, it seemed obvious the oddsmakers had missed on this one.

From the first snap Washington State took in August on The CW Network, there was something familiar about the broadcast.

Welcome to the new world of college football. Washington State playing in Fresno, California, in a mid-October nonconference game. In the warmest part of the central San Joaquin Valley day. With the FS1 (or 2, to start) talent 226 miles south in Los Angeles.

What do you want me to say here? Perhaps the victory cigars last week were premature? Washington State won the first early season rivalry game against Washington and thus invented the Apple Cup Hangover?