Wulff refuses to cry over setback

PULLMAN – After every game, and most practices, the favorite statement of a college football coach seems to be a qualifier.

Take any variation of “I’ve got to watch the tape,” and it’s meaning is simple: It’s hard to know for sure what went on until each individual play is dissected over and over again.

Washington State coach Paul Wulff watched the tape Sunday and his opinion of Saturday’s 39-13 season-opening loss to Oklahoma State didn’t change a bit.

This one was on the Cougs.

“The reality is, when you start watching the film, it was just the mistakes that we made,” said Wulff on his weekly conference call. “I wish I could sit here and say (Oklahoma State) outplayed us and they were better in all these other areas, but it was truly a case of us just making our own mistakes.

“I’m not so sure if we were playing against air that we weren’t still going to make some of those mistakes.”

The litany of things Wulff put on the we-have-to-fix list included:

• The special team breakdowns: Wulff again mentioned the height of Dan Wagner’s punts and the blown kickoff coverage as areas of concern. He said he thought incumbent punter Reid Forrest was making progress on his recovery from a broken ankle and Forrest had planned to test the ankle while the team was in Seattle.

• The offensive mistakes were both physical – not putting practiced techniques into game performance – and mental – blocking the wrong person, running the wrong route, not making the correct read, dumb penalties:

“You just go through some things,” Wulff said of the tape session, “and it’s like ‘my goodness.’ ”

• Though overall he praised the defensive effort: “There were some things there on defense where we could have done things better, there’s no question,” he said. He did, however, think the defense tackled well, and, because of the breakdowns in other areas, “we just gave too many easy points,” he said. “We didn’t make them earn anything.”

There were good points as well, Wulff emphasized, and the best might have been the offense’s third-quarter showing.

“We were able to run the ball a little more … and we were actually able to throw the ball and convert some (third downs),” he said, before his voice rose a little as he described what that success brought.

“We actually tired them out. The one thing I saw that was a big positive was … I really felt we were a better-conditioned team then they were. And when we kind of got them on the ropes there in that third quarter and the early fourth, you could see we had a lot of momentum building because our conditioning level was greater that theirs.”

That level will be tested this week by California, described by Wulff as “extremely physical” and boasting great team speed.

“We’re going to face a really good team, but I think we can get ourselves a lot better in this week,” Wulff said before noting that not everything can be cleaned up in five practices. “It’s going to be a while. We’re going to be able to get better in some areas this next game and then, the following game, hopefully we get better again.

“I think it’s going to be a continuing process. Ya, I wish we could get all the things fixed in a week, but it’s just not going to occur that way.”

News and notes

Wulff said cornerback Alfonso Jackson (hip flexor) will miss the Cal game but X-rays showed no break in Jason Stripling’s foot. He’s day-to-day. As for Jeshua Anderson, he doesn’t feel he’ll be back from his hernia for a while yet, though he hopes Vaughn Lesuma (back) and Forrest can return soon, possibly by Saturday. … Wulff praised the play of freshman safety Tyree Toomer as well as junior college transfer Myron Beck at safety and Tyrone Justin at corner. … Speaking of corner, Wulff’s happy he doesn’t have to face Dez Bryant again. He thought Bryant’s abilities made most of the late jump-ball completions possible, but also admitted there are some fine-tuning needed of the corner’s technique. … Wulff said he heard the boos early in the second quarter after the Cougars decided to run the ball on a third-and-16 deep in their territory, but said he takes that with a grain of salt. We were at that point trying to play field position,” he explained. “We just didn’t want to give up great field position again with a turnover, when the game was by no means out-of-hand. … We wanted to play it smart, get in at halftime and regroup, which we did. You could see there was improvement when we came out at the half.”