Washington State Football: Cougars Once Again Get Flattened In Moonlight Of A Great Performance

November 3, 2012; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Utah Utes running back John White (15) avoids the tackle of Washington State Cougars safety Casey Locker (22) during a touchdown run in the first half at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Russ Isabella-US PRESSWIRE

It’s tough to play well on the road in this conference. All you have to do is look at the Arizona State, Arizona and Cal performances over the weekend to know that. But it’s certainly not impossible, the good teams do it on a regular basis and simply everybody comes into Martin Stadium these days and walks out with a “W”. But the WSU Cougars are really good at being horrifically bad on the road, especially after they get our hopes up with a ‘brave’ performance against a top 25 team the week before and especially when they’re coming into a game that isn’t supposed to be any more challenging.

Utah’s got good pieces, no doubt, but Washington State made all of them look like all-stars all day long. John White IV is a really good RB, but let’s be honest he’s probably not as good as Stepfan Taylor last week, yet White doubled his yardage and the Utes nearly tripled what Stanford put up. It was that way about everything.

Until the Cougs figure out how to put together back to back good performances and come out like a team that has something to prove every single week, we’ll be crying a lot. I thought they were turning the corner. I felt really good yesterday… til about noonish. As I tweeted during the game, my brother texted me that he is ready for DaVonte Lacy and Co. to start their season. It’s sad because the football fan in me and my bro is much more hardcore than the basketball. It’s always been that way.

I want to love this team and I do, but I hate the way they play in games that aren’t that “big”. Truth be told, I fully expect us to come out and make it really difficult on UCLA to get a win this week, but because they’ll have a number being their ranking more than anything else. The Cougars are the only team in the conference to play almost up to the better competition and far below the worse. It’s why they don’t have a win so far obviously and it’s mind boggling. I could go on for pages on this, but I’ll leave it at this:

The reality of the situation is that the Washington State Cougars are a team full of players with so much heart when they’re up against it, but no pride when they need to just take it. They have pretty good talent, but spotty if not minimal work ethic. I keep hoping it’s a case of “one year away” when I see performances like these, but they keep proving that they are good enough the week before. I don’t understand the switch that doesn’t click on when we should be seeing them win. Nobody does.