Simming the Season, Week 3: Cougs beat FCS West 35-0

The mighty Fusion of FCS West came into Pullman looking to make a game of it, but failed. The Cougs were able to handle the Fusion quite easily, en route to a 35-0 shutout. We still look abysmal in the running department, but the defense is shaping up faster than expected. Anthony Carpenter had himself a game, garnering both Pac12 Defensive POTW as well as National Defensive POTW. I play video games a lot (like, a lot a lot) and even I went WHOA when I saw his line at CB.

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Passing:

Connor Halliday: 17/38, 286 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT, 3 sacks, L36
Austin Apodaca: 4/8, 56 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT, 1 sack, L30

Rushing:

Leon Brooks: 8 carries, 22 yards
Halliday: 9 carries, 20 yards
Apodaca: 3 carries, -1 yard
Teondray Caldwell: 2 carries, 4 yards
Vince Mayle: 1 carry, 5 yards

Receiving:

Dominique Williams: 5 catches, 85 yards, 1 TD
Caldwell: 4 catches, 68 yards, 1 TD
Mayle: 3 catches, 51 yards, 1 TD
Gabe Marks: 3 catches, 40 yards
Brett Bartolone: 2 catches, 43 yards
Isiah Myers: 2 catches, 19 yards, 1 TD
Bobby Ratliff: 1 catch, 30 yards
Cole Madison: 1 catch, 6 yards

Defense:

Xavier Cooper: 9 tackles, 4 solo, 6 TFL, 2.5 sacks
Matthew Bock: 8 tackles, 3 solo, 3 TFL, 1 sack, 1 FF
Anthony Carpenter: 4 tackles, 2 solo, 2 TFL, 1 sack, 1 FR, 3 INT (1 returned for a TD)

Special Teams:

Andrew Furney: 0/2 FGs (36, 50), 5/5 XP
Michael Bowlin: 9 punts, 393 yards (43.6 avg), 281 net (31.2 net avg), 4 inside the 20, 3 TB, L62

• The four sacks given up were from Jacob Seydel (x2), Rico Forbes, and Joseph Dahl.
• Halliday's completion percentage continues to hover around Jake Locker levels. I know it's just a video game, but eek.
• Speaking of things that make you cringe, our running game gives me the sadz. The weird part is in the Dynasty that I'm actually playing in, Caldwell is by far the best player on the team. Perhaps it's the new RB mechanics the game developed, but I wound up rushing for over 2,000 yards as a team this year, to go along with 35+ TDs. Maybe they just think we're going to throw it 99% of the time?
• Oregon State lost to Utah 17-10, dropping to 0-3 on the young season. No word if Mike Riley took them to In-n-Out.
• Stanford, the 3rd ranked team in the nation, needed overtime to beat winless Army, 20-17.
• UW beat Illinois 45-17. This is going to be another year where the computer makes UW a national powerhouse, huh? Groan.
• The offensive and defensive POTW were both from the Pac12 this week. The aforementioned Carpenter won defensive, while Oregon's DeAnthony Thomas won offensive. He had an ok day: 152 yards rushing, 3 TDs. 102 yards receiving, 3 TDs. 1 KR for a TD. He also led my apartment in swears upon reading his stat line.

That's it for this week. We'll see you on Wednesday. Happy gaming, and Go Cougs.