‘You can only be a winner or a loser.’ Narrative of Washington State’s topsy-turvy season comes down to Cheez-It Bowl against Air Force
PHOENIX – It’s about winning a football game for Washington State against Air Force in the Cheez-It Bowl, but it’s also about shaping a narrative.
The Cougars (6-6) will carry their usual approach into Friday’s game against the Falcons (10-2) at Chase Field in Phoenix, taking one play at a time without focusing on the larger scope of what a win would signify for their season as opposed to a loss.
It’s also naive to think WSU players haven’t been pondering that since their bowl pairing was announced nearly three weeks ago. One result may not define an entire football season, but good luck convincing the six-win Cougars of that as they approach a program-record fifth consecutive bowl game.
Unlike in years past, when they could afford a bowl loss to finish better than .500, the Cougars can’t leave anything to chance this time. If they beat the Falcons, their narrative is one of a team that found a way to stay resilient through a three-game slump in the middle of the season and recover on the back end to win three of its last four.
The alternate reality being, the Cougars lose to Air Force, finish 6-7 and their season is defined by an early loss to UCLA, the defensive turmoil that followed and the other close games they squandered.
Will they be remembered for their offensive milestones, with the first 5,000-yard passing season by a quarterback in Pac-12 Conference history, or for their defensive lows, as the only team in conference history to concede a 32-point lead?
Much as they are focused on a football game, the Cougars are equally aware of their opportunity to control a narrative.
“I think going out on top will be a nice exclamation point to the season,” quarterback Anthony Gordon said Thursday at Cheez-It Bowl Media Day. “A whole lot of adversity, lots of ups and downs, but I think 7-6 definitely goes down a lot smoother than 6-7.”
“Our strength coaches definitely harped on it all this time we’ve been doing our bowl prep,” junior offensive guard Josh Watson said. “They keep saying, ‘We win this game, be 7-6 and be remembered as a team that won two straight bowl games or we can lose this game and just be losers. Because you can only be a winner or a loser, and what do you want to be?’ ”
“The record’s definitely something in the back of our mind right now,” nose tackle Dallas Hobbs said. “… It’s definitely been hinted at, but I feel like we just need to focus on the game and then it will just all come to us.”
“It definitely is the statement of your season, how you finish,” defensive end Karson Block said. “Because you can start great and not finish well and no one will remember you, and you don’t really want to talk about the season, but to finish 7-6 instead of 6-7 would be a big thing as far as looking back at the season.”
The clash of offensive systems has been chronicled more times than either team would care to count since bowl assignments were announced. Twice now the game’s media relations director has characterized the matchup as an “offensive explosion” – something that was reaffirmed again when Las Vegas set the over/under at 68.5 points.
Gordon leads an offense that’s scoring just shy of 40 points per game, and perhaps it’s appropriate the redshirt senior quarterback, once a late-round MLB draft pick of the New York Mets, is playing the final game of his college football career on a baseball diamond.
“Haven’t really thought too much about it, but that’s pretty funny to ironically end my football career at Wazzu on a baseball field,” Gordon said in Pullman a few weeks ago. “It’s pretty funny, something that’ll be pretty cool to think back on.”
It’s also been chronicled multiple times how close – and still how far – Gordon is to the NCAA single-season passing record, set by another Mike Leach quarterback, Texas Tech’s B.J. Symons. Gordon needs 606 yards to break Symons’ total of 5,833, set in 2003. Lest you think it’s unreachable, the Pacifica, California, native set his single-game high with 606 earlier this season against Oregon State in WSU’s home finale.
“We’ve played our fair share of talents, but this is kind of its own beast,” Air Force safety Jeremy Fejedelem said. “… This is a game I know as a DB and the corners and all of us are really looking forward to, to show our skills.”
Gordon is the centerpiece of WSU’s offense, as is Air Force’s Donald Hammond III, but the quarterbacks also have an array of playmakers around them. For the Cougars, it’s a deep and loaded wide receiving corps, consisting of seven players with more than 500 receiving yards and at least four touchdowns.
“You’re just watching film and they don’t really have one guy that isn’t a matchup problem,” Fejedelem said. “All of their guys are very talented and we have nothing but respect for that team, but at the same time we have a lot of respect for ourselves.”
The Falcons have a litany of productive skill players, too – relied upon to carry the ball, rather than catch it, in Air Force’s run-heavy triple option offense. Four of them, including Hammond, have at least 400 yards rushing, and three of those four have more than 700. The quartet of Kadin Remsberg, Timothy Jackson, Taven Birdow and Hammond has also accounted for 26 rushing TDs.
The biggest challenge of stopping an offense like Air Force’s, Block said, “is making sure you keep your eyes in the right spot. They’ve got a lot of stuff going on in the backfield. They have a lot of different blocking schemes depending on what you’re doing as a defense, so being able to stay assignment sound, do your job, have your eyes in the right spot and not try to do too much, and not worry about what else is going on but worrying about what you’re doing, is the most challenging thing.”