Ruined by Bruins

PULLMAN – Washington State University coaches spent the week before Saturday evening’s game telling their team that the players in the locker room were the only ones still thinking they could win, the lone believers that the No. 12 team in the country would not be too much for them.

The Cougars responded, charging out of the gate and beating that ranked team, UCLA, on both sides of the football.

But the one thing that words in the locker room haven’t taught WSU this season is how to win games when the pressure is on.

So it was that the Cougars, despite owning a 21-point second-quarter lead – and a 17-point fourth-quarter lead – let another game slip away. The Bruins roared back with the confidence and presence of a winner, going 96 yards for a tying score in regulation and 25 more in overtime for a 44-41 win at Martin Stadium.

“It’ll be real tough this week,” WSU head coach Bill Doba said. “I thought the coaches did a great job. They got them ready to play. And we came out ready. But we just couldn’t finish.”

The Cougars (3-3, 0-3 Pacific-10 Conference) got big games from their star players, most notably running back Jerome Harrison. The senior tailback, who had rushed for 247 against UCLA in 2004, did 13 yards better this time around. It was his ninth consecutive 100-yard game and his second straight 200-yard game.

But both last week’s 218 yards against Stanford and the 260 on Saturday came in losing efforts. In the fourth quarter, Harrison managed just four carries for 5 yards as WSU squandered three possessions with three-and-outs. The Cougars offense didn’t record a first down in the frame until 15 seconds remained, and by then UCLA (6-0, 3-0 Pac-10) had eliminated the 17-point deficit.

“They just brought the safety down, but everything was still there,” Harrison said of the Bruins’ fourth-quarter strategy. “You can never be satisfied with a loss, especially that way. The No. 12 team in the country and we really kicked their butt the whole way except for the end. That really hurt.”

In the overtime session, WSU got the ball first but again went without a first down, settling for a Loren Langley field goal. (Earlier, Langley had kicked a career-best 48-yarder.)

That gave UCLA a chance to win. It did so in just five plays, all of them on the ground, as WSU’s worn-out defense couldn’t keep the Bruins from scoring one final time.

“They came out and they played hard,” WSU defensive coordinator Robb Akey said. “They left it out there. There’s a lot of hurt players in that room right now, in that locker room. They did lay it out there on that field.”

This was the Cougars’ first overtime game since Doba’s first game as head coach, also a loss, at Notre Dame.

WSU is 2-7 all-time in overtime and the momentum was clearly in UCLA’s favor when the team captains came back to midfield for a final coin toss.

Scoring 38 points in regulation is the best total yet for WSU in Pac-10 play, perhaps no surprise as big-play wide receiver Jason Hill was able to play the full game after missing the previous five-plus quarters with a quadriceps contusion.

Hill caught eight passes for 65 yards, including one touchdown, and even though he never beat the Bruins defense deep, it seemed his presence helped rejuvenate a Cougars offense that struggled mightily against Stanford.

Quarterback Alex Brink, under fire all week long for his spotty play of late, finished 19 of 33 for 169 yards and two touchdowns.

“We were certainly trying to protect the football and not make a huge mistake, so that plays into it,” Brink said of the late-game collapse. “Obviously they made some defensive adjustments. Everybody does as the game goes along. They certainly turned it up a notch late in the game and we really didn’t respond too well.

“We were ready to play. We just didn’t play 60 minutes of football, or 65 minutes of football.”

Life doesn’t get any easier for the Cougars, who have to wonder if an effort as gritty as the one they displayed for much of Saturday’s game would have won them the two previous contests. Having dropped two consecutive home games, WSU must travel to California next week and then to USC.

“The kids were tired of getting beat. They felt like they could have won the last two,” Doba said. “We got so close, but close doesn’t count.”