Not quite enough luck for Cougars
PULLMAN – The 2005 Washington State football season, for worse or worst, has turned into an experiment in losing. In the last few weeks, coaches and players have wondered aloud if this team would never get a break.
On Saturday night against the 11th-ranked team in the country, the Cougars got plenty of bounces. They completed a Hail Mary to score on the last play of the first half. They forced three turnovers. And they got a 45-yard field goal from Loren Langley that sneaked over the crossbar with barely an inch to spare.
But it still wasn’t enough, and they still found a way to lose before an announced crowd of 27,595 at Martin Stadium.
That’s because it was Oregon that showed the most moxie after the Cougars tied the game on Langley’s 45-yard boot with 5 minutes, 15 seconds to play. The Ducks took the ensuing kickoff and drove from their own 25-yard line in 14 plays to set up a Paul Martinez 19-yard field goal with one tick left for a 34-31 win.
The Ducks (9-1, 6-1 Pac-10) took their time once they got into the red zone, burning up the clock as WSU (3-7, 0-7) used its timeouts to try to preserve a chance for its offense.
“What do you do when you’re on the 1-yard line?” defensive end Mkristo Bruce asked. “This season has been the craziest season I’ve ever been a part of.”
And when quarterback Dennis Dixon burrowed his way to the middle of the field to set up the winning kick, head coach Mike Bellotti sprinted all the way into the red zone to call a time out with 4 seconds remaining.
“It was real gutsy. My name was called upon and I had to respond, which I did,” Dixon said of the final drive. “We were planning on going for a touchdown, but the way things happened we had to milk the clock somewhat, and we came through.”
The Cougars showed up in the second half, coming out of the gate with a quick touchdown drive to go up 21-10. But they began to make mistakes characteristic of their season, giving up three third-quarter touchdowns to give Oregon a 31-21 lead going into the final period.
First, James Finley caught an 8-yard pass from Brady Leaf to get the Ducks within a score. Just seconds later, WSU quarterback Alex Brink threw a pass that was tipped and caught by defensive lineman Darius Sanders, paving the way for a two-play touchdown drive capped by a 23-yard Cameron Colvin reverse.
Oregon switched quarterbacks throughout the game as planned, giving Dixon, the starter, two series before giving Leaf two series. Head coach Mike Bellotti continued to alternate signal-callers in that pattern, even after Leaf led the Ducks to the back-to-back touchdowns.
It paid off, too, as Dixon threw a 67-yard bomb to Jordan Kent, better known as a starter on the basketball team, for the third Oregon score of the quarter.
“It’s the same outcome,” said Brink, who was 22 of 33 for 283 yards and two touchdowns to go with a pair of interceptions. “It seems like we find a lot of different ways to get there. We need to find a way to get past that this week and for next year.”
On the Hail Mary at the end of the first half, Brink heaved the ball into the end zone, and the pass somehow slipped past WSU wideout Chris Jordan and an Oregon defender, allowing Jason Hill to tip the ball up into the air. And with no defenders present to knock the ball away, Hill calmly caught his own deflection and the Cougars had an improbable halftime lead.
“It wasn’t a break,” Doba said in his halftime radio interview, obviously exuberant. “We made the play.”
With Washington’s win against Arizona and another close loss – their fourth by three points and fifth by four or less this season – the Cougars are left all alone in the Pac-10 cellar. If they want any company in the final season standings, they’ll have to win next week’s Apple Cup on the road against the 2-9 Huskies.
“We’ve got to really battle them,” Doba said, “to stay out of the cellar.”