Analysis: In win over San Diego State, WSU’s offense didn’t just look improved. The Cougs began to establish an identity

PULLMAN — A week ago, you could have lobbed a thousand different criticisms toward Washington State, whose sluggish offense nearly cost the team its season-opener. The Cougars couldn’t run the ball, committed too many penalties, pulled their starting quarterback at inopportune times and, perhaps at the heart of all their troubles, couldn’t trust their offensive line to do much of anything productive.

In the days that followed, coach Jimmy Rogers and the Cougars faced questions accordingly: Why sit quarterback Jaxon Potter when they did? What were the issues with their running game? Were their offensive linemen getting beat, making mental mistakes or some awful combination of both?

A week later, WSU hardly fixed all its problems on offense in a 36-13 win over San Diego State, and some questions remain unanswered. But with an improved rushing attack, demonstrated trust in Potter and far more physicality from their offensive line, the Cougs did what they needed to most.

They began to establish an identity.

Last winter, when Rogers took over, he figured to bring a physical style of football to Pullman. Not until Saturday’s game did his team deliver on that promise in a game setting. WSU totaled 139 rushing yards, far more than the three it managed last week, and the unit illustrated an explosiveness that was absent almost entirely last week.

The story was in the numbers, sure — the Cougars posted three passes of 30-plus yards and two rushes of 20-plus yards, and they didn’t reach either bar last week — but it was better portrayed on the field.

In the third quarter, running back Kirby Vorhees used a quick jump-cut to elude a pile of bodies and surge upfield, recording a 31-yard rush. In the same quarter, Potter faked a shorter pass and lasered a longer one into the end zone to fifth-year receiver Leon Neal Jr., who hauled in his first career touchdown. In the first quarter, Potter dropped back and found receiver Carter Pabst for a 34-yard gain, and in the next, he found Josh Meredith for a completion of the same yardage.

In their win over FCS Idaho last week, when their offensive line was scuffling and Potter looked a little hesitant to air it out, the only times the Cougs saw that much green grass was when they were walking off the field after the game.

“Definitely more comfortable,” Potter said. “It’s always a good thing when your bigs are blocking up front. I mean, you can run the ball. I thought we did a great job of that. My wideouts are getting open, and I think that the comfortability came from my teammates.”

“I think the offensive line just played with an edge tonight,” Meredith added. “They set that perimeter. At receiver, we set the perimeter, digging out the safeties. When you do the right things, the ball is gonna find its way through the holes, and that’s gonna happen every time.”

Before we go any further, let’s acknowledge this: WSU’s offense was far from perfect. A week after getting called for seven penalties for 48 yards, the Cougs were whistled for eight penalties for 55 yards. Michigan State tight end transfer Ademola Faleye has slogged through a forgettable first two games, including picking up three penalties for 25 yards, which is part of the reason why tight end Trey Leckner got more run and wound up catching two touchdown passes.

Many of WSU’s mistakes are still happening up front. Right guard AJ Vaipulu was called for holding, as was Faleye earlier in the game. The mental errors are also still plaguing the group, as evidenced by the Cougs’ two false starts and two delay of games in their first two games, but they’re experiencing more errors that involve technique — which, in Rogers’ view, is a step in the right direction.

“We stalled out ourselves on some of those drives just with penalties,” Rogers said, “and we gotta clean those things up.”

But even with the mistakes and the lulls, like WSU’s five three-and-outs, the group is improving in the ways that matter most, in the ways that help them establish an identity. A week after Potter tried 31 passes and coaches pulled him for two series, he unleashed 42 passes. And with backup QB Julian Dugger in a much more defined role — coming in for spot rushes when the defense is on its heels, not when the Cougs’ offense is stuck in mud — Potter looked like a quarterback in control of the offense.

That’s important for any team, but particularly a squad with 74 newcomers and just three returning starters. The biggest challenge facing Rogers and offensive coordinator Danny Freund was always going to be this: How do we play the way we want to and simultaneously maximize the skillsets of so many new players?

On Saturday, the duo showed they are starting to figure out what that looks like. It looks like letting Potter do what he’s best at, which is letting tt fly. It looks like using their offensive line to carve out holes for their running backs, Kirby Vorhees to Angel Johnson to Leo Pulalasi, and letting them make moves in space. It looks like involving their tight ends in the passing game, which is the strength of Leckner’s game.

It also involves a measured approach on fourth down, where Rogers displayed a deft touch on Saturday. After the game, he chuckled when talking about how often an analytics book advised going for it — a marked difference from his predecessor, Jake Dickert, who sometimes used it as a crutch — and instead went for the ones that made sense.

In the first quarter, Vorhees converted a fourth-and-1 from the Aztecs’ 39. Later in the first, Freund drew up a beautiful rub route that sprung open Meredith for a conversion. In the second, Vorhees was stuffed on a fourth-and-2, but from the SDSU 32 and nursing a narrow 10-7 lead, the decision made sense.

“We gotta get better at getting hard yards when we need it,” Rogers said, “but to get them down there and then to respond defensively and have a huge play like that, that was a momentum play for us, for sure.”

Identities are a tricky thing. When offenses execute them well, they’re easy to notice. When they don’t, they can look lost. It’s especially true of a group like WSU’s, whose work in meshing skillsets of so many newcomers is anything but complete. Rogers hammered that point home after the game, saying his team needs to be able to run the ball “when the world knows it’s coming. That’s what great teams do.”

WSU’s next game will be its most challenging yet, a road test against North Texas in what figures to be a sizzlingly hot environment. The Cougars will have their hands full, but if what they showed on Saturday is any indication, they’ll also have an identity on their minds. As Rogers guides his group through the rest of the season, he could get lots of mileage out of that.