Injuries still bothering Cougs

PULLMAN – Washington State hoped its bye week would allow both of its starting defensive tackles to return from injury.

The Cougars will most likely have to settle for one.

Both fifth-year senior Steve Cook and freshman Ropati Pitoitua were hurt in the second game of the football season Sept. 11, and haven’t played since.

Cook’s recovery from an MCL tear went as expected and he was back on the practice field for the first time Monday as the team began preparations to play Oregon. But Pitoitua suffered a setback late last week in his return from a high ankle sprain. That derailed his rehab schedule enough to force him out of this week’s game. Team trainer Bill Drake said it’s possible Pitoitua could play against Stanford on Oct. 16.

Cook is still not an ironclad guarantee to play this week, but he went through the first practice almost seamlessly and both Drake and the coaching staff seemed strongly optimistic.

“He passed the test in my mind,” defensive line coach Mike Walker said. “He did all the things we expected him to do. He took a little break during team (sessions), but I think he was just winded a little bit. We just wanted to test him and see if the knee could handle hitting somebody and taking some contact and it did.”

Walker said Cook would start alongside another freshman, Aaron Johnson, this week. Johnson and sophomore Odell Howard finished the Colorado game after the injuries and started against Idaho and Arizona.

“It’s always nice to have a senior back,” head coach Bill Doba said. “The other two guys I think earned their spurs a little bit, you might say, in the last couple weeks. They held up real well.”

Following his first practice, Cook reported few if any problems. A custom brace is on its way to WSU – one similar to the brace ordered for quarterback Josh Swogger when he suffered a partial PCL tear this season.

“A couple tweaks here and there, but for the most part it felt pretty good and sturdy,” Cook said. “It’s a great relief to be back on the field. It definitely felt like an eternity.”

The picture for Pitoitua is fuzzier, as the team had been holding out earnest hope he’d be back this week. Drake said most high ankle sprains suffered by WSU players recently have been five- to six-week injuries, and the grayshirt freshman is coming up on four weeks missed.

His injury and inability to get back onto the field have been particularly tough for the coaching staff, which believes it may have a star in the making with the 6-foot-8 19-year-old.

“It’s disappointing, man,” Walker said. “Because he’s such a good player and he’s going to be a stud. I just want to get him in there to get him some reps and get him rolling. The more games he gets under his belt the better he’s going to be.

“At least we got one back.”

A return Qwest?

Director of athletics Jim Sterk said he’s still looking to fill the remaining opening on the Cougars’ 2005 schedule, preferably with another game in Seattle’s Qwest Field.

“We’re just trying to find possible opponents now,” Sterk said. “The way I started this thing was, we’ll analyze it on a yearly basis and it’s an institutional decision. We try to get everyone involved in that. From their standpoint – the rest of the institution – they really want to have one. So now it’s trying to find something that works, an opponent.”

The A.D. spent some last week at a conference of Division I-A athletic directors, and said he’s had some discussions with other schools. WSU doesn’t have a game for the third week of September.

Doba has said he likes playing in Seattle on Labor Day weekend, but that’s not an option next fall because the Huskies have scheduled Air Force in the Seahawks’ home for that day.

“They took my idea,” Sterk said.

WSU-Stanford under the lights

Fox Sports Net has selected the Oct. 16 game between Washington State and Stanford at Martin Stadium for a national television broadcast with kickoff at 7:15 p.m.

Sterk addressed the concerns of playing a night game:

“We recognize there must be a balance between both our fans and the Pac-10 television entities and that we cannot satisfy both with every decision,” Sterk was quoted in a press release. “Both partners provide significant revenue necessary to run WSU athletics. In reality, the revenue we receive from television is currently more than we receive from the sale of tickets to our home game, even with four sellouts this year.”

Notes

Tight end Troy Bienemann‘s recovery from a bone and deep tissue bruise in his left shin is not going quickly. The junior is in a boot after experiencing discomfort during the weekend, and Drake said there’s no chance he could practice today. The Cougars are calling him questionable, and if he can’t play, third-string tight end Jesse Taylor will be atop the depth chart with Cody Boyd also out. … Doba had raised the possibility of examining the running back situation last week, but Monday said Chris Bruhn will get the start again, sharing carries with Allen Thompson and Jerome Harrison.