This is one series worth reruns

PULLMAN – Yes, please, let’s end this series now.

If Washington State and Idaho can’t summon up a better amusement than the one staged here Saturday night, then surely mothballs are preferable to football.

Imagine – not even 450 yards of offense and barely 50 points between the two teams in the first half. Incompletions reversed upon review into touchdowns. A dewy-behind-the-ears freshman quarterback matching a heralded senior TD pass for TD pass.

Yes, such a drear fest must surely die.

And no one cares. Only 32,064 turned out at Martin Stadium with the game available on any TV set in the Palouse, and the guess here is the main attraction was a chance to flush the new toilets.

Why, the last time the Cougars drew such a paltry audience – OK, a more paltry audience – they were playing the 10th-ranked team in the country.

On homecoming.

While we’re at it, let’s cancel that, too.

And Idaho has obviously thrown in the towel on the whole concept. Having lost the previous six meetings with Wazzu by an average score of 42-11, they were toast here after falling behind by 17 points. Deonte Jackson running over people and Max Komar pulling passes down from Pluto after that point, well, that must have just been muscle memory.

Please, put such an unsightly display out of our misery.

And the halftime show. Would you believe sousaphone players in skirts assembling a human pyramid?

OK, maybe we can do without sousaphone players in skirts. Actually, no maybes about it.

But as for the rest of it, sarcasm aside, let’s do it again.

Real soon.

“I would love to play them for the rest of my career here,” Jackson said with conviction. “I would.”

Seconded. Especially if the alternative on the Cougar schedule is Portland State. Which it is, come 2008.

Perhaps the final accounting – WSU 45, Idaho 28 – doesn’t properly reflect how competitive this exercise was, but it was also about right, the Vegas wiseguys be damned. The Vandals wouldn’t have taken any consolation in losing by a last-second field goal, either, but they deserved more than to have this masquerade as a blowout.

Even new Idaho coach Robb Akey – Bill Doba’s former defensive lieutenant at Wazzu – suddenly seemed a little wistful about the series going on hiatus.

“We have to live with this for a while until we can get them back on (the schedule),” he said. “Obviously I’d like to have another shot at it.”

The Vandals held serve this night until WSU’s Devin Giles made a splendid interception and the Cougars got a field goal out of it late in the second quarter, and even after twice seeing the deficit grow to 17 points this was always a game.

There were lots of ways to measure that. One was heard in the press box, with the fourth quarter maybe a minute old, the score 38-28 and the Vandals looking at a long third down from midfield.

“This probably qualifies as a big play,” somebody said.

And what do you know? Somebody made one. Two somebodies, in fact. Idaho quarterback Nathan Enderle put the ball right in the hands of Rolly Lumbala, but it slithered through and Wazzu’s Chima Nwachukwu glommed on to it for his first career interception.

That signaled an end to the drama, but not a surrender.

Perhaps that’s a hint that Akey has already had a measurable impact in both the approach and outlook at Idaho – and, along with the ex-WSU aides now in his employ, goosed the temperature of this game a bit.

“Just knowing they were going to be on the sidelines added a little more to the game,” said WSU safety Husain Abdullah. “As much as we love those guys and miss them, for four hours or however long the game is, they’re going to be after us. We’ve got to make sure we’re on the top of our game.”

Over the years, harvesting verities from the Cougars’ “play-down” game and applying them as predictors pretty much has been folly, and so it went with this one. Despite improvements, it was again made clear that Wazzu needs a more ferocious pass rush and steadiness in the secondary, though four interceptions will make for a happier film review today.

Otherwise, it was a revelation that Jackson and Komar were every bit as effective as WSU running back Dwight Tardy and any of the gifted Cougar receivers. And it was all very Coug that we were treated to the stylings of three different placekickers before Doba ever got around to subbing at quarterback.

One driving motivation for interrupting the Battle of the Palouse is the fear of the coaching staffs – or at least one of them – that the battle might spill into some Palouse nightspots, player grudges from the field being held over.

Never mind 7 p.m. kickoffs that inspire the student body into a full day of pre-game functioning and the peacekeeping risks inherent in that.

And, yes, the Vandals need a bigger payday for their “play-up” game. So there are all sorts of good reasons for these teams not to play.

They just weren’t evident Saturday night.