Brink on the money
PASADENA, Calif. – After going 20 of 23 against Oregon the week before, Washington State quarterback Alex Brink didn’t seem to have much of a chance to outdo himself Saturday night against UCLA.
But the Cougars junior did just that, taking advantage of an overly aggressive Bruins defense to throw for 405 yards and three touchdowns while helping the WSU offense to assert total control of the game in its latter stages.
Brink had completed his last 17 throws against Oregon, and started this game by hitting 12 of 14 out of the gate. But whereas almost all of his throws had been on shorter patterns against the Ducks, Brink consistently threw the ball downfield against the Bruins. He hit 10 passes of 17 yards or more, and three Cougars receivers finished with 85-plus yards as a result.
“We take what the defense gives us,” Brink said. “If the defense is going to play soft, we’ll go short. If they’re going to come up and play us, we’ll go downfield. That’s how you get a successful offense and we’re going to get there.”
Brink’s downfield throwing brought wide receiver Jason Hill into the fold, where the star senior has been largely quiet in many games this season. Hill finished with 115 receiving yards, and caught a second-quarter touchdown pass in the back corner of the end zone while also drawing a flag for defensive pass interference.
“It’s tons of fun,” Hill said. “I wouldn’t say we made adjustments. We came out and did (in the second half) what we could have done in the first half.”
Just for kicks
As if the Cougars haven’t struggled enough on special teams and in the kicking game this year, things got a great deal more interesting on Saturday.
Things got started before the game when punter Darryl Blunt’s heart began to race during pregame warm-ups. After explaining the situation to the training staff, the Cougars’ punter was taken to a local hospital and missed the game as a result. (He walked onto the field without pads near the end of the third quarter.)
His backup is place-kicker Loren Langley, who punted once in the first half. But Langley, who had one of his lesser games by missing a pair of field goals and pulling one kickoff out of bounds, injured his right quadriceps on the last kickoff of the first half.
After subsequently missing his second field goal, Langley told head coach Bill Doba of the problem at halftime and he sat the rest of the game out. That meant wide receiver Michael Bumpus, who had last punted as a senior in high school, was both the Cougars’ punter and punt returner in the second half. Bumpus punted twice, once for 35 yards and once for 36.
He had only five or six snaps at halftime to warm up.
“I’ll play center if they ask me to,” Bumpus said. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll do anything to help.”
“Anything can happen and we can handle adversity pretty well. … I’ve done it before and I know I can kick.”
Meanwhile, Romeen Abdollmohammadi, who’d kicked just one field goal in high school – he missed – and one successful extra point earlier this year against Idaho, had to come in and do the place-kicking and kickoffs in the second half. Abdollmohammadi ended up making both of his fourth-quarter extra points and earlier nailed a 31-yard field goal to put the Cougars up by eight points.
“I just kind of was in my own world,” he said. “When I went out there it didn’t really hit me until the ball was snapped that I’ve got to kick this field goal.”
Out of a tight spot
In the past, Brink has been criticized for failing to throw to open tight ends. Not so on Saturday.
With starter Cody Boyd back after missing two games with an ankle injury, Brink found him and Jed Collins eight times for a total of 154 yards.
Collins got the start with Boyd still limited and made the first big catch of the game for the Cougars, a 58-yarder on the last play of the first quarter that set up WSU’s first touchdown.
“I got tracked down really easily,” said a sheepish Collins, who caught the ball well beyond the entire Bruins defense. “I tried to get as many yards as I could.”
Boyd made a catch of equal if not greater significance later on that drive, reaching behind his body to reel in a fourth-down throw from Brink that was good for 20 yards.
“Cody and I have complained to the coaches enough to get us the ball,” Collins said jokingly. “We go with what’s open. We’ve got a lot of weapons. … I think Alex is just starting to get a little more confidence, a little more faith in us.”
Notes
For a second consecutive week, the Cougars run game improved dramatically in the fourth quarter. Led by DeMaundray Woolridge and Dwight Tardy, WSU picked up 69 of its 110 rushing yards in the final quarter. … The team’s third running back, Derrell Hutsona, was one of a number of Cougars injured in this game, as the junior went out with a left ankle sprain. … Cornerback Courtney Williams suffered a right knee sprain and will be examined in Pullman. … Tardy also injured his left calf in the game’s final minutes, the severity unknown. … UCLA had won 10 games in a row at home before last night. … WSU has now won four consecutive Pac-10 road games, dating back to last year’s Apple Cup. … The Cougars have won five of the last six games in the UCLA series. … The 22-point margin was WSU’s biggest against UCLA since a 32-7 win in 1936. … Hill’s touchdown catch was No. 32 of his career, good for a second-place tie on the all-time Pac-10 list, one shy of USC wideout Dwayne Jarrett. … UCLA coach Karl Dorrell on the outcome: “That wasn’t anything close to the game I was expecting.”