Analysis: With 28-3 win over Louisiana Tech, WSU sets itself up with a chance to earn Jimmy Rogers’ first signature victory
PULLMAN — Ten games into this season, a wacky and compelling and rollercoaster affair that has covered four different time zones in six different states, Washington State’s defense has become a tricky thing.
On one hand, the Cougars are missing boatloads of tackles. Headed into Saturday’s game against Louisiana Tech, a 28-3 win for WSU, the group had whiffed on 143 tackles. That was the second-most nationally. But on so many of those, the Cougars have rallied to the play, swarming the ballcarrier like ants to breadcrumbs, wiping away the impact of the missed tackle.
“That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” WSU cornerback Colby Humphrey said.
In that way and many more, the Cougars are playing in ways that are helping coach Jimmy Rogers’ vision come to fruition. Their defense has blossomed into a thick layer of concrete, allowing only 10 points per game in their last four games. Their offense has found a rhythm on the ground, polishing off this win with a 14-play, eight-minute scoring drive in the fourth quarter.
So many of the components of a Rogers team have arrived at WSU. The Cougars have illustrated that best in their last two home games, victories over Toledo and Louisiana Tech, which managed a combined 10 points at Gesa Field. But when they’ve gone on the road, whether to North Texas or Virginia or Oregon State, these Cougs have looked anything but. At times, they’ve looked like a different team entirely.
For WSU, that looms particularly large at this juncture. With only two more regular-season contests to go, the Cougs’ next game is a road matchup with 9-1 James Madison, which is squarely in the hunt for the College Football Playoff. According to a report Friday night, JMU will host ESPN’s College Gameday.
That figures to put WSU in a spotlight it has not enjoyed this season. Earlier this season, the Cougs missed opportunities for signature wins in Rogers’ debut season. With a chance to play spoiler, to knock JMU out of the playoff race and earn their best win of the season on the national stage, can these Cougars cash in?
Take some elements from WSU’s win over Louisiana Tech and you can see how the Cougars could do it. On Saturday night, two key offensive linemen returned from injury: center Brock Dieu and right tackle Christian Hilborn, the latter of whom had been out for nearly two months. Those guys gave quarterback Zevi Eckhaus much more time to throw, and it should register as no surprise that Eckhaus looked much better than he did two weeks ago, totaling three touchdowns and completing 17 of 25 passes against La Tech.
“At Oregon State, we had some moments where the offense was struggling, and we just couldn’t find a way to get it back together,” Eckhaus said. “And there were moments today where we struggled and we found a way to get it back together and put together great drives to close out the game. So just right there, moving on, showing that we have grown from that moment, and we gotta continue to grow from this one.”
The Cougars’ offense was hardly perfect in this one, at one point slogging through four straight drives that ended in punts, but Eckhaus should feel proud of the way he responded in this win. Two weeks after turning in his worst game at WSU, tossing two interceptions in a loss to a dilapidated Oregon State defense, he looked much sharper. He didn’t throw a single pick against Louisiana Tech’s defense, which entered fifth nationwide with 15 interceptions.
Perhaps more to the point: When the Cougs needed to run the ball, when they needed to chew clock and starve the Bulldogs’ offense, they did. Early in the fourth quarter, they ran off a 14-play, 66-yard touchdown drive that ran 8 minutes and 19 seconds off the clock. In weeks past, Rogers has harkened back to his days at South Dakota State, where his vision coalesced to the tune of a 27-3 record.
“We gotta be able to run the ball when the world knows that we are running the ball,” Rogers said after his club’s loss to Virginia. “That’s what great teams do.”
WSU defenders should also feel proud of the way they played in this one, holding the Bulldogs to just 167 total yards of offense, a remarkable feat whether they had lost their starting quarterback to injury the week prior or not. The Cougs piled up three sacks — 1 1/2 from Malaki Ta’ase, one from Buddha Peleti and 1/2 from Isaac Terrell — and four tackles for loss. They also produced their second interception of the season, which came from Humphrey, who agreed with Rogers after the game: he should have returned it for a touchdown.
“Yeah, I should have scored,” he laughed.
In short, the Cougars are getting healthier at the positions that matter in big ways, like their offensive line. Under defensive coordinator Jesse Bobbit, their defense is doing more of the same, and if there was an award for WSU assistant coach of the year, he would win in a runaway victory. Coming in second would be defensive line coach Jalon Bibbs, whose group has thrived in the face of devastating injuries, churning out replacements like they’re made in a factory, from Darrion Dalton to Soni Finau to Donovan Fitzmaurice, a true freshman.
That sets WSU up with the opportunity of the season. The Cougs whiffed on similar chances earlier. They did well to hang with Virginia, for example, but who knows what types of NIL donations would have rolled in if they had won? Who knows what kinds of recruits would have perked their ears up at a result like that? Who knows what kinds of resources Rogers’ program could have landed with a feather in their cap?
The Cougars can’t get that game back. But a road win over James Madison, which is surging into the College Football Playoff conversation, could resonate nearly the same. They say love covers a multitude of sins, and for the Cougs, beating the Dukes would cover a litany of blown chances in previous games, inviting a deluge of donations and recruiting attention and national limelight to Pullman.
To do it, WSU will have to play much more disciplined. The Cougs can’t afford the types of penalties that plagued them in previous road games. They can’t afford any turnovers, the kinds that Eckhaus has been prone to away from home. In other words, they’ll have to play like they did here on Saturday night: immovable on defense, versatile on offense. Extract all that from this game and do away with some of the mistakes, the listless drives and unimaginative playcalling, and they could set themselves up with a chance to deliver Rogers’ best result all season long.
“The world thinks it’s crazy,” Rogers said. “I said years ago, we set goals to hold people to 17 points, and I just thought that that was crazy. The more we retain players and keep them in this system, I do believe our goals will change, because it’s realistic to get to 10 points per game, if they do it the right way. Some of the best teams and defenses in the country do it every single year, and if we want to be that, I think the expectation needs to be extremely high that way. So our guys feel that and want to be a part of that, and it’s coming to fruition right now.”