In season-opening win over Idaho, WSU showed some late-game moxie. It also showed it has serious work to do

PULLMAN — After his team escaped, after Washington State eked out a one-score win over FCS Idaho in his first game as head coach, Jimmy Rogers finally opened up about the topic that he had kept hidden from the public for weeks.

From a table deep within the Cougar Football Complex, Rogers said he decided to end a four-way quarterback competition and name third-year sophomore Jaxon Potter the starter for a few reasons: His accuracy and his completion ratio, his ability to create explosive plays and his late-game situation savvy during fall camp.

In the final minutes of this one, Potter made his coach look like a genius. He engineered a game-winning drive that ended with kicker Jack Stevens connecting on a 32-yard field goal for the final 13-10 margin, a heroic final series that required serious guts. But everything else from this game — the running woes, the offensive line’s struggles, the penalties, the QB substitutions — did little to inspire the same kind of confidence in Rogers and the Cougars.

“It’s kind of embarrassing,” Rogers said, “looking at these stats.”

Where to start? The most glaring one is probably WSU’s rushing totals: 22 carries for 3 yards, the program’s fewest in a single game in seven years. The Cougars did lose a chunk on a wayward snap in the second half, but that belies the deeper truth, which was that their offensive line didn’t look ready for the physicality from the Vandals’ defensive line.

The hosts were also called for seven penalties for 48 yards, including two false starts in three plays in the third quarter, when they were already backed up near their own end zone. They lost a chance to score before halftime when Potter threw a ball past the line of scrimmage, and after a delay-of-game penalty in the first quarter, they had to burn a timeout before their first play of the second.

Some of the decisions the Cougars made also amounted to head-scratchers. Potter has many great qualities, but they don’t involve his mobility, which coaches asked him to leverage in an important third-down. They spent an inordinate amount of time trying to run up the middle, which rarely bore fruit. Searching for a spark to their moribund offense in the second half, they pulled Potter for Julian Dugger for two series — both of which ended in three-and-outs, which numbered five for WSU.

“When we put Dugger in, it was to try to create an element of an athlete in there that can run the ball,” Rogers said, “and maybe make something of his legs, because the running game wasn’t working.”

Was it smart for Rogers and offensive coordinator Danny Freund to hand the keys of their offense to Potter, whose only college experience came with 13 snaps in garbage time last season? What about the decision to sub in Dugger, which would also seem to indicate the QB who seemed to be taking the lead in fall camp — fifth-year senior Zevi Eckhaus, by far the most experienced of the bunch — is the team’s third-stringer?

All of that is fair to wonder, but it’s a separate conversation. The more relevant questions have to do with the nature of WSU’s struggles on offense: How many can be chalked up to the nature of the beast, playing your first game under a new coach and trying to mesh dozens of new players, and how many figure to plague the Cougs the rest of the season?

For WSU, the good news was that it wasn’t all bad news. The Cougars’ defense showed meaningful poise, forcing the Vandals to settle for a field goal when they had all the momentum, and they forced a pair of fumbles. Veteran linebacker Caleb Francl piled up 11 tackles, safety Tucker Large broke up a critical pass in the red zone and Idaho QB Joshua Wood managed just 33 yards, in large part a credit to WSU cornerbacks Colby Humphrey and Jamorri Colson’s sizzling coverage.

But Washington State’s competition won’t get any easier moving forward. That means the Cougars have less than a week to become more disciplined to avoid penalties, tougher to turn their anemic run offense around and maybe even smarter about the more important decisions, like when to pull their surprise starting QB. Hint: The answer is probably not right after your defense forces a game-swinging turnover.

“I gotta take accountability for the lack of production,” Potter said. “We had that little lull after halftime. That’s on me. But I wasn’t expecting to be pulled…. I thought Duggs got put in a tough situation.”

“Twenty-two carries for three yards, as I look at it right now, which is embarrassing,” Rogers said, “especially for the caliber of running backs that I believe that we have. We just couldn’t get anything going. And then to turn the ball over there by Angel Johnson in the red zone. He’s better than that. I know that.”

Some of these issues trace back to WSU’s offensive line, which is working to integrate three new starters in left tackle Ashton Tripp, left guard Johnny Lester and right guard AJ Vaipulu. Combined with center Brock Dieu and right tackle Christian Hilborn, the unit looked great in pass protection, which was especially crucial on the Cougars’ two scoring drives.

But their run blocking was nothing to write home about. The unit’s worst moment came at the worst time, when Tripp was blown up by UI DT Matyus McClain, who burst through the line of scrimmage to stonewall Johnson and force the fumble, which the Vandals could have picked up and run into the end zone, only for Donovan Parham to make the safe play and fall on it.

The Cougs’ front five didn’t always give up such egregious plays, but they certainly didn’t bring the right physicality to establish the run, which figured to be central to this new offense. The Air Raid may be gone at WSU, but in this game, the program’s offensive line blocked like it was still around.

“They were doing a good job of blitzing it. They blitzed quite a bit,” Rogers said. “They stacked the box. They got the ball to spray off the edge, and honestly, with how much they were blitzing, they just did a good job of penetrating the line of scrimmage. We gotta do a better job of cutting off some of their stunts.”

Can the Cougars solve some of these issues before they host San Diego State next weekend? Without a doubt. They were never expected to play their best football in Week 1, especially not under a first-time starting quarterback. They’re meshing a new head coach with tons of new players, which doesn’t often lead to glamorous debuts. In fact, Rogers is the first WSU coach to win his first game since 2003.

But WSU’s competition will only get stiffer from here. If the Cougs want to extend their bowl streak, if they want to squeeze the most out of Rogers’ debut season, they can’t play like they did on Saturday.