Cougars left behind
AUBURN, Ala. – What started poorly for Washington State ended the same way Saturday night.
The Cougars can only hope that won’t be the case this season as well.
Electing to receive after winning the coin toss in the season opener, Cougars quarterback Alex Brink was promptly sacked by a tenacious Auburn defense on the first and third plays of the game, a harbinger of things to come in a 40-14 defeat at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Brink was sacked once more on the Cougars’ next offensive play, and by the midway point of the fourth quarter all that was left for the 87,451 fans in attendance was the decision whether or not to leave early and beat the traffic home.
“For some reason we were a little lethargic and sluggish coming out of the gates,” Cougars guard Sean O’Connor said. “You could tell today that we weren’t ever really comfortable. We never got in a good groove.”
WSU (0-1) came away with some positives against the No. 4 team in the nation, taking a 7-6 lead going into the second quarter. But a number of things – some surprising, others unsurprising – went wrong as the game slowly but surely fell under Auburn’s thumb.
Quarterback Alex Brink, who came into this season knowing WSU would need an improved quarterback, was off all night and threw for just 67 yards on 24 attempts. Running back DeMaundray Woolridge played extremely well, bulling through the Auburn defense for 86 yards on nine carries before an ill-advised option ended with Woolridge getting a bruised right thigh. Its severity is unknown, but he spent the second half in street clothes and on crutches, watching with an ice pack wrapped around his injured leg.
And the Cougars were never able to wrest control of the field from Auburn (1-0), giving the Tigers good field position on numerous occasions while WSU never started a single drive beyond its own 28-yard line.
“It just kind of went with the theme of the night, playing uphill,” Brink said. “We need to come out and play with a little greater sense of urgency.”
Auburn running back Kenny Irons ground the Cougars’ defense as the game progressed, running for 184 yards on 20 carries, including a 58-yard touchdown run on the first play of the second half. But it was Auburn’s defense, starting with those first plays of the first half, that really cemented the fact that this was a night for the home team, not the visitors from afar.
“Defensively they were really quick and strong,” head coach Bill Doba said. “They were better on defense than I thought they’d be, to be honest with you. I thought we could move the ball better than we did. We didn’t do very well, kind of shell-shocked early.”
Even still, it appeared for a brief moment that the Cougars might have had a chance at mounting a comeback. After scoring a touchdown to make the score 26-14, the WSU defense forced one of its two three-and-outs of the night. But Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville called for a fake punt from his own 16-yard line on fourth-and-14, and linebacker Will Herring ran 42 yards with it. Kicker John Vaughn missed a field goal later in the drive after making four in the first half, but the momentum that appeared to be all WSU’s had leveled out enough to keep the game in the Tigers’ control.
“The momentum was switching,” Tuberville said of the fake punt call. “It really got us out of the hole. Even though we missed the field goal, it switched the end of the field for us.”
The Cougars might not see an opponent of Auburn’s caliber all season long, something that may provide some solace. But WSU seemed to acknowledge outside the locker room Saturday night that if it took no lessons out of this first game, things wouldn’t get easier.
“I wouldn’t say they were physically dominant,” O’Connor said. “They had very good team speed, and that kept us off-guard. We had a couple of good drives, but we’d follow up good drives with three-and-outs. So it was very inconsistent and frustrating.”