Facing Colorado in final home Pac-12 game, WSU tries to end a six-game skid

PULLMAN – Flip the calendar back two months. Washington State is off to a spotless start. So is Colorado. Both teams are angling for a New Year’s Six bowl – if not a playoff spot.

The Buffaloes, with head coach Deion Sanders at the helm and two stars at the controls, have captured the attention of the nation. The Cougars, trying to prove they belong in a power conference, are making their case. They’ve propped themselves up for different reasons, sure, but both programs are off to promising starts.

How things change. Headed into Friday night’s clash, WSU and Colorado both find themselves at 4-6 overall, both needing to win their final two regular-season games to earn bowl eligibility. It’s the Cougars’ final home game in the Pac-12. The Buffaloes have already played theirs.

The matchup feels nothing at all like the game it promised to be in September.

“I still think you see two teams with a bunch of want-to,” said WSU coach Jake Dickert, whose team is trying to stop a six-game losing streak. “When I watch their tape and I watch our tape, you see a bunch of kids that are competing.”

Colorado, which has lost four straight and six of its past seven, is led by two Sanderses: Deion and Shedeur, the latter the Buffaloes’ star quarterback who hasn’t been able to stay upright long enough to harness his talent. He ranks fifth nationwide in passing yards, racking up 3,144 headed into the game, but he also ranks first in the country in sacks – with 48.

That’s six more than the quarterback with the second-most sacks. So woeful has CU’s offensive line been that on two occasions this season, Sanders has had to get pain-numbing injections at halftime, just to stay in the game for the second half.

Still, when Sanders has had time, he’s been effective. Among quarterbacks with at least 350 dropbacks this season, he ranks fifth in the country in Pro Football Focus’ passing grades, registering a grade of 90.1. He has thrown just three interceptions all season, against 26 touchdowns.

Which makes this quarterback matchup so intriguing: Who can stay on their feet longer? WSU’s Cam Ward has suffered a similar fate against pass rushes, taking 31 sacks, 11th most in the nation. Like Sanders, he’s also plenty talented, using his tools to elude even the best rushers. Some of the best plays Ward has made this year he’s made on the run.

“The Sanders kid, the quarterback, is a lot like Cam,” Dickert said. “A creator, a strong-arm player, elusive in the pocket, and can do a bunch of different things with the ball in his hands. I mean, I think he’s an elite-level talent.”

The biggest difference between the quarterbacks might be that Ward hasn’t taken care of the ball. He’s lost 11 fumbles this season, tied for the most in the country. Last week, in WSU’s loss to California, he coughed up three – and the Golden Bears returned two for touchdowns.

Ward isn’t flippant about the issue, Dickert said, and Ward hasn’t made himself sound that way. He understands the problem and the gravity behind it. He likes to say he’s improved at ball security during his two years at Washington State, and maybe he has – but these results sing a different tune.

“It showed up again today that it’s something that I gotta continuously work on,” Ward said of his ball security issues after the Cal game. “Any time you put your team in a situation like I did, it’s hard to fight out of, and we did. We did end up doing that. But we didn’t execute enough plays as a whole to win this game.”

To beat Colorado, Washington State will need to execute more of them. It might help to get another boost from its backfield, from freshman running backs Leo Pulalasi (true freshman) and Djouvensky Schlenbaker (redshirt freshman), who last week combined to give the Cougars their best rushing game in nearly a full calendar year.

Pulalsi totaled 66 yards on 12 carries. Schlenbaker added one touchdown reception, the first score of his young career. Together, they did more than just give the Cougars a credible ground game. They opened the door to the future, which looks bright as long as they’re involved in it.

“Well, Leo, once you really get to know him, he’s just playing ball,” Dickert said. “He looks at it that way. I don’t think he feels pressure. He’s kind of a light-hearted guy, a lot of smile on his face. A lot of, ‘Yes, Coach.’ Those recruiting conversations were hard sometimes. It’s a lot of me talking, and he says, ‘Yes, Coach.’ But he loves playing ball, and he works hard, and those are some things that you can really work with.”

The game will also be the final one at Gesa Field for WSU’s seniors, which Dickert took time to name during his weekly news conference: Josh Erling, Ma’ake Fifita, Konner Gomness, Isaiah Hamilton, Brennan Jackson, Chris Jackson, Cam Johnson, Cam Lampkin, Sam Lockett, Christy Nkanu, Devin Richardson, Naim Rodman, Simon Samarzich, RJ Stone Jr., Colton Theaker, Lincoln Victor and Nakia Watson.

Those guys could hardly have predicted the situation they were walking in to when they became Cougars, joining a program that got left out of the conference realignment machine. As they exit, though, they do so gracefully.

“It’s meant everything to me, man,” Victor said of his time at WSU. “I’ve dreamt about this for my whole life. I really didn’t know how it would go. I just put that up to God and let his work unfold. But I’ve just been thankful for the process and thankful for the people that I’ve met and thankful for Pullman, and thankful for this university, just being able to put this jersey on and represent not only the Coug logo, but my last name as well.”