Washington State Football: Cal Bears Beat Cougars 31-17

Oct. 13, 2012; Pullman, WA, USA; California Golden Bears defensive back Steve Williams (1) get the interception against Washington State Cougars wide receiver Marquess Wilson (86) during the first half at Martin Stadium. Mandatory Credit: James Snook-US PRESSWIRE

It’s an old adage “the strong survive, the weak get eaten”, or something like that. Another prime example of what Mike Leach has referred to as “empty corpses” and ” weak minded individuals” rared it’s ugly head on Saturday evening in Martin Stadium as the Cougs ate themselves alive. Cal had a team that came to play, Wazzu had 2 players, Jeff Tuel and Brett Bartolone. One of those players, Tuel, didn’t even start the game as Connor Halliday forced 2 bad passes that got picked with ease with the Cougars driving that put the Cougars behind 14-3 at half instead of up midway through the first qtr 7, or even 14-0. The other issue of the night, dropped passes. I cannot begin to count the number of drops tonight for WSU, but I know at least 5 were dropped in the end zone.

Let’s talk about Cal though, along with the Cougs’ non existence. The Bears ran all over the Cougar defense, to the tune of 300+ yards. All 3 of their running backs individually out dueled the entire Coug rushing attack. Steve Williams broke up 4 or 5 really big plays from his CB position on tremendous coverage plays. The Cougar defensive backfield gave up 11 completions to Keenan Allen in a row and for a lot of yards, as qb Zach Maynard didn’t even look anyone else up throughout the game. He didn’t have too, most of those completions were on slants routes. And lastly, Cal brought an attitude to the field tonight while the Cougars moped around for much of the game from play after play of failed execution.

After watching that performance, or lack thereof, the numbers are unimportant and quite frankly, I don’t even want to look at them. The key factor here is that the Washington State Cougars are now fighting more than what they bargained for when the season began. They are fighting themselves. For at least the 3rd straight game the WSU defense gave up a lengthy touchdown drive to start the 3rd quarter in a deeper hole than they came out in. Also, inside the 25, the Cougs continued their woeful play, adding to their league worst percentage of tds in the redzone. Nothing is more frustrating than Cougar football right now. Everything was supposed to turn around with Leach coming into town, but it’s only gotten worse.