Arizona State
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Arizona State |
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Lewiston Tribune Online 11/07/01
PULLMAN -- Free-lancing has played a notable role in Washington State’s offense the last two years, but the Cougars are emphasizing structure this week.
Coach Mike Price said he altered his practice schedule Tuesday to focus on individual fundamentals after the Cougars netted only 276 offensive yards in a 20-14 win over UCLA.
The Cougars (5-1, 8-1) have led the Pac-10 in total offense for most of the season (they’re second now behind Oregon), but have scored only three offensive touchdowns the past two games.
They face Arizona State at 3:30 p.m. PST Saturday at Tempe, Ariz.
If quarterback Jason Gesser is the most visible free-lancer in the WSU offense, he isn’t the only player being asked to show more discipline. Route-running and blocking schemes need to be executed more precisely, Price said.
"It’s not just one person -- it’s everybody doing their own thing, and that’s B.S.," Price said Sunday. "You can’t be like that. It’s not that kind of game. It’s a team game. We’ve got to execute the offense the way it’s intended."
Part of the Cougars’ recent offensive problems can be attributed to their opponents, particularly UCLA. Oregon coach Mike Bellotti said Tuesday the Bruins’ defense "may be the best defense I’ve seen in the nation."
KABLOOEY -- Cougars tight end Jeremy Thielbahr said he wasn’t surprised by the WSU defense’s strong performance against UCLA.
After the D had been exploited by Oregon the previous week, it took out its frustrations on the scout-team offense.
"I could hear it -- there was some serious hitting going on," Thielbahr said. "I remember talking to Adam West and he said ‘I just got hammered. They’re killing us over there.’’’
No, he didn’t mean Batman. Adam West is a freshman tight end on the scout team.
A GOOD REFERENCE -- Price gave a ringing endorsement for his former assistant, Andre Patterson, who has been mentioned as a candidate for the head-coaching job at California.
"I told this to him 15 years ago," he said. "‘You’re going to be a head coach in the NFL someday. You’re going to be a head coach at a major university someday. You’ve got that ability.’
"We don’t want it to be at Cal," he was compelled to add. "We have to play them."
Patterson, who coached defensive linemen for Price in 1992 and ’93, is now an assistant for the Dallas Cowboys.
California coach Tom Holmoe announced his resignation Sunday, effective at season’s end.
INJURY UPDATE -- Cougars linebacker James Price is doubtful for the ASU game. Although his ailment was listed as the flu last week, the Cougars are now saying knee and ankle injuries kept him out of the UCLA contest.
Running back Dave Minnich remains questionable because of scar tissue from his recent knee injury. Fluid was drained form the knee Monday.
Lewiston Tribune Online 11/08/01
Tribune/Kyle Mills
Free safety Lamont Thompson is Washington State’s leading tackler this season,
but interceptions are his claim to fame. If he musters one more theft in WSU’s
final three games, he will finish in the NCAA all-time career top 10.
Dale Grummert
PULLMAN -- It’s happening again. Lamont Thompson is inhaling errant passes
like a mobile industrial vacuum. His Washington State career is ending the same
strange way it began, with a flurry of interceptions and an impending bowl game.
Is there a cause-and-effect relationship here? Probably, but don’t ask what it
is. Thompson isn’t.
When the senior free safety swiped four more passes last week, he tied the Pac-10 single-game and career records and became roughly the 13th-most prolific interceptor in NCAA Division I history. If he gets one more theft in WSU’s final three games, he’ll finish in the top 10.
The Cougars (8-1) play at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Arizona State.
The odd thing about Thompson’s 21 career interceptions is their distribution. Ten came in his first nine games as a starter. He has bagged another seven this season.
In between came an almost three-year stretch in which he pulled off only four heists -- and this statistical drought was the least of his worries.
Even if Thompson were inclined to dwell on the past, he probably wouldn’t do so verbally. This fellow seems to think and feel far more than he expresses. To some extent, he remains the quiet, humble kid from inner-city Richmond, Calif., who seemed bewildered by the attention he attracted in his rookie season, when he intercepted three passes in what might be the biggest win in school history, the 1997 Apple Cup win against Washington.
Yet he no longer seems bewildered. And if you prod a bit, you might persuade him to describe the uncertainties of that three-year period of limbo.
His first real setback came in 1999, when a shortage of cornerbacks induced the Cougars to move Thompson to that demanding position. This blunted his strengths.
At 6-foot-2 and 220 pounds, he does his best work as a free-ranging goalkeeper. That became obvious again last week when he snagged three wild Cory Paus bombs in the final 12 minutes of the Cougars’ 20-14 win over UCLA. His nickname, Hawk, has never seemed more fitting.
"He just soars center field and picks balls out of the sky," WSU linebacker Raonall Smith said.
At cornerback in 1999, however, Thompson was tethered to a specific assignment, no longer free to roam and prey. He got burned a few times. He missed a few tackles. He seemed to lose his confidence.
He turned around and realized he was no longer a freshman prodigy. Of course, his classmates remembered how dazzling he could be at free safety. To freshmen and transfers, though, he was just a struggling cornerback.
"I learned a lot from that year, from people that treat you differently when things are not going your way," he said. His tone was bemused rather than resentful. "It was weird how people approached you. I was playing all right at safety. I got put at corner, and I’d be the first to admit I played awful. It was a new position and I thought I was more than capable of doing it. It just turned out that it wasn’t really my position."
More disturbingly, Thompson sustained a seemingly minor neck injury, and it wouldn’t go away. It lingered in spring camp. It lingered through the summer. It sidelined him early in the 2000 season, and eventually the Cougars announced Thompson would redshirt that year and return as good as new in 2001.
What they didn’t admit publicly was their worst-case worries, based on doctors’ discovery that Thompson was born with a condition called stenosis, or a narrow spinal canal.
It was the same general condition that prompted WSU doctors, out of fear of paralysis, to end the careers of defensive ends Eboni Wilson and Mark Hedeen in 1999 and offensive lineman Ryan Raymond in 2000.
So doctors put Thompson through a battery of tests to determine the specifics of his condition. Eventually they determined his case was different from the others. For one thing, he had never experienced brief spells of numbness on the field, as they had.
"How often do we get this? Not very often," WSU trainer Bill Drake said. "But when we do, you have to get to the right doctors and get it looked at. How much space is there for the spinal cord? Is there fluid around the cord? Is the vertebra wide enough? It was determined Lamont’s was?"
Thompson waited. When it became clear that his long-term health wasn’t at risk, he was left with the simple frustration of not playing. By now, his neck was on its way to a full recovery. He was itching to redeem himself after the cornerback episode, but now he would have to wait another year.
Of course, his teammates were taking their own lumps. Losers of three overtime games, they finished 4-7. That might have been Thompson’s senior season.
Instead he is rewarded with this final ride: the parade of school and conference records, the unnamed bowl game, the possible conference title. Thompson is even being mentioned as a candidate for Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year, though UCLA linebacker Robert Thomas is probably the front-runner.
So was his injury a blessing in disguise? He doesn’t think in those terms. For all his modesty, he refuses to discount the impact he might have furnished last season. "Maybe I could have made some kind of difference in the outcome of those close games," he said. "You never know."
He doesn’t speculate. His view of things is much more basic.
Last year, he was afraid his career was done. Now he isn’t. "I’m
just truly blessed right now to be playing football," he said.
NOTES -- According to the Tacoma News Tribune, the Pac-10 is polling athletic directors on the possibility of changing its tie-breaking formula in a way that could give the Cougars a break. As it stands, they may be penalized for playing a I-AA opponent, Montana State. But the league may waive the penalty because the game was added to WSU’s schedule amid the shufflings prompted by Sept. 11.
Lewiston Tribune Online 11/09/01
When Dirk Koetter’s name began popping up in connection with the Arizona State coaching vacancy last November, Sun Devil supporters may have said, "Who?" but observers in the Inland Northwest said, "Ah!"
For various vague reasons, it seemed an ideal pairing, at least to those familiar with Koetter’s work at Boise State. For one thing, the football program at ASU has long been described as a sleeping giant, and Koetter reputedly never sleeps.
"He spends hours and hours and hours a day watching tape and game-planning," said Sun Devils assistant head coach Tom Osborne, echoing the comments of several others.
Of course, giants don’t wake easily. The Sun Devils (1-4, 4-4) take a two-game losing streak into their game at 3:30 p.m. PST Saturday at Tempe, Ariz., against Washington State (5-1, 8-1).
Koetter, 42, originally from Pocatello, sizzled to a 26-10 record in three years at Boise State, which had gone 7-17 the previous two seasons. He created a minor stir when he plunged into the job market last year, briefly accepting the reins at Oklahoma State and later saying his commitment had hinged upon what might happen at Tempe.
The Devils wanted him, so off he went.
At various times over the past couple of decades, Arizona State has been associated with pugnacity, chutzpah, brashness. These are traits that attach to Koetter as well, though his players and associates are more apt to stress his "intensity" and his extreme attention to detail.
"We have a down-to-the-minute itinerary," Arizona State center Scott Peters said. "You know what you’re going to be doing three weeks in advance."
Peters said his first impressions of Koetter last winter have held true: "He was all business, he was confident and he wanted to win."
In some ways, he is reminiscent of the Dennis Erickson of several years ago -- a coach’s son and ex-quarterback with a boyish charm, a rough-hewed swagger and a tacit dislike for public relations. He seems to have a knack for alienating people. In Tempe, though, he is doubtless learning to cope with boosters and media, as Erickson did at Miami.
The Pac-10 is not unfamiliar territory for him. He was offensive coordinator at Oregon in 1996 and ’97, and his stylish offense (he acts as his own offensive coordinator) still bears similarities to the Ducks’ attack. His Boise State teams played Washington State in 1998 and 2000, and WSU players still talk about the Broncos’ inventive methods of talking smack.
Cougars coach Mike Price quashes reporters’ attempts to suggest a tension between him and Koetter, but the two of them clearly run in different circles of the coaching fraternity.
Price made a humorous reference to Koetter last month when asked how coaches generally send their congratulations to one another after a big win.
"Phone -- head coaches phone," he said. "I don’t know any of these head coaches who are into e-mail or computers. Maybe some young guy out there somewhere. Maybe Dirk Koetter. Guys like me and Erickson and Bob Toledo -- we pick up the phone."
By whatever medium, though, Koetter is likely to receive his share of congratulations in the coming seasons, according to those familiar with his doggedness.
"Coach Koetter will do well there," Boise State tailback Brock Forsey said early this season. "He definitely turned this program around, and the coaches he has are really good. Arizona State is definitely a team that needs to do some rebuilding, and I think they’ve got the right guy to do it."
NOTES -- The Sun Devils haven’t beaten a ranked opponent since they handed WSU its first loss of 1997. Since then they have lost 10 times to such opponents. The Cougars were ranked 10th before the ’97 loss, and are rated 11th now. ... Arizona State’s top two rushers, Delvon Flowers and Tom Pace, each average 5.9 yards per carry. ... Quarterback Jeff Krohn is seventh nationally in passing efficiency. He has been medically cleared to play after missing the second half against Oregon last week with a concussion. ... The Sun Devils have been using five defensive backs at a time lately, and they still gave up six touchdown passes to Oregon in a 42-24 loss. ... WSU linebacker James Price will stay home with his knee injury. Running back Dave Minnich (knee) and offensive tackle Calvin Armstrong (concussion) will travel but are still questionable.
Lewiston Tribune Online 11/10/01
TEMPE, Ariz. -- For Northwesterners who make it a point to disparage California and/or Arizona whenever possible, this week has been delicious: Cougars and Huskies and Ducks ruling the Pac-10 Conference at 5-1 apiece.
By the end of the day, they could all be 6-1. Delectable.
But that’s the geographic viewpoint, and Washington State fans can’t afford to think that way. In addition to pulling for the Cougars against Arizona State today at Sun Devils Stadium, they want UCLA to knock off Oregon at Pasadena.
That would neutralize Oregon’s tie-breaking edge over the Cougs, whose only loss came against the Ducks.
Asked if he will be thinking about the Oregon-UCLA game, WSU coach Mike Price said no, not especially.
But he couldn’t resist giving a long-distance pep talk to the Bruins, who lost star tailback DeShaun Foster this week to concerns about possible NCAA violations.
"We beat UCLA without our No. 1 running back," he reasoned. "Oregon beat us without their No. 1 running back. So why can’t UCLA beat Oregon without their No. 1 running back? I hope that’s the way those guys in L.A. feel."
At stake are the sunlit charms that surround the Cougars here in Tempe, which will be the site of the Fiesta Bowl pitting the Pac-10 and Big 12 champions Jan. 1.
The consolation prizes for the second- through fourth-place finishers in the conference are (ostensibly but not necessarily in this order) the Holiday Bowl in San Diego on Dec. 28, the Sun Bowl at El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 31 and the former Aloha Bowl, transmuted into the Seattle Bowl, on Dec. 27.
Not that the Cougs are officially talking about those enticements. Price isn’t nearly as superstitious about bowl chatter as he was before his Rose Bowl baptism four years ago. But, his Foster comment notwithstanding, he is bending over backward to stress Cougar self-improvement this week, rather than bowls or opponents or revenge or tie-breaker minutia. A little tritely, he is calling this the season finale, saying the Apple Cup at Washington next week is a season unto itself.
For the WSU offense, self-improvement means handling the blitz better and heeding the strictures of the playbook. For the defense, it means proving that last week’s superb performance against UCLA can’t be attributed solely to a surprising foray into 5-2 alignments and the Bruins’ injury-racked quarterbacks.
Arizona State is a 2½-point underdog and has a 0-10 recent record against ranked teams. But the Devils, with their talented offense, may be poised for a breakthrough soon.
"They’re a dangerous, dangerous football team," said Price, who probably would have preferred to face ASU earlier in Dick Koetter’s debut season as coach. In almost every other way, the Cougars’ schedule has been close to ideal.
This time of year, the Cougars tend to struggle with the Arizona heat: The abrupt change in temperature seems to tamper with their metabolism. It probably didn’t help that kickoff time was changed from 6 to 3:30 p.m. PST to accommodate FOX television.
Regardless of the site, Arizona State has been devilish on the Cougs lately. Last year’s overtime win at Pullman was ASU’s fourth straight over Washington State, dating back to a 44-31 victory at Tempe in 1997 that spoiled the Cougars’ bid for a national championship and purportedly left Price crestfallen.
A win might mean payback, and it might mean a blow for the Northwest. But that’s not exactly how the Cougars are looking at it.
Lewiston Tribune Online 11/11/01
TEMPE, Ariz. -- When the clock reached zero, the first thing Washington State players heard was the crowd’s bitter reaction. Then they met in the middle of the field for the customary group prayer. Finally they gravitated to a corner of the stadium to greet their euphoric fans.
Boos, prayers, cheers -- through this sequence of signals the Cougars realized they were 9-1 for the third time in school history.
It took a halfback pass, an initially jumpy backup quarterback and a highly disputed fumble return for a touchdown, but WSU defeated Arizona State 28-16 Saturday evening and sustained its hopes for a Pac-10 Conference championship.
"It feels weird being 9-1," said linebacker Raonall Smith, who had played a central role in the strangeness of the game, "because I’ve never been 9-1 personally, except for the Rose Bowl year."
Smith and most of the other seniors were redshirts for that 1997 team, which finished 10-2 but lost here to Arizona State. For all the obstacles this 2001 team has faced, it can still exceed the win-loss record of that Cougar dream season.
The only other year WSU has stood 9-1 was 1930.
With the status of quarterback Jason Gesser uncertain because of a concussion suffered in the third quarter, the Cougars head into a regular-season finale at Washington on Saturday with a chance to win a conference title, needing help from Oregon State in its game Dec. 1 against Oregon.
With Washington losing to Oregon State on Saturday, the Cougars are tied with Oregon atop the standings at 6-1.
The Cougs scored a touchdown in each quarter -- two beauties by surprising wide receiver Jerome Riley (who caught six passes for 158 yards) and two peculiar second-half plays when the game had become a survival test, with both starting quarterbacks shelved with injuries.
The clincher came with 6:58 remaining, when sore-kneed tailback Dave Minnich threw an awkward blooper that found a laughably open target in Collin Henderson for a 21-yard score, padding a 21-16 lead. The trick play had worked earlier in the season, but Minnich hadn’t practiced it in more than a month.
"It was in the game plan but I didn’t think we were going to run it," said a grinning Minnich, who wasn’t even sure his knee would allow him to play. "I was trying to throw another bullet, and that’s what happened."
The play that had inspired the ire of the crowd of 47,229 occurred in the third quarter when Smith tackled backup quarterback Andrew Walter from behind. The ball dribbled loose, but players from both teams -- all except Smith -- evidently thought the play was dead. The senior outside linebacker had time to disengage himself from Walter, rise from the turf and pick up the ball. Almost as an academic exercise, he ran 27 yards into the end zone -- and, surprise, an official’s arms went up.
When the large video screen at Sun Devil Stadium showed the replay, fans jeered bitterly and hurled debris to the field. They thought Walter’s knee had touched the ground before the ball came loose.
"I didn’t hear any whistles," Smith said. "And we’ve been taught if you don’t hear a whistle keep playing, especially in that situation, when there’s no one there (ahead of the play). I just picked it up, kept running, didn’t hear any whistles, and they called a touchdown. We got lucky, I guess.
"It was a weird moment," Smith said. "Half the guys were hugging me. The other half were seeing what the ref was doing. It was probably the strangest play I’ve ever been involved in."
Arizona State coach Dirk Koetter gingerly indicated his opinion.
"I’m sure you guys can figure out what my thoughts on that are," he said. "I was on the other sideline, so I couldn’t see it until the replay, and you saw what happened."
Washington State coach Mike Price took the opposite stance.
"I couldn’t understand what they were griping about," he said. "I saw the ball popped out of the guy’s elbow. So it looked like a good call to me. Of course, I wouldn’t say anything different.
"But that’s one of the first breaks we’ve got like that all year. Think about it, guys. We’ve earned every game we’ve won. And we earned this one."
They needed to reach deeply for it, particularly when Gesser left with a concussion midway through the third quarter and was replaced by Matt Kegel. The backup initially struggled but made a breakthrough with Mike Bush’s 55-yard catch-and-run, on a poor tackle attempt by Adrian Thomas, setting up Minnich’s TD pass.
"He just needed to settle down ..." Price said. "He was fine. And I thought our line did a great job blocking in that fourth quarter."
The Sun Devils (1-5, 4-5) lost starting quarterback Jeff Krohn to a first-half shoulder injury, turning to Walter and Matt Cooper. Shaun McDonald collected 169 reception yards.
This was primarily a defensive triumph, though the Cougars gave up 429 yards. They forged a goal-line stand to protect a 14-7 lead early in the third quarter, with tackle Rien Long making stops on third-and-1 and fourth-and-2.
Lamont Thompson broke a Pac-10 record with his 22nd career interception, and linebacker Alex Nguae played inspiredly, making two quarterback sacks.
Yet things came so slowly. The clearest images are of Smith waiting for a ruling on his touchdown, Henderson waiting for Minnich’s quail to land, the Cougars waiting on the field for the victory to sink in.
But 9-1 is worth the wait.
Washington St.
7
7
7 7--28
Arizona
St.
7
0
2 7--16
First Quarter
WSU--Riley 72 pass from Gesser (Dunning kick), 10:26.
ASU--McDonald 40 pass from Krohn (Barth kick), 9:39.
Second Quarter
WSU--Riley 32 pass from Gesser (Dunning kick), 14:32.
Third Quarter
ASU--Safety, Gesser slipped in end zone, 8:50.
WSU--Smith 27 fumble return (Dunning kick), 4:26.
Fourth Quarter
ASU--Flowers 2 run (Barth kick), 9:42.
WSU--Henderson 21 pass from Minnich (Dunning kick), 6:58.
A--47,229
| WSU | ASU | |
| First downs | 18 | 18 |
| Rushes-yards | 37-97 | 42-130 |
| Passing | 289 | 299 |
| Comp-Att-Int | 14-29-2 | 13-32-1 |
| Return Yards | 39 | 15 |
| Punts-Avg. | 6-44 | 6-36 |
| Fumbles-Lost | 3-1 | 2-2 |
| Penalties-Yards | 10-66 | 6-59 |
| Time of Possession | 30:19 | 29:41 |
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING--Washington St., Minnich 17-52, Tippins 9-34, Bushy 1-8, Gesser 5-7, Kegel 4-(minus 3), team 1-(minus 1). Arizona St., Flowers 31-137, Lightfoot 3-18, Pace 2-4, Walter 2-(minus 4), Cooper 1-(minus 11), Krohn 3-(minus 14).
PASSING--Washington St., Gesser 11-18-1-208, Kegel 2-10-1-60, Minnich 1-1-0-21. Arizona St., Krohn 7-15-1-157, Cooper 5-13-0-89, Walter 1-4-0-53.
RECEIVING--Washington St., Riley 6-158, Bush 3-86, McElrath 2-13, Henderson 1-21, Minnich 1-7, Thielbahr 1-3. Arizona St., McDonald 5-169, O’Neal 5-70, Dennard 1-41, Taplin 1-22, Flowers 1-(minus 3).
From Cougfan.com 11/11/2001
Washington State goes 9-1
Game recap,
PLUS scoring summary and statistics
By HOMER CARDLE
Cougfan.com Correspondent
The Washington State Cougars survived the injury loss of QB Jason Gesser, the drunken wrath of Arizona State fans, and some dubious “pay-back” officiating to defeat the Sun Devils today, 28-16.
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Gesser was taken out of action midway into the third-quarter with bruised ribs and dizziness after getting hit running for a crucial first-down. The Hurlin’ Hawaiian tossed two first half touchdown passes to Jerome Riley, the first covering 72 yards.
Arizona State strengthened their case for the conference “classless fans” title. The Tempe-tantrum crowd continued their bizarro-world tradition of tortilla tossing, but added water jugs and booze bottles into the mix following a controversial call and it’s continuous replay on the stadium screen. The call, an ASU fumble recovered by Raonall Smith for a touchdown, turned the crowd riotous when replays showed Sun Devil QB Andrew Walter may have been down before losing the ball.
Pac-10 officials, possibly fearing for their safety, appeared to repent their possible error with a few controversial calls against WSU. One of those questionable calls, an unsportsmanlike conduct flag on Billy Newman, turned a Sun Devil fourth down on the Cougar 4-yard line into a fourth down on the 2. ASU back Delvon Flowers scored on the next play.
Cougar safety Lamont Thompson intercepted a Jeff Krohn pass early in the game, giving him sole possession of the Pac-10 record with 22 career air-thefts.
The Cougars sealed the deal eight minutes into the fourth quarter with their patented option pass, this time Collin Henderson on the receiving end of a David Minnich toss that covered 20 yards.
Washington State is now 9-1 on the season going into their final regular season game versus Washington, 7-2, next Saturday. An Apple Cup win and an Oregon loss to Oregon State would earn the Cougs their second Pac-10 championship in five years. For greaterperspective on the Cougar win in the desert, click on http://washingtonstate.theinsiders.com/2/24434.html
From Cougfan.com 11/11/01
It's about time we get a
call!
Knee down or
not, we've been here before
By GREG WITTER
Cougfan.com Executive Editor
PAYBACKS ARE HELL. Especially so when they bite you in the rump nearly four decades later. That's right. Ya wanna talk about a questionable call? Forget Raonall Smith's heads-up run to paydirt yesterday in Tempe.
Return to the Valley of the Sun, circa 1965, and weep over a pair of calls that ultimately separated WSU's fabled Cardiac Kids from a Rose Bowl berth.
Pull out the grainy tape of Larry Eilmes crossing of the goal line in the third quarter and the official's subsequent spot at the one-foot-line. Focus in on that seamless two-point conversion toss from Tom Roth to Ammon McWashington in the final minute to win by a point. Oops. Nullified? Too much time? What?
Turns out the official charged with keeping time was using a watch with a sweep second-hand.
YOU DON'T HAVE to go back to the Age of Aquarius to find examples of crimson injustice, though.
That unsportsman-like call on Billy Newman near the goal line in the
fourth quarter Saturday night was one for Ripley's.
Or how about two weeks ago when an Oregon defender saw fit to practically
remove Mike Bush from his jersey before Jason Gesser's final pass
of the night arrived.
Where was the call then? Will that turn out to be the play that decides the Pac-10 race?
How about two years ago when Arizona's Bobby Wade put on the best acting performance this side of Meryl Streep to turn an incomplete Hail Mary at the gun into a Wildcat victory?
And, of course, is there any need to even mention the final two seconds of the 1998 Rose Bowl?
Thought so.
In the glow of an eight-tackle day, Newman insisted after WSU's 28-16 win over Arizona State on Saturday that Andrew Walter's fumble-heard-round-the-desert was indeed coming out of the young quarterback's arms before his knees hit the turf.
Smith said he didn't know. He tackled Walter, the ball was on the ground and there was no whistle. What's a future NFL draft pick to do?
Walter was diplomatic, too. "I thought I was down, but it doesn't matter. We didn't play well enough to win."
But it doesn't really matter who's right and who's wrong.
For starters, you see, the Cougars won their ninth game of the season by 12 points, not seven. That simple fact, of course, pays little deference to the fact Smith -- making his second appearance in the endzone this season --- irrevocably altered the tone and momentum of the game.
And that's just fine.
The Cougars deserve to get a judgment call every five years or so. After three post-Rose Bowl seasons from hell, this seemed only fair.
They all even out in the end anyway, right?
No, not usually.
But if Rick Neuheisel can count on a good half-dozen improbable breaks per season, then Mike Price deserves one in the twilight of a season so shockingly surprising that anything less than a victory here would have to be viewed as a sleight to the gods of gridiron destiny.
Moreover, to have wasted Jerome Riley's six catch, 158-yard, two-TD artistry at receiver would have been cruel. To tarnish Lamont Thompson's Pac-10 record-setting 22nd career interception would border on crass. And to see that edge-of-your goal-line stand late in the third quarter go for naught would have soured a defining moment for one of the Pac-10 next-great trench warriors, sophomore Rien Long.
"The Cougars have never had a break like that all season," Price said about The Fumble that will no doubt live for years in series lore. "We've earned every win, including this one."
In fact, Price was far from conceding that a bad call was made. From his vantage point, he said, Walter did lose the ball before he touched down. "But what else do you expect me to say?" asks the man who for the second time in five years has the Cougars standing at 9-1 heading into the Apple Cup.
Sun Devil fans, after seeing the scoreboard replay, were riled enough to rain down boos, tortillas and who-knows-what-all-else after Smith hog tied Walter, scooped up the loose ball and raced 27 yards to put the Cougars up 21-9.
The crimson faithful feel their pain. Been there. Done that. Again, and again and again.
We've waited 37 years for this particular pay back.
AND, IN A SENSE, we waited all game for it.
Yes, these Cougars have a knack for the inexplicable. They consistently pull stuff out of the proverbial hat. When the offense sputters, the defense shines. When the defense falters, the offense manages to get it done.
Take the UCLA game last week when Nakoa McElrath dropped that sure TD pass. In the old days, that would have pretty much sealed the Cougars' fate. Remember Nian Taylor and Idaho in '99?
Not this team. Linebacker Al Genatone of all people picks up a fumble and runs 73 yards for the winning TD. The Oregon game offers additional evidence. The Cougars were dominated all day long, yet they were still right there, poised to win, at the end.
And the most amazing thing about it all is that Cougars have done it while fighting the injury bug. Ever wonder why WSU's record in November traditionally was about on par with Greg Norman's April's in Augusta?
Injuries!
If you look at the 1997 Cougars or Drew Bledsoe's 1992 edition, one thing stands out about both: Great health.
Not this team. They've been the walking wounded since late September. When Gesser went down in the second half seeing stars, you just had to wonder if the magic was over. With understudy Matt Kegel getting tossed around like a sack of spuds, you REALLY had to wonder.
But then Mike Bush, making like on a baseline drive to the hoop, turns a six-yard gainer into a 55-yard sprint to the ASU 21-yard-line. On the very next play, running back Dave Minnich tosses a wobbler to Collin Henderson in the endzone.
Cougs win, Cougs win, Cougs win.
It wasn't pretty. And it wasn't easy. But here they are at 9-1 and tied for the conference lead with a second New Year's Day bowl game in five years just one Apple Cup victory away.
ONWARD CRIMSON SOLDIERS!
NOTABLE NOTES
Raonall Smith's TD was his second of the season and the WSU defense's seventh of the year. Others visiting paydirt were Al Genatone, Billy Newman, Lamont Thompson, James Price, and Erik Coleman.
Jason Gesser joined an elite club with WSU's victory over ASU. He's one of only three quarterbacks in WSU history to guide the Cougars to nine victories in their first ten games. The others were Elmer Schwartz of the 1930 Rose Bowl Cougars and Ryan Leaf of the 1998 Rose Bowl Cougars.
If Pac-10 co-leaders WSU and Oregon eacb win their final conference game -- WSU at Washington next week and Oregon at home vs. OSU on Dec. 1, then they'll tie for the Pac-10 championship. Oregon, however, would get the Fiesta Bowl nod by virtue of beating WSU in the first tie-breaker: head-to-head result.
With five sacks against ASU, the Cougars now have a league-leading 34 on the season.
Arizona State, now 4-5 overall and 1-5 in the Pac-10, hasn't beaten a Top 25 team since knocking off the 1997 Rose Bowl-bound Cougars 44-31.
With Washington and Florida State both losing Saturday, look for WSU to crack the Top Ten in both the AP and ESPN polls.
Cycling through five quarterbacks in a game that's not a rout must be some sort of record. For the Cougars, it was Gesser and Kegel, For the Devils it was Jeff Krohn, Andrew Walter and Matt Cooper.
Lewiston Tribune Online 11/11/01
But it was an open-and-shut case. The trainers couldn’t let him play.
Like any other Washington State partisan, he watched and stressed through the final 20 minutes as the Cougars held on to defeat Arizona State 28-16 and carve another notch into the belt of a strange and wonderful season.
In his style of play, as well as his supra-verbal expression, Gesser typifies the team he leads. It is not a team of rhetoric or empty gestures. With a few exceptions like Dave Minnich and Isaac Brown, you can’t even call it an explicitly emotional team. It is a team of instinct, of feel, and its passion is no less real for being subdued.
Unlike the WSU clubs of the past three years, this version has an innate understanding of the task at hand. The offensive players may lack consistency, they may lack good health and blinding speed, but even in failure you see them yearning -- for the goal line, for the first-down marker -- like moths fluttering against a window pane.
Between the 30-yard lines, the defensive players may give and give like the United Way, but they retain a constant sense of what they are doing -- of the goal line they are protecting. Hence another disparity between the opponent’s offensive yards (429) and its points (16).
They are sensitive as bats, these Cougars. Free safety Lamont Thompson can smell a quarterback’s panic from 50 paces, and he senses where the next ill-advised throw will land. Wide receiver Jerome Riley senses the arc of flying objects like those dogs who chase down Frisbees at halftime.
The only time they take no for an answer is when it comes from the medical staff.
In this case, Gesser swept right on a third-down scramble in the third quarter and had the audacity to cut back into linebacker country. The punishment was delivered by 288-pound tackle Tommie Townsend and a couple of others, and the quarterback teetered around a bit, was escorted off the field, then flunked the trainers’ coherency exam.
This keeps happening, doesn’t it? Gesser is punished more often than the mock-proverbial good deed. He is being punished, it seems, for being 6-foot-1 and 192 pounds -- for being a person of normal dimensions who forever wanders into the giants’ lair.
Wide receivers, too, tend to be of mortal physique, but they generally tangle with opponents their own size. A sub-200-pound quarterback who likes to scramble and hates to hook-slide: This might be the most endangered man in football.
Mike Price would like to chasten Gesser but doesn’t want to tamper with the improvisatory spirit that seems inseparable from his talents.
"I sure would have liked him to slide," the WSU coach said. "If he had slid or run out of bounds or taken a knee, then he wouldn’t be Jason Gesser. So we’ve got to live with it."
Last year, spotty pass protection was Gesser’s undoing, most decisively when Oregon defenders sacked him, for the season, in Game 9. The Cougars are still imperfect in sealing off blitzes, but their beach-boy quarterback eludes them as deftly as ever. Tacklers skirt off his hip like hula-hoops, or like waves at Waikiki.
His sense of pass-rush was illustrated by his absence Saturday, when Alfred Williams and Terrell Suggs made back-to-back sacks of his unsuspecting replacement. Matt Kegel is a man of larger-than-average dimensions but only two eyes. Gesser’s eyes circle his head like jewels of a crown.
This year, Gesser is largely the victim of his own indiscretions -- which is to say, the victim of his own talents. On the three or four other occasions he has absorbed seemingly debilitating blows this season, he returned to the field after a possession or two. He answers the bell as long as it’s not ringing in his own skull. This time it was. And he still wanted to play.
On Saturday comes the biggest game of Gesser’s life. The Cougars’ road game against Washington will determine if they receive a major bowl bid or get relegated by their lack of national profile to one of the countless mini-bowls, probably the one that has moved inexplicably from Hawaii to Seattle.
On Tuesday, trainers will examine Gesser for lingering symptoms of the concussion. If these symptoms exist, they will forbid him from playing Saturday.
He will plead, he will cajole, he will entreat. One way or another, he will let them know exactly how he feels.
If they still say no, they will do so with hearts in their throats.
NOTES -- Special-teams player Hamza Abdullah will miss the Apple Cup with a knee injury, suffered on the first play of the ASU game. Listed as questionable are linebacker James Price (knee) and running back John Tippins (shoulder). Minnich is probable with his lingering knee symptoms.... Contrary to normal procedure, the Cougars will practice today and dispense with their Friday practice at Husky Stadium. They will, however, visit the game site upon arriving in Seattle. Kickoff on Saturday is 12:30 p.m., and the game will be televised by ABC.
Lewiston Tribune Online 11/12/01
Nebraska won big, Miami didn’t, but both unbeaten teams remained on course to play for a national championship in the Rose Bowl.
The Cornhuskers held first place and the Hurricanes were second in the Bowl Championship Series standings released Monday, with third-place Oklahoma gaining ground on Miami.
Meanwhile, Washington State climbed one spot this week to No. 8 and will need a win over rival Washington on Saturday to keep both its Pac-10 title and major bowl hopes alive.
Nebraska, 11-0 after a 31-21 victory over Kansas State on Saturday, strengthened its lead atop the rankings that determine who plays in Pasadena on Jan. 3. The Huskers have 2.20 points under the BCS formula, while the Hurricanes, 8-0 after an 18-7 win over Boston College, followed with 7.31 points.
The Sooners, 9-1 after their 31-10 win over Texas A&M, had 7.89 points, just .58 behind Miami. Last week, the Hurricanes held a 1.22-point lead over Oklahoma.
The BCS standings are based on a formula that incorporates the AP media and coaches’ polls, eight computers, strength of schedule, won-lost record and bonus points for big wins.
Miami retained its No. 1 ranking in this week’s AP poll, while Nebraska replaced Miami atop the coaches poll. The Hurricanes also lost ground in the computers.
Oregon (9-1) moved up two spots to fourth place. The Ducks, who beat UCLA 21-20, have 11.97 points, are just ahead of fifth-place Florida (8-1), with 11.98 points.
Texas (9-1) dropped one spot to sixth, followed by Tennessee (7-1), Washington State (9-1), Stanford (6-2) and Illinois (8-1).
BYU (10-0), the only other major college unbeaten team, remained 13th in the 15-team standings.
Nebraska’s 2.20-point breakdown was: 1.5 points for poll average, 1 point for computer average, 1 for strength of schedule, 0 for won-loss record and a 1.3-bonus point deduction for beating Oklahoma on Oct. 27.
The bonus award -- new this season -- is based on a sliding scale from 1.5 points for beating a first-place team down to .1 for a win over the 15th-place team. The bonus is awarded after the other elements are calculated.
Miami (7.31) had 1.5 points for poll average, 3.17 for computer average, 2.64 for strength of schedule, 0 for won-loss record and no bonus-point deduction.
Oklahoma (7.89) had 3.5 for poll average, 3.67 for computer average, 0.72 for strength of schedule, 1 for won-loss record and a 1-point deduction for beating Texas on Oct. 6.
Looking ahead, the schedule still favors Miami over Oklahoma. But watch out for Florida, which has a finishing kick of games against Florida State, Tennessee and possible SEC title matchup on Dec. 8.
The Hurricanes are home to Syracuse (8-2) and Washington (7-2), and finish at Virginia Tech (7-2).
The Sooners visit Texas Tech (6-3) and Oklahoma State (2-7) before a likely rematch against Nebraska in the Big 12 title game.
Nebraska visits Colorado (8-2) on Nov. 23 before the Big 12 title game.
The final BCS standings will be released on Dec. 9.
