Statement game faces Cougars

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Bill Doba stormed out of the Washington State locker room and spoke for just 2 minutes – if it could even be called speaking.

For those 2 minutes after his team was thrashed at Oregon State last October, the Cougars’ third consecutive loss, Doba gritted his teeth and spat out staccato answers to a handful of questions from reporters before marching off toward a quiet trip back to Pullman.

“I kind of overreacted a little bit,” Doba said this week. “But that was my first time as a head coach that we were just completely out of the ballgame. We had been competitive or close in all the others. But we got embarrassed down there. They embarrassed us. And I was embarrassed myself for our team and for our performance. It was tough.”

Now, less than a year later, Doba and his team have a shot at redemption. They return to Oregon State for a 1 p.m. kickoff today, with opportunities awaiting left and right.

First and foremost, it’s the Cougars’ Pacific-10 Conference opener and their first crack at a name opponent in 2005. As such, it’s a chance to show that this team truly is a bowl-caliber squad after going 5-6 last year. It’s a chance to win a game in October, something they were unable to accomplish in 2004. For quarterback Alex Brink, who made his first career start in that 38-19 loss last year, it’s a chance to show off what a year of experience has done.

Simply put, it’s proving day for WSU.

“It’s a completely different situation (than last year),” Brink said. “I feel certainly more prepared and more confident than I probably did for my first start.

“It was a rough game because I felt like as a team we had a really good chance to win that game going into it. And then it really got away from us fast. And it spiraled downhill so fast that for the whole game I didn’t know what to think.”

The sophomore has unquestionably looked better this season, completing 63 percent of his passes and connecting for nine touchdown passes in just 81 attempts.

But his numbers, like all of WSU’s, are questioned because the team’s three wins have come against Idaho, Nevada and Grambling State.

Those questions would largely be cast aside by a convincing win, which would give WSU a 4-0 start with a home game next week against Stanford. But a loss makes back-to-back-to-back games this month against UCLA and at California then USC look frightening.

Perhaps that’s why tensions have been high around WSU practices this week. But for Doba, it’s pretty clear he’ll accept that during the week if it means a smile and a nice, long, good-natured chat around 5 p.m. today.