I forgot WSU is in the conference that Limo Larry runs, so you are correct, good man.
Your most frustrating game to watch?
- Thread starter chugspig
- Start date
I forgot WSU is in the conference that Limo Larry runs, so you are correct, good man.
I was on that team. There was never anything prestigious about El Paso. Price did an incredible job of hyping up the experience to where it wasn’t a let down and we didn’t get throttled by a Purdue team that wanted it more.
I was well over 12. Remember watching and wondering when we were going to take our foot off the brake and put them away. Also remember sitting in my seat just trying to process what just happened. Or at least what Gordon Riese said happened.
At that point, we were ranked #3 in the country behind Miami and Ohio State. Both of them had games left against good teams, we had one more against mediocre UCLA. A win gives us an outright PAC-10 championship, and maybe a shot at the title game if Miami or tOSU gets upset. Instead, we play down to the level of a .500 opponent and piss away our shot (incidentally, as good as the 2002 team was, they did tend to play to the level of the competition)
Surprised nobody has mentioned ‘19 UCLA. Maybe cuz first pac12 game of the year and we had no idea what was ahead. Epic meltdown.
My level of disgust exceeded yours. The New Mexico bowl was the last college football game I watched that season. Couldn’t bring myself to watch football again until the Super Bowl...and then only because it was the Seahawks.
If I remember right we weren’t going to RB because of head to head tiebreakers but Fiesta was all but a lock. That was back in the days when pac 12 teams got at large bids.
That’s the one I blocked from memory, although I’m not sure that was disgust as much as just profound shock. We’d played so well the whole game, how did it all end with 2 minutes left?
I had not yet learned at that point that I’d have to get used to it as a Coug fan. That’s the game that really taught me the meaning behind the phrase that shall not be spoken.
I don’t remember the Fiesta talk. We had the tiebreaker against USC (which is why we ended up it the Rose), but if we’d won that Apple Cup we didn’t need the tiebreaker. It would have either been the Rose or the BCS game.
Reggie Williams should've never gone can check marked the mythical Northwest Champion shirt in front of the student section. That was the final domino that broke everything that night. F Gordon Riese. And Reggie Williams.
The Alamo was the #2 slot for the PAC-12 in 2018, which is why we went there. The Holiday was #2 in 2002. Sun has never been that high in our tie-ins, I think it topped out at #3, and now is #5.
The 2001 team went to the Sun Bowl. And none of the 01-03 teams really had a steep drop. ‘01 could not have made a NY game, their high end was the #2 slot, they got #3. ‘02 could maybe have been in the BCS game with an ACwin, and ended up in the Rose Bowl. ‘03 could have played a NY game with an AC win (not the Rose), and ended up in the #2 slot. Can’t really point to any of those as teams that got screwed by selection committees. And neither did ‘18. They could have been in the conference championship and probably would have made the Rose if they’d won AC. Instead they ended up in the #2 slot.
Regardless, nobody wanted to go to El Paso.
That statement holds true every year. I've been to El Paso twice for our bowl games and although there were some good moments, I never, ever want to step foot in that town again. Pathetic weather both times (terrible the second), a bland town with almost nothing interesting to do, and I got stuck overnight in Dallas both times that I left that craphole. I'm very happy that Vegas leapfrogged that place.
2002 Apple Cup. The most gut wrenching loss I’ve ever witnessed. Just brutal.
may have the wrong game, but when 5-8 Nate Robinson outjumped 6-6 Mike Bush on a pass I knew that better players are going to win this game. Unreal.
may have the wrong game, but when 5-8 Nate Robinson outjumped 6-6 Mike Bush on a pass I knew that better players are going to win this game. Unreal.
So many games, so little time. I would have to echo so many other fans in putting the 2002 Apple Cup at the top of the list. So much was at stake and a triple OT loss is just so hard to take.
I have 3 honorable mentions, but only 3 because I don't want to think too much about the question:
1. 1975 Apple Cup. 27-14 lead with 2 minutes to go and the ball on the UW 14-yard line. Then the pick six & miracle heave by Warren Moon, and that's the end of Jim Sweeney.
2. 2019 UCLA loss. Like many of these frustrating games, it's agonizing to think about "if one play had gone differently". But Cougs didn't deserve to win that one. Enough said.
3. I'll add a new one that probably doesn't belong but it stuck with me for some reason....in the big picture, a very insignificant game but frustrating nonetheless. 2004 loss to the Ducks 41-38. Cougs had a 10 point lead with 8 minutes to go. My wife committed the ultimate sin at that point and shouted "We're going to beat the Ducks!". While I loved her optimism, her grasp on reality as a Cougar fan comes and goes. WSU still had a 4-point lead with 3 minutes to go but couldn't stop the game winning TD. What made it most frustrating was that the Cougs gave up 27 points in the 4th quarter after giving up only 14 in the first 3 quarters. Ducks fumbled SIX times, but WSU still couldn't prevail. I lived in Oregon for nearly my entire life at that time (since relocated) and my so-called Duck fans were more than happy to rub it in with the usual "you Coug'ed it!."
Glad Cougar
I have 3 honorable mentions, but only 3 because I don't want to think too much about the question:
1. 1975 Apple Cup. 27-14 lead with 2 minutes to go and the ball on the UW 14-yard line. Then the pick six & miracle heave by Warren Moon, and that's the end of Jim Sweeney.
2. 2019 UCLA loss. Like many of these frustrating games, it's agonizing to think about "if one play had gone differently". But Cougs didn't deserve to win that one. Enough said.
3. I'll add a new one that probably doesn't belong but it stuck with me for some reason....in the big picture, a very insignificant game but frustrating nonetheless. 2004 loss to the Ducks 41-38. Cougs had a 10 point lead with 8 minutes to go. My wife committed the ultimate sin at that point and shouted "We're going to beat the Ducks!". While I loved her optimism, her grasp on reality as a Cougar fan comes and goes. WSU still had a 4-point lead with 3 minutes to go but couldn't stop the game winning TD. What made it most frustrating was that the Cougs gave up 27 points in the 4th quarter after giving up only 14 in the first 3 quarters. Ducks fumbled SIX times, but WSU still couldn't prevail. I lived in Oregon for nearly my entire life at that time (since relocated) and my so-called Duck fans were more than happy to rub it in with the usual "you Coug'ed it!."
Glad Cougar
Like you said - so many games, so little time. I guess that's the reason for the "Coug'ed It" meme we all hate so much?
In my younger days, a horrible Coug loss would stick with me seemingly forever. Now, not so much. Mostly I am able to put things behind me pretty quickly, win or lose, and move on to the next one. That works for me MOST of the time. But there are still games and circumstances that eat at my gut.
First and foremost is that 1975 Apple Cup. Especially meaningful to me as I had just graduated from WSU and was attending grad/professional school at the UW at the time. A group of us, all WSU grads in the same class/program, had arranged to get the best UW student seats in the house for that Apple Cup.
So, there we were, sitting in the "Gold Section" of UW student seating, cheering our azzes off for the Cougs. No one really bothered us at all. As you described it - 13 point lead with a bit over two minutes left and the ball on the UW 14 (or so?) yard line. OMG - there's no way to blow this one!! Except we did, as you described.
I remember standing there with my group long after the game had ended. Not really believing what had just happened. soaked through my inadequate rain gear, stunned beyond belief. It gets fuzzy after that. I don't remember getting home (renting a duplex on the back side of QA Hill, overlooking the Ballard Bridge). But I do remember that my wife's family was there for dinner and I was like a Coug kitten that had been thrown into the Montlake Cut in a sack, pulled out just before totally drowned. NOT "good company" to say the least.
THAT ONE has stayed with me all this time. It burns a hole in my gut every time I think of the circumstances. WHY throw a pass into the flat, from the 14, the ONLY place it could have turned into disaster? Of COURSE we couldn't get the kickoff and run the clock out after that! They get the ball back and, on the ridiculous TD pass, all Ken Green had to do was bat the damn ball down. Instead he deflects it up and into Spider Gaines's hands. And the GD PAT was wide, but they gave it to them anyway.
I can't go on....the acid reflux is taking over.
Like I said - ALL the others are perfectly valid. I just have been able to put things behind me pretty quickly for most of them. But that '75 AC will haunt me to my grave.
Vast coincidence, grand catastrophe, unintended consequences and unforced errors define Cougar football. It is a program and history filled with missed or blown opportunities.
Now do you understand why I put so much emphasis on coaching???? All these blown leads or poorly coached finishes...
If WSU could go back in time and remove the body bag games and even half of the bad calls or poor coaching... what does the record look like???
Now do you understand why I put so much emphasis on coaching???? All these blown leads or poorly coached finishes...
If WSU could go back in time and remove the body bag games and even half of the bad calls or poor coaching... what does the record look like???
Uhhhh... you and I have had loooooong debates over what a shithole El Paso is, with you mounting the ardent defense of what a great place it was to take your family and how much fun you had. Did that last trip ruin you?
Was that the game that their RB (Droughns was it?) put up 250+ in the pouring rain?
Apple Cup - 1975
Being only 2 when this game was played, I figured that I should have to suffer along with my fellow Cougs and experience this heartbreaker.
That pick 6 was a broken play; looks like Jack was looking for the TE who had no idea the ball was coming. Not quite sure what the play should have been there, but with 3 minutes left you know the Cougs were pressing to risk a pass instead of taking a sack and kicking a FG.
As for the tipped pass - man, thats just plain ol' Coug luck. Or Coug bad luck I should say. The only other game that I can think of that went as sideway was when Mich lost the game on that freak punt play a few years back.
Being only 2 when this game was played, I figured that I should have to suffer along with my fellow Cougs and experience this heartbreaker.
That pick 6 was a broken play; looks like Jack was looking for the TE who had no idea the ball was coming. Not quite sure what the play should have been there, but with 3 minutes left you know the Cougs were pressing to risk a pass instead of taking a sack and kicking a FG.
As for the tipped pass - man, thats just plain ol' Coug luck. Or Coug bad luck I should say. The only other game that I can think of that went as sideway was when Mich lost the game on that freak punt play a few years back.
I think that was a different nightmare. Kellen Clemens (Duck QB) threw for 3 Tds and ran for 3 TDs. It was a game in which Josh Swogger had a QB rating of 29. Yet, somehow, we were in position to win that one. Oh, the humanity!
Glad Cougar
Man thanks for telling me it was his birthday. Didn't know it. Clearly you follow him much more close than I. I wish him nothing but good health and success.
You've got me confused with someone else or someplace else on that. My wife and kids have never been to El Paso.
You are correct.
The year was 2015 and while everyone else (on the site) was giddy over the Sub Bowl, I was less than thrilled for multiple reasons, most of all it being in El Paso and hard as hell to get to. Pretty much argued with a bunch of people that don't even post here anymore.
For years I would have said the 2017 WSU/Cal game. But I don't know that anything could top the collapse against UCLA in 2019. The 2002 AC is another great mention, but considering the fact it's the Huskies, part of me expects it to go that way anyhow.
