Biggs would definitely know what middle school football looks like........
Game thread. WSU vs. FSU
- Thread starter kougkurt
- Start date
Biggs would definitely know what middle school football looks like........
Our resident 3 Year Letterman youth football coaching legend walked right into that one 😂
Your fixation with one game from 2 years ago is becoming kind of amusing. You just keep bringing it up. Meanwhile WSU is 5-1 with 2 P4 wins.
I recall an Apple Cup that ended 51-3 with a WSU RB quitting at halftime. I'm sure Biggs is still fired up about that too....
OK, sure. We have 2 P4 wins, and let's look at those:
UW beat us in pretty much every way except the score. It's hard to argue that they didn't blow that game, especially with the poorly executed bad playcall on 4th down.
Texas Tech simply couldn't account for Mateer. How many times have you seen any QB run for almost 200 yards? You've never seen it from WSU...nobody has. That was probably also our best game on both sides of the ball, and our D gave us 3 extra possessions.
Since those 2 games, we've played 2 squeakers against teams we should have beaten handily, and we got beat handily. Kind of seems like maybe we're having trouble getting motivated for MWC opponents.
But, the bigger problem I see is that the defensive weakness is still there, and has been all season. Fresno is the only team we held below 400 yards. Portland State ran for over 200 yards. The best passer we've faced (Emmett Brown) carved us up - 35/54 (64.8%) for 375, 4TDs, 2INTs.
Our current defensive rankings, in our 3rd year with our defensive-minded coach, starting with our best rankings :
Takeaways: 19th of 133. 11, or just shy of 2 per game
4th down percentage (defense): 25th of 133. 0.400
Redzone defense: 44th out of 133. 0.792
Rushing defense: 93rd, 166.5 yards per game
3rd down defense: 94th, 0.424
Yards per rush allowed: 100th, 5.26 yards per carry
Scoring defense: 101st, 29.8 points per game
Sacks, 114th, 1.17 per game
Total defense: 120th, 446.8 yards per game
Pass defense: 124th, 280.3 yards per game
Also relevant, time of possession: 102nd, 28 minutes per game.
So, again: our defense lives and dies by turnovers. But at this point, how are we ranked in the bottom third in most categories, even though we're paying a pretty soft schedule? Even at 5-1, this is a problem.
First 4 season records of the three most successful head coaches @WSU since WW II.
Mike Leach 21-29 2 bowl games 2012-2015
Mike Price 22-23 1 bowl game 1989-1992
Jake Dickert 20-17 (1*)bowl games
95 which game were you watching in the 2024 Apple Cup. UW had two long pass plays. WSU before they missed the FG in the 2nd quarter, Hutson caught a screen pass, wasn't touched and went down at the nine and there was no one between him and the goal line. WSU should have had 32, so give UW the score at the end and they still lose. If we played UW 10 times I think we come out on at least 6. We went for a 4th and 1 at the 6. We dropped a TD pass, we missed another fg after Hutson tripped. Interesting take....
Soon to be 2 for Dickert. And didn't Leach's team get hammered by a Mountain West team in Air Force in 2019. We went into Fresno where they don't lose.
Not only do they don't lose in Fresno, the ONLY thing they don't have is a Big Brand Name:
:46 Second Video....
Weakest schedule ever is hiding the issues. Not that they need to be hidden with so many fans having their heads in the sand.
You act like you're some kind of genius exposing things other can't see. You're not. And considering the sheer volume of your bitching and moaning, what could possibly be hidden?
The mediocre defense, that sometimes masks its deficiencies with turnovers has been in place here for several years. There hasn't been a big influx of talent. So gee whiz, the defense is still mediocre and masks its deficiencies when it generates turnovers. What a shocking revelation.
You bitched and moaned for years about RPO and deep balls. Guess what, we've got what you whined about. The execution is not awesome, but according to you the coaches need to be fired.
Newsflash version 3.0- Dickert is not going to get fired. It does not matter how jealous you are of him. WSU does not have the money to do that, and hire a new coaching staff. WSU does not have the money to do basic maintenance on the stadium for things like painting row numbers and letters, replacing the seat numbers that have worn off, or bolting down the bleachers.
He would have coached them to a 48-3 defeat. And of course he would have held Penix and the Huskies to 699 yards with a depleted secondary. Catch up Gibbons.
I thought the issue was we only have a 32K seat stadium. What happened to the add 30K seats “Field of dreams” theory?
Let's be real here, the Cougs are 5-1, which is great, and a good position to be in. However, the team has digressed, teams have figured out Mateer. The old way of defending the Cougs was to rush 3 or 4 and drop 8 or 7 and hope you could cover the receivers. Defenses started the year that way, which left Mateer a lot of room to run, his big runs opened up things in the passing game. Now teams realize that they way to beat the Cougs is to eliminate the Mateer runs, and force him to beat you with his arm.. So now they are rushing 4,5, or keeping a 6th guy around to prevent the runs, and forcing him to throw, unfortunately he is not hitting or finding open receivers. Until his accuracy improves, which many say either you have it, or you don't, the Cougs will struggle against an above average defense. Hawaii is coming to town, and they have an above average defense. They held Boise St to 28 points, held UCLA to 16( I realize they suck, but they have better athletes) and Hawaii should have won the game. If Mateer doesn't improve his passing game there are 2 or 3 losses ahead, in what most see as an easy schedule.
Last I checked we're a 19.5 point favorite against Hawaii. Right now, based on our offense the last few weeks, I take the Rainbows and the points.
That's fair. Hawaii's defense is pretty good, at least statistically. However, they're coming off a physical game, and are traveling 6ish hours to get to Pullman.
If we stomp on them early, a 20 point win is easy to see. The opposite is easy to see too.
Hadn't really looked at their defense until now, but by the numbers they're pretty good. Their slate of opponents isn't that impressive for the most part, though.
They played Boise State this past week, and he racked up 217 rushing yards, which is about 25% of what they've given up on the season.
The other side of the coin...while their D looks pretty good, their offense doesn't. They've given up 21 sacks, and not against great DLs.
Teams are definitely 'figuring out" Mateer, given that what he did against TT and UW was like once in a generation. But that is OK. He established something undeniable on the ground, and now the passing game is going to be available. The chemistry between him and the receivers will grow every week, and we have some breathing room to develop. Its almost like we are going back into fall practice. This is what the SEC has done for decades- schedule easy games throughout the schedule and not just progressively harder like the poor dumb PAC12. The offense will come together if we stay reasonably healthy.
If you’re halfway through the season saying “the offense will come together,” you may be in denial about what your offense is.
There is one more bye on the schedule, so there is time to work. Some things can be improved with more time and reps. Scramble drill is an example.
Things can always be improved. I don’t think Mateer can turn into a drop back progress through reads and deliver the ball on time passer during the season or over a bye week. That’s not who he is.
Seems like Arbuckle worked with him on that during the bye week and wanted to showcase how far he’d come. Didn’t work out so well.
I think the bigger question is...why would you want to turn him into a drop back passer? It's not who he is, and it ignores a major part of his talent. You don't change your players to fit your system, you either get players that already fit, or you change your system.
Not exactly the same situation, but it reminds me a bit of when Arizona had Khalil Tate looking like an unstoppable weapon and then screwed around trying to make him a drop-back passer (possibly because he demanded that they do so for him to stick around, since he wanted to show he could do that for the NFL). Didn't work and he never was close to as effective as he had been.
While I realize that huge changes are unlikely...it's important to remember that we have a brand new QB and a completely revamped WR Corps this year. The notion that no improvement is possible is just as foolish as assuming that big changes are coming.
Sorry- I thought this was obvious, but college football is a completely different sport than even 5 years ago.
We started the season with 49 new players, not 24 new freshman like back in the day.
We are not some veteran, polished team, and we will NEVER AGAIN have stability in our roster. This is the new college football, especially for teams like WSU. We are literally going to have to improve quarter by quarter. Forget all of these comparison to past Cougar teams. It really is irrelevant what CMP or CML built. Those days are gone forever, and no coach can bring them back.
Time to wake up or move on to a new sport Gramps.
