Hope springs for Cougs

PULLMAN – It was that type of game. When it was over, one team would lament its lost opportunities, the other would express its joy at surviving.

But that’s what Saturday’s 33-17 Pac-10 conference football victory over Stanford was for Washington State – a game the Cougars survived, as did their bowl hopes.

And what of the Cardinal, whose hopes died on the Martin Stadium turf before a Dad’s Weekend crowd of 31,110?

“There are always plays out there to be made,” said Stanford wide receiver Mark Bradford. “We just didn’t make them today.”

WSU did – enough, at least, to raise its overall record to 4-6, 2-5 in the Pac-10. That was the point.

“You have to go score enough points to win the game,” assistant coach Timm Rosenbach said. “That’s what your ultimate goal has to be.”

WSU did it with a combination of Alex Brink’s passing (32 of 47 for 449 yards), the pass catching of Jed Collins (10 for 123 yards) and Brandon Gibson (seven for 153), and the running of Chris Ivory (104 yards on 15 carries after missing the last three games with a concussion). Add it all up and WSU put up 561 yards of total offense, its second-best total of the season.

Yet it took a Michael Bumpus 45-yard punt return and a Stanford defensive breakdown for the Cougars to put together a 10-0 halftime lead – a lead that could just have easily been as much as 31-0 considering WSU was inside the Stanford 25 six times.

“There were some blown opportunities,” WSU head coach Bill Doba said. “We went for it on fourth down a couple of times, and probably should have kicked it. I thought at the time (if) we get the touchdown, we put them away.”

Instead, the Cougars gave Stanford hope, and they provided that hope in a variety of ways:

“After moving 77 yards in seven plays to open the game (including Bumpus’ 21-yard catch of a Brink pass, moving him past Hugh Campbell as WSU’s all-time reception leader), Ivory fumbled at the Stanford 3.

“Following the first of Romeen Abdollmohammadi’s career-best four field goals (a 7-yard drive kick-started by Bumpus’ punt return, which lifted him atop the school’s career punt-return yardage list), Ivory was stuffed on a fourth-and-1 at the Stanford 20.

“After Brink got the Cougars in the end zone when he found Ben Woodard alone in the left flat for a 12-yard score (breaking a tie with Jason Gesser and giving Brink sole possession of WSU’s career touchdown passes record), the Cougars tried to convert a fourth-and-5 at Stanford’s 21 and failed when Gibson couldn’t hold Brink’s toss.

“Finally, after WSU’s lone punt of the night, the defense forced a Tavita Pritchard fumble only to have Brink fumble it right back four plays later inside Stanford territory.

“We were moving the football well, we had opportunities,” Brink said. “There was a long way to go, that whole second half. We couldn’t panic. We knew were going to have to get down there and score points. Whether it was a touchdown or a field goal, we knew we needed to get points every time we went down in the red zone.”

Though maybe not, because the WSU defense was again throwing its weight around.

The Cardinal (3-7, 2-6) had more than 200 yards in the opening half but didn’t score because Derek Belch missed two field goals, and Pritchard, who emulated his uncle Jack Thomson by completing 22 of 40 passes for 263 yards, was pressured into an interception by Devin Giles, a fumble and drive-ending sack.

“I thought the longer they hang around, the more chance you have of getting beat by these guys,” Doba said. “That’s what they did at SC, they hung around, they hung around and that fourth quarter they made two big plays, got two touchdowns and wound up beating Southern Cal.”

The Cougars’ offense scored on all but one second-half possession – another fourth-down incompletion from the Stanford 21 ruining a perfect half – and the defense, despite yielding two long third-quarter scoring drives, came up big at two crucial points.

The first was after Stanford’s first touchdown, a 4-yard by Tyrone McGraw, had pulled the Cardinal within 13-7. Charles Dillon dropped the ensuing kickoff not once but twice, Nate Wilcox-Fogel fell on it at the WSU 4 and the door was open for Stanford to take the lead.

But Husain Abdullah, who led both teams with 14 tackles for the second consecutive week, closed the door, catching McGraw for a 3-yard loss on first down. Then Pritchard, under blitz pressure, was unable to connect with 6-foot-7 wide receiver Evan Moore on two attempts – both should have been intercepted, the latter by Abdullah – and Belch had to kick a 24-yard field goal.

“It was a great job by our defense to stop them when we gave the ball at the 4-yard line and held them to a field goal,” Doba said.

The Cougars still led by three when Greg Trent and Xavier Hicks combined to stop Jeremy Stewart on a third-and-1 at the Stanford 31 as the third quarter ended. Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh decided to punt – “I was glad he didn’t go for it, to be honest with you,” Doba said.

Despite two more Abdollmohammadi field goals which gave WSU a 26-17 lead, the issue was still in doubt until Husain picked off a Pritchard pass at the Stanford 45 and ran it all the way back with 3 minutes left.

“That was the first time I could breathe,” Doba said.

“We feel like we’ve got a whole new season,” said Bumpus after WSU staved off a bowl-hope-killing seventh defeat for the first of what would have to be three consecutive weeks.