Cougs out to change Corvallis woes

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Washington State has traveled to Corvallis, Ore., and Reser Stadium to play Oregon State in each of the last two seasons. Each time the Cougars have returned home with a telling loss, one that in many ways told the story of that individual season.

In 2004 quarterback Alex Brink made his first career start and the entire Cougars team came out flat, its offense incapable of controlling a game and its defense too soft to combat Pac-10 opponents.

In 2005 the Cougars showed big-play potential, sprinting out to a big lead in the first half before collapsing in the fourth quarter, a story line that repeated itself more than a handful of times over the rest of the season.

Because of a scheduling quirk associated with the addition of a ninth Pac-10 game this season, the Cougars (3-2, 1-1 Pac-10) get one more shot at Oregon State on the road today.

“Week in and week out, you find a similar theme of what happened last year seems to sharpen our focus for that particular game, whether it was Stanford, USC or now it’s Oregon State,” Brink said.

The Beavers (2-2, 0-1) are hoping that some of this year’s early struggles make them a better football team right away. They got blown out at home in their Pac-10 opener last week against Cal.

The Cougars also face a bounce-back challenge this week after losing narrowly to third-ranked USC in Pullman last week. It might be a good sign for WSU, however, that many of its players and coaches seemed more upset than mollified with the USC game.

“I don’t think our kids are satisfied with coming close last week,” head coach Bill Doba said.

The Cougars have gone 0-9 in October over the last two seasons, but one good game in Corvallis today will flush out bad memories from both of the last two years as well as from last week – and even more important, it would thrust this WSU team right into the middle of the postseason picture.