The layers of problems with Washington State’s defense

PULLMAN — Not a cloud hung in the sky at Rogers Field, where Washington State had just wrapped up a practice early in fall camp, a crucial preseason stretch for a team with so many newcomers. It was Aug. 2, the fourth day of fall camp, and on a sizzling Saturday afternoon, the Cougars’ defense had run away with the practice.

Defensive ends surged into the backfield for simulated sacks. Linebackers forced fumbles. Linemen made quarterbacks run for their lives in the backfield. With so many more fall camp sessions left to go, so many weeks until the Cougars’ season-opener, it was hard to tell how these kinds of plays would translate to game settings – but they all made for promising signs for WSU.

So on this scorcher of a day, after practice finished, defensive coordinator Jesse Bobbit ambled over to discuss things with reporters. He wore a crimson shirt to represent WSU, a black hat to shield his eyes from the sun.

“Our mentality,” Bobbit said, “is that we are going to win on defense.”

Nearly eight weeks later, WSU is now 2-2. The Cougars’ defense has permitted 59 points in one loss and 52 in another. The unit has allowed some of the most points nationwide, which has played a key role in the Cougs’ two-game slide, putting their season in jeopardy ahead of a challenging three-game stretch of road games.

Has WSU won on defense? The easy answer, based on recent results, might be no. But the reasons for the Cougars’ struggles on defense extend far beyond the point totals they have surrendered. To understand why Washington State has permitted more than 100 points in two games, you have to understand the dynamics around the entire team.

The numbers are not pretty, at least not those on the surface. Through four games, WSU is allowing 35.3 points per game, which is No. 124 of 134 FBS teams. In their 59-24 loss to rival Washington last weekend, the Cougars did not record a single stop, absent the Huskies’ final kneel-down to wind out the clock. Only seven teams in the country have allowed more total points than WSU, which has yielded 141.

Dig a little deeper and the trends get even more concerning for the Cougars. They have missed 67 tackles, according to Pro Football Focus, tied for most in the country. Redshirt freshman linebacker Anthony Palano leads the country with 11 missed tackles. So far this season, WSU has earned a PFF tackling grade of just 40.3, third-worst in the country.

But only two other teams have had the opportunity to clash with Washington’s offense, which ranks among the most prolific in the country, perhaps explaining some of the Cougars’ wayward tackling. They whiffed on 19 in the Apple Cup, including three apiece from Palano and veteran safety Tucker Large, the latter of whom went flying out of bounds as UW star running back Jonah Coleman jetted ahead for another long gain.

Still, so many of these macro numbers do not favor WSU, which also ranks among the worst teams nationally in third-down defense, allowing opponents to convert 46% of third-down chances – good for No. 116. Another number in the same vein: The Cougars have allowed opponents to convert 15 of 15 chances in the red zone. Only three other teams have allowed more red zone scores than WSU, and in that group, only one – Sam Houston State, which joined the FBS ranks last year – has also failed to record a stop.

“We brought players here that I know can make tackles. They missed tackles,” WSU coach Jimmy Rogers said of his group’s loss to UW. “There are certain players that are on the field that had an opportunity to finish a play, whether it be on the quarterback or Coleman, and we didn’t execute. They were sitting in situations where we have the opportunity to make a one-on-one tackle, and we miss the tackle.

“They’re great players, but if we’re gonna play at this level, we gotta find guys that can make those plays, obviously, and the guys that are on the field gotta execute the call and do it the right way, at the right speed. Some of it is just a wrong step here or there, and those things will cost versus good talent. And they’re a good team.”

In that way, it is possible to explain WSU’s defensive struggles through the lens of the opponent, at least the most recent one. The Huskies’ offense ranks No. 3 nationally according to PFF, and while the Cougars do have road games against the likes of No. 13 Ole Miss and Virginia lined up, they won’t face the same caliber of playmakers again this season. From a viewpoint even further zoomed out, the transitional period WSU finds itself in – new coach, new players, two-team conference – only augmented the recruiting advantages NIL-rich UW has.

But many of WSU’s problems are better explained by the circumstances under which they are happening. Consider this: the Cougs have a minus-7 turnover margin. They have lost nine total turnovers. In the country, only four other teams have lost more: Florida Atlantic, Nevada, Coastal Carolina and Hawaii, all of which have combined for two FBS wins this season.

This is also worth pointing out: In the Cougars’ first two defensive outings of the season, allowing 10 points to FCS Idaho and 13 to San Diego State, their offense combined for only one turnover. In their next two showings, allowing 59 points to North Texas and 52 to Washington, the Cougs’ offense combined for eight turnovers.

That is the easiest way to explain how, despite allowing more than 100 points in these two games, WSU’s defense still ranks No. 53 nationally with 329.2 yards per game. The Cougars are No. 38 with 177 passing yards allowed per game, No. 78 with 151 rushing yards allowed per game.

But the turnovers have put the Cougars in some tremendously tough spots on defense. In the first half of their loss to North Texas on Sept. 13, which is when things were still competitive, quarterback Jaxon Potter threw three interceptions. The Mean Green started five of eight drives inside WSU territory.

WSU lost three turnovers against UW, which used an interception to start one drive at its own 47 and a fumble to start another at the WSU 28. The Huskies needed only five plays to score a touchdown on the first drive. They needed only three to score a touchdown on the second. And that’s to make no mention of UW’s pick-six on Eckhaus.

Even against FCS Idaho, WSU’s defense had to produce a timely stop after a turnover, which came on an Angel Johnson fumble at the Cougs’ 11. Washington State did well to limit Idaho to a field goal on that series, preserving a chance to eke out a close win, but the takeaway is clear: When the Cougars turn it over, they put their defense in difficult situations, and those have not gone WSU’s way.

One advanced stats organization, BCF Toys, uses a metric called net starting field position (NFP) to measure where offenses start drives on average. It uses DFP to measure where opponents start drives on average. WSU ranks last in the country in both. The Cougars’ NFP is -14.2, and their DFP is 58.6.

For WSU, those numbers are unsettling, and they do a great job of illustrating the deeper reasons behind its defense’s woes. But the figures themselves can be a tad confusing. This one is much clearer: A whopping 37% of WSU’s defensive drives have started less than 60 yards from the end zone. That mark is third-worst nationally.

Put more simply, according to an advanced stats model called Game on Paper, WSU’s defense is starting drives at its own 32 on average. That ranks No. 130 nationally.

Plus, it is not just that the Cougars’ defense starting in tough spots. They also are not getting chances to start drives in favorable ones. Only 7% of WSU’s defensive drives have started more than 80 yards from the end zone, which is seventh-worst nationally.

Can that be a measuring stick for how a team will finish the season? In the last 10 full seasons, only six teams to finish in the bottom 10 of NFP have gone on to make a bowl game. The Cougars do have plenty of time to turn things around, so that number may not apply to them by year’s end. But if the trend holds for WSU, the team may be looking at a long season.

“We gotta be able to flip the field if we wanna be good,” Rogers said on Sept. 8. “At the end of the day, if we expect our defense to hold people and then get a three-and-out, they’re punting to us and they flip it, we cut the margin in half in how far we have to go to score a touchdown. That’s what I’m talking about. We have to be able to move the ball regardless if we’re scoring or not, to flip fields to make them move it on us, rather than giving it to them at the 50 every single drive.”

That the Cougars are getting handed tough field position on defense is largely explained by their turnover problems on offense, which have laid the foundation for many of the team’s biggest issues in general. But the reasons why their defense hasn’t gotten many chances to start drives with the opponent backed up is a little more complicated.

Reason No. 1 involves WSU’s rushing offense, which continues to scuffle. Through four games, the Cougars have registered 233 rushing yards, fourth-fewest in the country. They are averaging only 58.3 rushing yards per game, second-fewest nationally. That has forced WSU to reconfigure its offense – all the way up to its starting quarterback, where Rogers pulled Potter for Eckhaus after three games – and because defenses haven’t always respected the Cougars’ rushing game, they feel comfortable dropping more players into coverage, where interceptions have piled up.

WSU’s opponents have turned those interceptions into fantastic field position – in the first half, North Texas’ average starting field position was the WSU 11 – and that’s where the Cougs’ defense has floundered in tough spots.

Reason No. 2 involves the Cougs’ punting game, which struggled early on. Against Idaho, WSU punter Ryan Harris recorded one punt of 28 yards, which landed the Vandals at the Cougars’ 38. Against San Diego State, Harris logged one punt of 36 yards, allowing the Aztecs to start at their own 44. They scored a touchdown five plays later.

The following week, against North Texas, the Cougars botched a punting play. Harris couldn’t handle a bad snap, so he had to retreat and pick up the ball. By the time he did that, UNT defenders had converged in time to get a piece as Harris tried to kick it away – all told, a punt of only 11 yards. The Mean Green started that drive at the Cougar 30 and scored a touchdown in six plays, part of their 42-point onslaught in just the first half.

Asked to evaluate his group’s defense after that game, Rogers said this: “Not the best. It was sloppy. But we also didn’t put them in the best situations – at the 18, and at the 12 on one. Then they flip the field again on us. I don’t even know where the punt landed, but it wasn’t where it was supposed to be, obviously, with the bad snap.

“Rough situations, back-to-back-to-back. It’s hard to play defense when your back’s against the wall consistently, and that’s how we were starting drives.”

All of that has made things substantially harder on WSU’s defense, but even so, that unit has struggled in its own right. The best way to illustrate that is through EPA, expected points added, which quantifies how much a specific play increases or decreases a team’s probability of scoring points on a possession. Average is 0.0, so positive numbers indicate above-average play and negative numbers indicate poor play.

Overall, the Cougars’ EPA is -0.39, which ranks No. 134 nationally. Only two teams have worse marks: Oklahoma State, which recently fired longtime coach Mike Gundy, and Massachusetts, which is 0-3.

That has put real pressure on WSU’s defense, which has endured a forgettable two games. The Cougars have a chance to turn that around this weekend against Colorado State, whose offense struggled so much in a loss to UTSA last weekend that in the fourth quarter, coach Jay Norvell benched QB Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi for third-year sophomore Jackson Brousseau, who is expected to start against WSU.

Can the Cougs solve their defensive struggles in Fort Collins? That much is complicated. Starting defensive tackle Max Baloun is expected to miss the rest of the season with an injury, Rogers said, while fellow starter Bryson Lamb is questionable with his own injury. But WSU defensive ends like Buddha Peleti and Bobby Terrell will get the chance to attack CSU’s offensive line, which has yielded 21 pressures and one sack this season.

Still, the Cougs’ offense will have to do its part. If anything has become clear about their season, it is this: WSU’s problems on offense and defense run together.