‘Hard conversations’ for Cougs during bye week

PULLMAN – With a road loss against No. 21 Boise State in the rearview mirror, the Washington State Cougars are using this week’s bye as a time for self-reflection after suffering their first loss of the season, Head Coach Jake Dickert said at a press conference Wednesday.

“There’s going to be hard conversations that need to be had, but we can’t look the other way,” Dickert said. “Great teams have hard conversations; not just coach-to-player, but also player-to-player. There was some lack of effort out there that's just not acceptable if you want to go out there and win a big ballgame. We pointed those out, and we also showed some great efforts and times of us doing really great things. It wasn’t all bad.” 

WSU lost 45-24 to the Broncos last Saturday, headlined by Boise State running back and Heisman Trophy hopeful Ashton Jeanty rushing for 259 yards and four touchdowns on 26 carries.  

The Cougars cut the Bronco lead to seven on the first play of the fourth quarter when quarterback John Mateer hit receiver Kyle Williams for a 33-yard score, though Boise State scored touchdowns on its next three drives to put the game out of reach for WSU. 

In between the Bronco touchdown drives, the Cougars were forced to punt after a three-and-out where Mateer was sacked twice, turned the ball over on downs on fourth-and-10 from the Boise State 30-yard line and later scored a touchdown with just seconds left in the game. 

Mateer was sacked seven times in the loss. 

“I 100% apologize to John, we can’t have him getting sacked seven times,” center Devin Kylany said at a press conference Tuesday. “We did not execute our base fundamentals; we had a plan to block these guys, we were able to get a hat on a hat and a hand on (their) chest, but every play we took our own turn not executing. Can’t do that if we’re going to be a great team.” 

Dickert said the Cougars will also use the bye week to identify a starting five on the offensive line, rather than running players in on rotation. 

“We knew they were going to do a couple of different things – they're good coaches – we've got to execute our plan a little bit better,” Dickert said. 

Statistically, the Cougars and Broncos fared fairly evenly on Saturday night – Boise State held the edge in total offense (460-416), though the difference maker was on fourth down and in penalties; WSU went two-of-five on fourth down and was flagged nine times for 63 yards. 

Now, the focus shifts toward WSU’s next game on the schedule; a road game against Fresno State on Oct. 12. 

“We know we didn’t play well that game, we just come to practice ready to get better,” WSU cornerback Stephen Hall said at a press conference Tuesday. “Right now, fixing our mistakes, too; we know we did wrong, so just coming in and really not making the same mistakes that we did last week.” 

Regional College Football Action 

Central Washington (3-1, 2-0 LSC) at Eastern New Mexico (2-2, 0-2 LSC) – 5:30 p.m. Saturday 

Fresh off a win against another team from the Land of Enchantment – a 36-0 win over Western New Mexico last week – the Wildcats hit the road for the fourth time this season to take on the Greyhounds. 

It’ll be strength-against-strength when the two teams meet on Saturday; Central is holding its opponents to just 2.7 yards per carry through the first four games of the season, while ENM’s triple-option offense has averaged 396.5 yards on the ground so far this season. 

The Greyhounds are still searching for their first win in the Lone Star Conference, having lost 36-15 at home to Midwestern State two weeks ago and being on a bye last week. 

Eastern Washington (1-4, 0-1 Big Sky), bye week. Next game: at Sacramento State, 6 p.m. on Oct. 12. 

    As the only regional team playing this week, the Central Washington Wildcats travel to Eastern New Mexico for a Lone Star Conference matchup Saturday at 5:30 p.m.