Inside the mentality changes that have fueled WSU’s resurgence in close games
PULLMAN – Dylan Paine saw teammates smiling when Washington State trailed in the fourth quarter of Friday’s game against San Jose State.
The Cougars faced several late deficits, going down as many as two scores entering the final quarter. Even when they staged a rally, showing signs of life, the mood at Gesa Field never quite changed.
It was tense.
But even in those moments, Paine, the WSU running back who provided the winning touchdown in a 54-52 double-overtime conquest, noticed that his teammates seemed more eager than down. On the sideline, Paine noticed a couple of guys hang their heads.
“But the majority of guys picked it up really quick, and we had energy,” Paine said. “I saw a lot of smiles, even though we were down. We knew that we were going to come back and win that game. There was no disagreement there.”
The Cougars’ 4-0 start to the season might be even more promising than what meets the eye at first. WSU is also 2-0 in one-score games. The Cougs took down rival Washington with a goal-line stop in the final seconds. A week later, they eked out a double-overtime win over San Jose State, outscoring the Spartans 22-8 in the fourth quarter to force an extra session.
That’s about a 180-degree turn from the way WSU fared in tight games last season. In 2023, the Cougars went 1-4 in games decided by one score. They took down Oregon State in their conference opener, but they went the next two months without coming out on top when it was close, dropping tight games against UCLA, Stanford, Cal and Washington.
Against UCLA, WSU fell on a late fourth-down try. Against Stanford, the Cougars had a chance to tie the game late in the fourth quarter, but they went three-and-out. Against Cal, WSU rallied for two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, but with a chance to tie or take the lead on the game’s final series, Cam Ward threw an interception. Finally, in last year’s Apple Cup, the Cougars had a chance to take the lead late in the fourth quarter – but they had to punt, and the Huskies walked it off with a field goal.
A year later, WSU has had no such bad luck in similar spots.
“I think the thing we talked about all offseason is having the hard conversations and ‘liked versus respected,’ ” said edge rusher Quinn Roff, who forced the game-ending fumble to beat SJSU. “Not (being) afraid to call someone out or to lift someone up, even if it’s not going to make them feel the best, or they may feel some type of way about you, but still calling it out because you know you love them so much that you’re going to lift them up anyway.”
“Throughout the offseason, we wanted to establish some team values, and one of those values was, ‘We’re gonna be a finish team,’ ” Paine said. “We weren’t happy with the way we finished in the fourth quarter last year, and we emphasized that throughout the entire offseason, and I think we showed that on Friday.”
That mentality has fueled the way the Cougars handle themselves in close games, enabling them to make the plays that have helped them come out on top.
For example, players have worked on telling themselves and their teammates the right things, safety Tyson Durant said. It’s easy for players to get down on themselves when things aren’t going their way – “getting in the bucket,” in Durant’s words – so they’ve played a high priority on messaging and communication when they find themselves behind.
To beat rival UW, sixth-year linebacker Kyle Thornton made the game-saving tackle that has made its way to the “Back Home” video WSU plays before home games. To beat SJSU, Roff stripped SJSU QB Emmett Brown – not only his roommate last year, but also his high school teammate at San Marcos High in California.
The Cougs have made plenty of other plays that have keyed their close wins. Kicker Dean Janikowski shook his recent struggles to knock down a 52-yard field goal, the second longest of his career, and send Friday’s game into overtime. The Cougars’ defense, which was having trouble containing the Spartans’ passing offense, got two stops in the overtime sessions – an interception by redshirt freshman cornerback Ethan O’Connor and Roff’s forced fumble.
Prior to the game, WSU was 0-10 when trailing entering the fourth quarter in head coach Jake Dickert’s tenure, which began in earnest in 2022.
“They changed that,” Dickert said. “They keep believing, they keep energizing, they keep straining and pushing and doing it for the team.
“I mean, I just think once you do it, once you break through, it’s like, ‘OK, we can do this.’ That’s what everyone feels today.”
“I feel like (it’s) the mental fortitude of everybody,” Durant said. “I feel like everybody has a strong mental, and we actually believe. Coming from different spots and different universities, I believe, but you could feel that others didn’t really have that look in their eye, that they really want to get this win.
“And I saw that in a lot of people against San Jose. I’m really excited we have a group of guys like that to go to war with, because anything is possible with people with mental fortitude.”