Cougars return from Arizona tired, wounded

PULLMAN — Any doubt as to just how hard Washington State had to play to eke out a win at Arizona in its Pac-10 opener was put to rest as soon as the team jumped on a flight back to the Inland Northwest.

“On the plane coming home, we had just gotten in the air, I looked back and I didn’t see one guy that was awake,” head coach Bill Doba said Sunday. “They were all exhausted.”

Even still, the Cougars did escape Tucson with a 20-19 win that pushed their record to 3-1. Though the record so far is certainly impressive enough, Doba was quick to point out some of the concerns and errors that made Saturday’s game — expected by some to be an easy win against a rebuilding team — a nail biter.

“We cannot play like we did Saturday and expect to win the rest of the season,” Doba said. “We’ve got some really tough opponents coming up. We have to cut down on penalties. You’re going to have a defensive offside occasionally. But we had four of them. And we had two false starts on the offense, and you can’t afford to have those kinds of penalties.”

In fact, Doba went so far as to tell his team that beating the Wildcats was more than just skill and execution. He even broke out a four-letter word: luck.

“I told our kids we were really lucky, but you know luck is when preparation meets opportunity,” he said, acknowledging his team’s ability to take advantage of that chance when they got it.

“They had the opportunity, and two plays or three plays later they were in the end zone.”

But even with all the mistakes — the Cougars lost four fumbles and reverted to their 2003 form with 11 penalties for 81 yards — Doba noted that the silver lining on the narrow win was easy to spot.

In the first quarter, WSU moved the ball as well as they have all season, gaining 130 yards to Arizona’s six. But on the first play of the second quarter (after two penalties), quarterback Josh Swogger fumbled and the Cougars couldn’t stop dropping the ball for the rest of the half.

“I think we’re real close to being a real good team,” Doba said. “We’re not there yet, obviously. Even though it didn’t look it, and everybody said it was an ugly win and all that kind of stuff, there were a lot of good positive things on the video. These guys just got to clean up those little errors, the offsides, lining up offsides. Those kinds of things are inexcusable. Those are the things we can work on.”

And after the first full week of Pac-10 play, Doba has had the chance to look around the league and see a number of teams that could be for the taking.

“I think this league is really even. Look at Stanford, they take SC to the wire,” Doba said. “The team that doesn’t make mistakes and doesn’t beat themselves I think can win this conference.”

Now, Doba just has to find out if his team can fit his own profile.

Injury updates

Doba didn’t have much new information on the Cougars who were injured on Saturday.

Wide receiver Marty Martin and tight end Cody Boyd both sprained their right shoulders and had x-rays taken on Sunday, though the results were not available when Doba spoke to the media.

Starting tight end Troy Bienemann suffered a deep fibula bruise, as previously thought, so it appears he will be OK by the time the Cougars next take the field.

Safeties Hamza Abdullah and Jeremy Bohannon both suffered minor injuries. Abdullah had a slight groin pull, Bohannon a hip pointer.

But the whole team was weary after playing a rough-and-tumble game in the extreme heat of Arizona, making this week off all the more necessary.

“I think it’s a perfect time for the bye,” Doba said. “We really need it, because we’re pretty beat-up. Our kids are sore.”

Both of WSU’s starting defensive tackles, Steve Cook and Ropati Pitoitua, are still questionable for the Oregon game, even after missing the last two weeks. Cook has a sprained knee, and Pitoitua is trying to come back from a high ankle sprain.

Notes

The Cougars named Swogger, middle linebacker Will Derting and punter Kyle Basler their players of the week. Doba was still shaking his head about Basler’s 87-yard punt. The junior kicked the ball on his own 5-yard line, landed it on the Wildcats’ 18, and had the ball skip five yards into the end zone for a 100-yard boot. “The thing looked like it was shot out of a Jugs machine,” Doba said. … Another specialist, kicker Loren Langley, missed a 50-yard field goal wide right. Langley had plenty of leg on it, prompting the following player-coach exchange on the sidelines, “He said, ‘It was a good kick; it just didn’t go through,’” Doba recalled. “I said, ‘Noooo, that’s not a good kick if it didn’t go through.’” … WSU won’t take the practice field until Thursday, as coaches go out on the recruiting trail for the next three days.