On balance, still a loss
PULLMAN – It was all right there.
A chance to head to overtime. A chance to keep alive an upset bid against the No. 18 team in the nation. A chance to turn a tough season around. It was all right there.
But, with 12 seconds left, Romeen Abdollmohammadi’s 46-yard field goal hooked slowly, inexorably, wide left. And, for the fourth time in six games this year, Washington State’s football team had lost, this time 23-20 to Arizona State before a homecoming crowd of 35,117 at Martin Stadium.
“It looked like it was going right, but the wind was going that direction – it was in my face, I know – and I couldn’t see if it was one foot, two feet (wide),” Cougars head coach Bill Doba said of the try toward the east end of the stadium. “But that didn’t lose the game. There were a number of plays throughout that cost us the ballgame.”
To whit:
“A miscommunication between Alex Brink and Michael Bumpus – the receiver went downfield; the quarterback thought he was going to stop – that resulted in a third-quarter interception by Justin Tryon and a 69-yard scoring return. The Sun Devils have gone eight consecutive games with an interception and have returned three for touchdowns this season.
“A 32-yard pass from Brink that Brandon Gibson seemed to catch for a touchdown early in the second quarter that was ruled incomplete by back judge Gregory Wilson and not overturned on replay.
“It was a complete catch, I was 100 percent sure,” Gibson said. “It may have came out when I landed, but I felt I caught it, two feet (in) and then fell, then let go of it.”
“And the deciding points, which came on a 37-yard field goal by redshirt freshman Thomas Weber with 50 seconds left. It capped a 45-yard ASU (6-0, 3-0) drive, all but 11 of those yards on the ground.
The Cougars had tied the game at 20 just three minutes earlier, using an 18-play, 77-yard drive culminated by Abdollmohammadi’s 38-yard field goal, his second of the game. During the drive, WSU overcame 20 yards worth of penalties, part of a season-high 11 for 90 yards.
As Brink put it, “We shot ourselves in the foot too often.”
Still, there were just as many plays – and players – that kept the Cougars (2-4 overall, 0-3 in the Pac-10) close.
“The defense turned in its best effort of the season. It limited an ASU offense that was averaging 173 yards rushing to 79, in large part because of a season-best total of seven sacks, four by sophomore Andy Mattingly, making his first career start in place of Kendrick Dunn, out with a hamstring strain.
“We knew it was on us,” said Mattingly of the Cougars defense, which came in yielding 36.4 points a game and was last in the Pac-10 in four categories. “Our offense, they’ve been doing their thing all season. We as a defense, we’ve got to hold them. … Our offense is going to score. If we hold them to under 20, we’ll win.”
Besides success against the run – 50 yards in losses from the sacks helped offset Ryan Torain’s 116 yards on 24 carries – the Cougars also shored up their third-down defense (WSU was last in the nation, giving up first downs nearly seven out 10 times), limiting the Sun Devils to six first downs in 14 tries.
And ASU quarterback Rudy Carpenter, under constant pressure from a WSU defense that blitzed on all but one play, threw for just 217 yards, 93 less than his average. The Cougars also came up with two interceptions, Husain Abdullah’s third and Cory Evans’ first.
“The players played good, that was the secret,” said defensive backs coach Leon Burtnett of a defensive effort that limited ASU to 296 yards of total offense and two touchdowns. “The players make plays. And they made plays today.
“We decided to put the pressure back there on those kids and see how it rode with them. For the most part they held up pretty good, considering that was an explosive offense.”
Brink threw for 369 yards – passing Jason Gesser in career passing yardage in the process – while completing 27 of 50 attempts. He also connected with Gibson on one touchdown that counted and with junior tight end Devin Frischknecht on another.
But for the first time this season, he started slowly, hitting just one of his first nine attempts against ASU’s man-to-man defense. The Cougars were blanked in the first quarter for the first time this season.
“It really threw our timing off,” Brink said of the Sun Devils’ scheme. “They were getting in our receivers’ faces, making it hard. We had to make adjustments there in the second quarter.”
Gibson had to adjust on the second-quarter touchdown pass, after being ridden out-of-bounds by Tryon, who fell down while doing it. Gibson got back inbounds, leaped for Brink’s throw at about the 5, was able to get a foot down and score while falling almost into the band.
Gibson finished with five catches for 80 yards, Bumpus had six for 62, freshman Jeshua Anderson, in a career day, added three more as eight Cougars caught balls.
But none of it was enough.