FanPost

Walking Away From Rutgers

Hey guys, this is actually the first thing that I've ever written on CougCenter, comments included. I've been an avid reader over the past year and a half but I was always hesitant to post anything on the site; usually I was preventing myself from rage quitting after games like Oregon State, Colorado State, and even the Apple Cup.

I have been planning on writing something here for a while now. For most of the summer I've been looking at our schedule, baffled by how we could possibly finish with 5 wins like some experts were predicting. I saw 8 wins on the horizon, a bowl game, and a decisive Apple Cup victory (because I'm not buying into the hype of CP at UW in his first year with no skill players returning). I planned for a win against Rutgers. I was considering writing my first post or comment at the end of the Rutgers game; one that I had pegged the Cougs would win 45-20. I questioned whether we would see our backups in. When discussing Cougar football this season I acted cocky and believed that we were more than qualified but had just been vastly overlooked. The a-typical Mike Leach team; the powerful underdog.

After the Rutgers game, that came crashing down. So yes, for me, this lost hurts on a different level; it hurts more than just one football game. In some ways, it mirrors the New Mexico bowl loss. Yes, the Cougs lose games, almost all teams do at least once in a season. The loss to Rutgers isn't why I'm upset; it's the loss of the fantasy I had envisioned for our Cougs and this post is the coming to terms with that realization.

A decisive 3-0 start to the year? Of course! While our non-conference schedule isn't cake (looking at you, UW), it would be momentum-building for the year and give us some of that powerful confidence that teams are constantly looking for when the team is largely underclassmen. Gameday visiting Pullman when we face Oregon? "Two teams enter with a 3-0 record but only one walks away undefeated "-- I can hear it now. Oregon can be beaten (cough Arizona) and especially if our Cougs came out jacked and firing on all cylinders. Meanwhile, Oregon is coming off a cake game against Wyoming and think they have this in the bag, and are rattled by the harsh traveling conditions coming to the Mecca for Coug nation, Martin Stadium. Walking away with the W gives us the defining moment for the ages at Martin Stadium. Hell, even keeping up with Oregon and losing by single-digits, would be a sight to behold; the reemergence of Washington State football.

Now, maybe we'll have that decisive win over Nevada and cruise through Portland State, but I won't be hyped. In fact, I'll be terrified. Terrified that a mediocre team was able to rack up 41 points on us, and run repeated variations of trap plays and splits on us to a tune of 215 yards on the ground. Gary Nova is not the front-runner for the Heisman. If Rutgers is indicative of the state of our defense, what in god's name will Oregon do to us? Some experts had us pulling an upset against Stanford in a shootout. If we can't defend the rushing attack of Rutgers, what in god's name will Stanford do to us? And the secondary... what in god's name will Cal do to us?

The Defense. If you didn't watch all of the game, it's as bad as you've heard. Leaving Century Link one guy turned to me as I was trying to make peace with the game and said that it was Paul Wulff defense all over again and that he would be "baffled if we ended the year with more than 4 wins." Not exactly the vibes you're looking for after your first game. But truly, it was that bad. The secondary seemed out of assignment on most plays and while there were a few big hits that were encouraging, it was too few and too far between and it was usually after Rutgers had amassed significant yards already. The DL and LBs were, to put it lightly, weak and pathetic. We looked dominated the entire game and most of the time our LBs took themselves out of the game with poor positioning, poor tackling and not "breaking down" before making the tackle ((former football players will remember this being preached to them). Our defense lived up to the shotty rating that they were given in the preseason by "experts." I refuse to accept the fact that losing Deone and a few other players makes the overall talent of this defense worse than last year and years prior. Either the coaches aren't bringing in the right kind of talent for our defense, the players aren't developing quickly enough (their fault or the coaches) or there's a systemic problem with our defensive scheme. Or... the coaches chose terrible options for the depth chart. I love Teondray, but was he really better than our other safeties? The ones who have played that position for more than two weeks? If so, that's indicative of the coaches not bringing in the right kind of talent because that seems just impossible to me. I am just stunned. Any one of the above-mentioned requires accountability by the coaches, players AND the Athletic Department. I love Moos and I love our coaching staff, but why on earth would you give a raise to a coordinator who did not do that great of a job last year? We averaged a surrendering of 458 yards of offense per game, 187 yards on the ground, and we ended up finishing 10th in the conference for scoring defense. I think I would have asked for more of an improvement before the money came flowing out.


The Offense. I was so impressed with Connor Halliday. He looked calm and poised even after getting completely DRILLED a couple of times by a rattled Offensive Line. His interception seemed to be a miscue on the part of the receiver and it didn't truly cost us the game. 5 TD's to 1 INT? I'll take it. He put the ball in great spots where only our guys could get it and he even rolled out and gained positive yardage rather than forcing a throw. I was extremely impressed with Halliday. In the beginning of the game when our defense forced the interception and we had the ball on like the 3 yard line, we should have scored. I don't care if we're an Air Raid team or not, we should be able to get the ball in the endzone on the ground or through the air - scheme doesn't come into this. Your job is to put that ball in the endzone. You have three yards to go and three to four chances to make it happen. Figure it out. That was extremely disappointing and frustrating but as the game went on, our passing offense looked better and better (the last drive notwithstanding). Rushing? I don't know if we should just completely stop trying altogether or do nothing but run the ball until we can figure this out. It's really simple. OL needs to block better and not get beaten in .1 seconds and our running backs need to run North and South. Any shot of us improving this year offensively is dependent on a) running the ball better or b) not running the ball at all and just letting our talented QB and amazing WRs do their thing. We cannot lose yards when we try to run the ball and end up with a 2nd or 3rd down of 14+ yards. It's not sustainable.

This has been a long, winding post and I apologize for that but it's the way that I'm walking away from Rutgers - getting out the frustrations and recognizing what the issue really is. I'm not upset that we aren't going undefeated this season after one game. I'm upset that I've spent 8 months after the disaster at the NM Bowl waiting for a signal that we really are turning it all around, and that we're ready to establish ourselves as contenders -- or at least giving a preview of our future contention. Seeing the OPS building in person and the renovations at Martin really made me feel like this was going to be the year. As such, I'm looking at this game as a foreshadowing indication of the season to come and if it is, then we're looking at slow growing pains and a potential regression from last year, not the exponential growth Coug fans are looking for after the last dismal ten years. But hey, we've waited 10 years for a winning season, what's another year? (Cue people taking that seriously).

CML said in his press conference after the game that there's a culture-issue at the university where players limit themselves mentally from excelling. Well that's great, but we shouldn't be playing people who don't believe in our team and we shouldn't have coaches that can't make the players believe in the team. If the people on the field don't even believe in the team why on earth would fans come around?

Rutgers isn't the end all for evaluating this team but I put all my eggs in this basket to rebound after the NM Bowl and I left the game heartbroken. But, we are Cougs, and that means that we will pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and we will hopefully get better with time.

To borrow from a movie, "Every day is another chance to turn it all around." I'm hoping the 7 days between Rutgers and Nevada will be enough chances.

Thanks for reading. Go Cougs.

This FanPost does not necessarily reflect the views of the site's writers or editors, who may not have verified its accuracy. It does, however, reflect the view of this particular fan, which is just as important as the views of our writers or editors.