Football Returns to the Palouse

Summary: The WSU Cougars took on the Stanford Cardinal on Saturday, leaving fans and coaches optimistic about the rest of the season.

The Cougars, coming off a dismal season a year ago, took the field Saturday afternoon hoping to help Washington State return to the top of the Pacific-10 Conference standings once again.
Just over 22 thousand fans piled into Martin Stadium in Pullman, Wash. to watch the Cougars take on the Stanford Cardinal.
The Cougar defense got off to a slow start, allowing the Cardinal to march down the field and score a touchdown on the opening drive, but the WSU offense responded with a seven-minute drive of their own. The Cougars however failed to capitalize as kicker Nico Grasu missed a chipshot from inside the 20-yard line and turned the ball back over to the Cardinal.
This theme continued throughout the game, with Stanford capitalizing on each opportunity and Washington State failing to execute time and time again. The Cougars went into the locker room at halftime trailing 22-3.
WSU showed signs of life in the second half, outscoring the Cardinal 10-7 in the third quarter but could not manage to fight back from the early deficit losing by a final score of 39-13. Despite the lopsided score many fans seemed pleased with the performance.
“It was good to see our offense actually move the ball,” said junior construction management major Jack M. Montgomery. “The score didn’t justify how we played compared to last year.”
Others felt the same way and believed that the Cougars made significant strides during the offseason.
“We looked a lot stronger, a lot faster and a lot more focused than last year,” said sophomore environmental engineer major Jason W. Abt. “It didn’t even look like the same team out there today.”
Despite the early season praise, it wasn’t all positive for the Cougars who gave up 481 total yards to a less than prolific Stanford Cardinal offense, including just shy of 200 yards passing by true freshman quarterback Andrew Luck.
“It will be interesting to see how we stack up against some stiffer competition such as USC,” Abt said.
Only time will tell how this season will unfold, but as far as the fans can tell it truly cannot get much worse.
“Lets be honest,” said senior economics major Steven A. Wilkerson. “Last year it was painful to watch, but this year there is a sense of improvement and a hope that we can return to a bowl game soon.”
“[We were] A hundred times better – big difference in attitude, big difference in physicality,” Head Coach Paul Wulff said in a WSU press release following the game. “These guys have been showing it every day in practice. The players would tell you there’s a big difference. We did have a couple of special teams’ blunders that hurt us, but this is a whole different team.”
Call it blind optimism, but the Cougar faithful seem to have a restored hope for Paul Wulff and the 2009 Cougars. WSU will take on the Warriors of Hawaii next Saturday at Qwest Field in Seattle for the annual Gridiron Classic.


Contacts:

Jason W. Abt
Sophomore
Environmental Engineer
509 – 715 – 9272

Jack M. Montgomery
Junior
Construction Management
425 – 765 -2955

Steven A. Wilkerson
Senior
Economics Major
360 – 391 - 5731