Here's an excerpt from Issue 18 of Cougar Sports Weekly, which hit inboxes early Monday morning:
Even though the run defense was bad, I think those passing numbers are the ones that tell the real story. If one thing has become clear from the last three games, it's that WSU is a positively horrific pass defense team. It started with giving up huge plays to UCLA, something that was explained away by saying, "Well, Rosario is huge and Prince made some lucky throws against a defense designed to stop the run." It continued with Stanford, something that was explained by saying, "Well, those tight ends are huge and fast, and our safeties were especially crappy." But it culminated with Saturday's debacle, in which the entire pass defense fell apart ... and there was absolutely no way to rationalize any of it.
It's funny how hindsight is 20/20 -- in reality, we probably should have seen this coming. The only thing that stopped San Diego State from throwing more than they did was an inaccurate quarterback, and Colorado put together its most accurate passing day and second highest yards per attempt of the season against the Cougs. In fact, Connelly's S&P+ rated the pass defense as just 86th nationally on all downs and 106th on passing downs before Saturday's mess.
The pass defense has been a problem all year, but we're only just now realizing how huge it really is. The issue is two pronged.