More than just bad record

PULLMAN – In the early days of September, a newspaper columnist in Reno, Nev., suggested that Washington State University would be a third-place football team in the Western Athletic Conference. And that Nevada of the WAC, prepping to play the Cougars that week, could beat them.

The words hit WSU’s locker room hard, and with the perceived insult in mind they went out and proved the column wrong by beating Nevada 55-21, as convincing a win as the team had recorded in recent memory.

Then, the Cougars proved the other half of that column to be 100 percent correct. In losing seven games in a row to start the Pacific-10 season, and in a 4-7 final record, the Cougars played like a team that truly was no better than a midlevel non-BCS conference team.

Such was the absurdity of the 2005 Cougars: capable of greatness, of rolling against some of the best teams in the land; stricken with panic at the slightest bit of adversity within a game; and prone to handing away potential wins one week after another.

For those who watched them week in and week out, the Cougars will probably be remembered as a team with much more to it than just a lousy record. They featured a running back unlike any other in school history, as Jerome Harrison dashed to a national rushing crown and 1,900 yards. They had a wide receiver who broke a school record for touchdown catches for a second consecutive year, as Jason Hill reeled in 13 scores.

But they also played miserably on defense, giving up 42 or more points in four of the first five conference games.

Even more insidious, they made decisions that – well-advised or not – consistently backfired, the two most obvious examples coming against Arizona State, when they took the tying points off the scoreboard and lost by three, and at California, when they attempted a fake punt while leading by 10 points in the fourth quarter.

For it, head coach Bill Doba and his staff came under some fire this season, which could only be expected after Doba himself had said in August that his was a bowl-caliber team.

Of all the stories to evolve from the 2005 season, none may be tied more closely to the team’s fortunes than that of Alex Brink, who emerged as a starting quarterback in fall camp despite going up against an incumbent starter in Josh Swogger. WSU passed over Swogger, a junior, in favor of Brink, a sophomore, and at times Brink made the decision look brilliant.

Certainly his 24 touchdowns and nearly 2,900 yards through the air suggest promise for the future. As does his performance in marching the Cougars to a winning score in the Apple Cup. But Brink’s season was also marked by numerous second-half disappointments, ones in which poor decisions helped WSU self-destruct. His assumption of the starting job – one that should now be his for two additional seasons – has pushed Swogger to look for another school to finish his college career.

The lost potential of the 2005 Cougars perplexed while their season was swirling away – and still does now in many ways. WSU was clearly better than its record showed, and even after the season Doba and the Cougars said there wasn’t a lack of leadership on the team. Otherwise, they reasoned, how could WSU have continued to rebound and play close games week after week?

It’s been said by some coaches that the tough losses will toughen WSU for the future. That the Apple Cup win would help propel the team into the next season.

Those words were also spoken in 2004, after a 5-6 season. They weren’t true then, as the recently ended 4-7 run showed.

Doba and his returning corps of Cougars, saying the same thing now, can only hope they’ll mean more in 2006, or else he and his program risk a return to the darker days of WSU football.