Washington State vs Arizona Football: This Week the Trend Volume 10

With college basketball starting up and college football winding down, the Pac-12 conference is still undecided.  Everyone (except Stanford) thought Oregon had a clean shot at the Pac-12 title, the only question was weather they’d be playing for a Rose bowl, or a National Championship.  In week 10 we find that it could be neither and the Pac-12 is up for grabs again.

Week 10 means something a little different for the Washington State Cougars, they are trying to seize one of their last few chances to get to a bowl. The Cougs have 3 games left, 4 wins so far and they need at least 2 more to be bowl eligible, meaning every game is extremely important at this point.  So let’s take a look at this match up.

What Zona brings:

Arizona brings Ka’Deem Carey… OBVIOUSLY!  Here’s what else they bring… all-around speed.  The Wildcats have success running the ball thanks to the threat of B.J. Denker pulling it and taking it to the house himself, the wide receivers can get out in space and block well and they have a pretty mobile offensive line.  Although B.J. doesn’t immediately concern defenses with the air attack, the ground game sets up the passing game all too nicely.  Excellent offensive production is the best thing about Arizona.

So what are the Cougar trends?

Defensively find a way to get off the field. The Cougar defense has struggled stopping anyone the last 3 games and it won’t get any easier this week with Denker and Carey running the ball.  If the Cougs are to win, we need outstanding play from our linebackers.  Keep an eye out for Deone Bucannon in this one, He’ll have plenty of opportunities for big hits!

The offense HAS to move the ball, limit 3 and outs, catch the ball, win field position and give our D a fighting chance.  If our wide receivers tune up and cut out the dropped passes and Connor finds a way to hit his wide outs down the field (no more overthrows) when we get our shots, we will win.

Special teams.  We need our kick game to be on point Saturday.  No missed field goals, no botched punts.  Like i said before, we must, must, MUST win the field position battle.

If we execute these trends we will be one win away from bowl eligibility come Sunday!

GO COUGS!