Washington State Football Gets Ready for Very Different “Home” Games

Sep 14, 2012; Las Vegas, NV, USA; Washington State Cougars fans Michael Degooyer (left) , Jason Martin (center), and Sarah Driscoll cheer on the Cougars during the fourth quarter against the UNLV Rebels at Sam Boyd Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-US PRESSWIRE

This week the Cougar football team is getting set for their Homecoming matchup with the Colorado Buffaloes at Martin Stadium, which I think most Cougar fans have tabbed as a 3rd victory right now. The Cougars started to show signs of offensive life under Connor Halliday last Friday in Vegas, specifically in the “big play” area of their game. This is not good news for the Buffs, who trailed 35-0 after just the first quarter against Fresno State due to play after play of miscommunication and blown assignments. Fresno blasted the Buffs in a variety of ways, from 2 interception returns for touchdowns by the same player, to 300 yards and 5 tds from their qb, to Robbie Rouse setting the all-time rushing record on a 94 yard td run late in the first qtr. Bottom line is that Washington State has a chance to really capitalize this week on a team that’s very down right now and can be taken advantage of in many areas. But then again, that was UNLV last week…

The week after is a different story. The Cougars will need to get everything “right” against Colorado, because the Oregon Ducks will roll into Seattle’s Century Link Field for the annual “Seattle Game” in 2 Saturdays. Of course Oregon is a top #5 team right now and is doing everything right (albeit against lesser competition). The Ducks will come in with plenty of fanfare at the game and be aggressive behind their freshman quarterback, Marcus Mariota and their superstar athlete De’Anthony Thomas. As a measuring stick, Fresno State lost 42-25 in week 2 to Oregon, while scoring 35 of Oregon’s 42 points came in the first half.

Of course you never want to look forward a week in the Pac-12 as a team, but as a fan I can’t help it. I want to expect a win this week, by a lot. However, because of the lack of success in the Pac-12 over the past 4 years, if there’s one team that could keep Colorado in the game till the end, it’s us. So I’m definitely not looking too far ahead and want to see us finally take over a game that we should take over. If you remember last season was a year in which we thought we were going to blow Colorado off the face of the Earth after 2 big wins, but had to rally in the final 4 minutes just to come away with the victory. Got to get it done this week and then we’ll worry about the Ducks, who have their own decent test this week against a good looking 3-0 Arizona team. That should be a good one! At any rate, you can see the Colorado game on FX at 1 pm this week and the Oregon game on ESPN or ESPN 2 for the 3rd time this year the following week at 7:30.

Go Cougs!