Improving WSU Tastes Another Loss

OK was better.

But better was relative.

OK was the best Mike Price could say about his Washington State Cougars in general and quarterbacks Paul Mencke and Steve Birnbaum in particular on Saturday.

OK wasn’t good enough.

Despite their best offensive production of the season, the Cougars dropped their fifth straight Pacific-10 football game 38-28 to Arizona State.

“We got better, we tried hard. We’re not executing and we’re turning the football over way too much. Isn’t that simple?” Price said. “I think Paul did what he can do best, I think Steve did what he can do best, in certain situations.”

Rotating every series, Mencke, who started, and Birnbaum combined for 282 yards passing, although they had just 13 completions in 30 attempts. With 200 yards rushing - 153 from Kevin Brown - thrown in, the Cougars had 482 yards of offense, 3 more than they had in a 24-16 win over Idaho.

But the Cougars haven’t won since then and Price, searching for answers for an inept offense, came up with the two-headed quarterback monster, hoping for more treats than tricks for the Halloween day game before 34,039 fans at Martin Stadium.

“It was OK, nothing spectacular,” Price said. “They did the things we thought they could do well… . I don’t think they played poorly.”

Mencke led all four scoring drives, throwing for 178 yards and three touchdowns. That was a big improvement over his last outing, a complete-game, six-interception fiasco in a 51-29 loss to Southern California.

But?

“You can’t throw a pick for a touchdown,” Price said. “That’s the difference.”

ASU took a 31-21 lead with 9:31 to play when Mencke rotated in with the ball on the Cougars 19. After two plays produced nothing, Mencke threw an ill-advised pass over the middle into coverage, and Willie Daniel went 37 yards the other direction for the back-breaking touchdown.

“We had a great chance to win it,” Mencke said. “We didn’t execute as a team … and I didn’t execute when I needed to. I hate (throwing the interception) but I’m going to shake it off and go out and try to throw another touchdown. I just want to win.”

Mencke did get another touchdown on his next possession, a 13-yard pass to Nian Taylor, but only 2:52 remained in the game.

Each time the Cougars got close, after two Ryan Kealy to Kenny Mitchell touchdown passes in the final 3 minutes of the first half put ASU up for good, the Sun Devils (4-4 overall, 3-2 Pac-10) responded.

Mencke engineered a quick 54-yard drive to open the second half, stepping up in the pocket to hit Leaford Hackett with a 34-yard strike to make it 17-14.

But on ASU’s next play, fullback Jeff Paulk turned a little trap into a 70-yard scoring gallop down the right sideline.

Taylor, who had a huge game with seven catches for 168 yards, hauled in a 44-yard scoring pass from Menke with 2:28 left in the third quarter that made it 24-21.

After a holding penalty wiped out a promising start to Birnbaum’s next series, the Sun Devils went 56 yards in nine plays, capped by Kealy’s 18-yard pass to Davaren Hightower. The drive remained alive when ASU gambled on fourth-and-inches at the WSU 23 and made the first down by inches. That set the stage for Mencke’s disastrous interception.

But that wasn’t the lone horror story.

Brown had put the Cougs up 7-3 with a 1-yard plunge on fourth down in the middle of the second quarter. The WSU defense held, but on ASU’s punt, Dee Moronkola tried to scoop up the bouncing ball only to lose control. It took the Sun Devils three plays to cash in from the 18 for a 10-7 lead.

Brown then ripped off runs of 13 and 23 yards under Birnbaum’s direction. But on the second run, he was stripped of the ball, a turnover that led to Mitchell’s second touchdown and the 17-7 halftime lead. Mix in a Birnbaum interception at midfield and two missed field goals in the second quarter and the Cougs were lucky to be down just 10. “Two blocked field goals. Two blocked field goals. That’s like two turnovers,” Price said. “Turnovers, third-down conversions (4 of 15), were again our bugaboo.”

Still, most of the attention was on the quarterback rotation.

“We did fine,” Mencke said. “Both Steve and I played good. We know we still need to get better in certain areas and we’re going to do that. Like I said before, you just go out there … do what comes natural to you. For me, it’s not that big a deal, just whenever my name is called, I go in there and just try to have fun and do the best I can.

“I think we definitely improved as a team, we got better. We showed some good times out there, we were doing great, everybody was executing. That’s the kind of team that we can be, we’re a young team and we’re going to get better.”