All on the line

PULLMAN – It’s not often an offensive lineman comes off a field and a female fan jumps into his arms. But it’s not often that an offensive line has carried a team as much as Washington State’s did Saturday.

And though right guard Dan Rowlands may have been surprised – he knew the admirer – he and his teammates weren’t surprised by the relief expressed after the Cougars dominated conference-leading UCLA 27-7 before 31,207 at Martin Stadium.

“We needed that one,” WSU head coach Bill Doba said.

To get the Cougars their first Pac-10 home win in more than a year, Doba and his staff put the game into the hands of Rowlands and his offensive linemates, even with true freshman Andrew Roxas having to step in and play center for an injured Kenny Alfred.

Did we mention Roxas had never played center in a game before?

“A big deal has been that we can’t run the ball, can’t do this, can’t do that,” offensive line coach George Yarno said. “We felt we could run the ball going into the game, even though they are ranked eighth in the nation in rush defense because we thought they would try to cover our receivers.”

When asked why he thought WSU could run on the Bruins, third in the Pac-10 yielding 79.6 yards per game on the ground, Doba mentioned injuries UCLA had suffered at defensive tackle and linebacker. Then he echoed Yarno’s comments.

“Remember the first (seven) plays were all passes, which loosens up that linebacker corps a little bit and enabled us to run,” Doba said. “When they thought we were going to run, we didn’t. When we had to, they stoned us pretty good, until that last play.”

The Cougars’ rushing numbers were a bit boggling, especially considering they entered the game having rushed for 280 yards in four Pac-10 games – all losses.

Dwight Tardy carried the ball a career-high 37 times – WSU ran 51 times, 21 times more than any previous conference game. Tardy finished with a career-high 214 yards – 148 yards more than any Cougar had in a Pac-10 game this season and part of a season-high 274 yards WSU had on the ground. And Tardy’s 51-yard scoring blast with 42 seconds left was 23 yards longer than any WSU run this season.

“We have run the ball and ripped off long runs at times, but we haven’t run the ball with any consistency,” quarterback Alex Brink said. “To have that consistency that we had tonight, that gives them a lot of confidence, especially with a freshman center in there.”

So how did WSU run over the Bruins for the sixth time in the teams’ last seven meetings? They trapped , they pulled, they hit UCLA (5-3 overall and 4-1 in the Pac-10) from angles the Bruins didn’t see coming.

“We’re not a knock-guys-off-the-ball type of team,” Yarno said.

The coup-de-grace was Tardy’s long run, which came as the Cougars (3-5, 1-4) were trying to kill the clock.

“He sure looked good on that last one,” Doba said. “If we were really smart, we would have fallen down, taken a knee three times and avoided the kickoff. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to try to tell him to stop.”

Just like he didn’t tell the WSU defense to stop pressuring UCLA and its less-than-healthy quarterback, Pat Cowan.

Cowan was ineffective against the WSU pass defense, ninth in the Pac-10 coming in. The junior finished 17 of 36 for just 167 yards.

The Bruin offense as a whole was ineffective – after the game’s third play. That’s when Kahlil Bell took a pitch right, tight-roped the sideline, cut inside safety Xavier Hicks at the WSU 32 and finished a 50-yard run in the end zone. A minute and a half in and the Cougars were staring at an 0-5 Pac-10 start.

Instead they rallied with a 61-yard drive, scoring on Tardy’s first touchdown, a 1-yard run.

“We knew once we put that first one in we could drive down and do some different things and that gave us some confidence,” Brink said.

Then the Cougar defense took over. Other than Bell’s run – he would leave the game later with a knee injury – the Bruins had 124 other first-half yards. But that was only prelude to a dominating third quarter.

Despite the third-quarter defense, despite dominating all the stats, the fourth quarter started with WSU leading just 13-7.

In the quarter the Cougars were stopped three times inside the UCLA 10 before Romeen Abdollmohammadi converted a 24-yard field goal. Then they were stopped four times inside the UCLA 2, then had a field goal blocked.

“I was a little nervous when it was first-and-goal at the 1 and we didn’t get it in and then we missed the field goal,” Doba said.

But the defense kept getting off the field, the offense got into the end zone on a Brink to Brandon Gibson 5-yard scoring pass with 7:31 left – Brink finished 28 of 46 for 271 yards – and Doba could breathe easier.

And then Tardy iced it with his 51-yard run.

“We haven’t had that feeling in a while,” Brink said of leaving Martin Stadium with a win. “Having the fans rush the field like that, showing that kind of support for our team, is something that we definitely need at this time in the season.”