CougCenter Player of the Week: Luke Falk

Welcome back. For the fourth week in a row, WSU walked off the field winners. Once again, there were lots of great candidates vying for SB Nation’s most-coveted award. Defense took the early lead, sacking the Nevada QB on two of the first three plays. Players on offense wouldn’t take that lying down, and decided to score five touchdowns on five drives.

Back came the defense, allowing only one drive of more than 23 yards on Nevada’s seven first half possessions. While the offense waned a bit in the second half, the defense kept it up, intercepting a pass in the endzone to preserve the shutout, and not allowing a Nevada drive to go longer than 40 yards.

It was a strong defensive effort indeed. So of course we’re going with an offensive player.

2nd Runner-Up: Tavares Martin, Jr

Another game, another two touchdowns for Martin. That’s five touchdowns in two weeks. Martin caught “only” four passes, but those catches rang up 114 yards. /finds calculator. That’s good for an average of over 28 yards per catch. That’s the kind of explosiveness WSU needs to hit peak Air Raid.

Martin’s first touchdown was a beauty of a 40-yarder on which he took a tunnel screen, juked his way back outside and ran away from the hapless Nevada defenders. The second was just as impressive as Martin caught a pass, turned outside and stretched for the pylon. The officials first thought he was out, but nope! Quite the athletic play.

1st Runner-Up: Jalen Thompson

When scanning the defensive stats, it took me quite a while to find Thompson’s name. The WSU safety only registered one assist on the day. I don’t think there’s any better indication of a front seven’s dominance than a safety hardly having to make a tackle. Thompson is here for his ball-hawking skills, as he intercepted two passes.

Both came in big spots, temporarily preserving the “zero” that sat next to Nevada’s portion of the scoreboard for most of the afternoon. Thompson’s first INT came as he was playing center field, and stole a deep ball in the end zone. The second one also saved a touchdown. Well, it actually probably prevented a Darien Molton interception, as Thompson jumped a slant route and had his second takeaway of the day. The Cougs really need Thompson to haunt Sam Darnold next Friday.

Winner: Luke Falk

Not only did Falk complete 77 percent of his passes for nearly 500 yards Saturday, he also became the third-leading touchdown passer in Pac-12 history in the process. In all, Falk threw another five touchdown passes. That’s the ninth time in 33 starts that Falk has thrown at least five TDs. Seems ok.

For the second week in a row, Falk seemed much more willing to throw the ball down field. He also got help from his receivers after the catch, which added up to an outstanding 10.2 yards-per-attempt. There was three-game stretch in 2015 when Falk went 5/6/5 in the touchdown category. Falk has gone 6/5 in his last two games. Here’s hoping he can end up going 6/5/6. Congratulations, Luke.