The night the Illini fell

PULLMAN – Soldier Field may have been a little more than half full that Thursday night 13 years ago, but big crowd or not, the memories are fresh for Washington State University head football coach Bill Doba.

The Cougars had traveled to the Midwest to open the 1994 season against the 21st-ranked team in the nation, the University of Illinois. The nationally televised game pitting a Big Ten favorite against a Pac-10 team coming off a losing record wasn’t a huge draw, with only 39,472 at Chicago’s historic football venue.

But it was historic for Doba. It was his first game as WSU’s defensive coordinator, and what a debut it was.

“Great memories,” he said of the upset. “Our offense really struggled that year, we had a hard time even getting a first down. We might have had a minus-10 yards total offense (actually 157).

“We started blitzing and they didn’t pick them up. They would get the ball on our 40 and end up punting from their 45. We kept knocking them back.”

The Illini offense didn’t score a touchdown. Then again, neither did the WSU offense. The final score was 10-9 Cougars, with the lone touchdown courtesy of linebacker Mark Fields’ 71-yard fumble return, the longest in WSU history.

Doba’s defense was nearly impenetrable, yielding just 5 yards rushing and 220 yards in total offense. But the game was more than that.

“That was the springboard for that Palouse Posse,” Doba said of the defensive’s nickname that season. “I remember (DeWayne) Patterson had just come off the field, he got some Gatorade or some water and someone said, ‘Punt team, get ready,’ and he says, ‘What’s the down and distance?’ They say, ‘Third-and-14,’ and he got upset. I jumped up and said, ‘Hey, we didn’t come here to watch the offense, we came here to play defense.’

“Someone yelled, ‘Gatorade to go!’ and so after that, (the defense) wouldn’t even sit down. They would just stand on the sidelines and watch the offense and get pumped up to go back out there.”

Doba remembers the group fondly, but he also understands how lucky he was.

“Again, everything in life is timing,” he said, “and I took over at the exact right time.”