Coming off a dominant week one win, WSU football is looking for an early season statement win at home. To amplify things, the Cougs will be honoring their late former coach Mike Leach and doing it all in front of a sold-out crowd.
The anticipation is high for a Cougars team that beat Wisconsin on the road 17-14 last year. It was the first win against Wisconsin in program history and this week marks the first time the Badgers have ever traveled to Pullman for football.
It’s a chance for a true statement win for the Cougs amid uncertainty as to their next potential conference and being written off as a Power Five program by many. The chance to play in primetime in Pullman with a sellout is something the players deserve, head coach Jake Dickert said.
The game is a clash of week one styles. WSU relied heavily on quarterback Cam Ward’s arm to fuel the offense throwing for 451 yards and three touchdowns while Wisconsin relied on their rushing attack to fuel them to a 38-17 home win over Buffalo.
“They’ve worked hard, you want a program where these games matter and you create opportunities for yourself. You do that as a team. I know it’s early in the season but what an opportunity, so we have to take advantage of everything going forward,” Dickert said.
Despite a lot of hype around SMU transfer QB Tanner Mordecai making his debut as a Badger, it was the duo of running backs Braelon Allen and Chez Mellusi that did the damage. The backfield accounted for 298 of the team’s 314 rushing yards, each recording over 140 with two touchdowns a piece.
“I’m not sure there’s a better two tailbacks on the same team in the country than Wisconsin has,” Dickert said. “That’s always been the identity of Wisconsin offenses, they’re doing it in unique ways to get these guys space… They move a lot of people so we got to be gap sound, there’s no secret we want to start there by cutting the head off the snake and stopping the run.”
While Wisconsin may still have the same identity offensively, it is not the same team. The things that have stayed the same Dickert said, are still being “big fast, tough, and aggressive.”
The most substantial change to Wisconsin from last year is on the coaching staff, as they hired Luke Fickell as their new head coach. Fickell is well-known for building up the Cincinnati Bearcats program and taking them to the College Football Playoff two years ago.
This won’t be the first time Dickert and Fickell have met, but it will be on the field. Dickert in his Monday press conference applauded Fickell’s toughness and creativity and said Fickell is “the ideal fit for Wisconsin.”
The improvement from last week to Saturday for the Cougs will be key in facing one of the nation’s top teams. And the amount a team improves from week one to two is the most in a week it will improve all year, Dickert said.
“Especially our team, I didn’t calculate them all, but I think 75% of the travelers that went to [Colorado State] have never traveled with the team before. So there was a lot of nervous energy. There were some times where guys got in big moments, they slipped into default instead of trusting their training and we will learn from those things,” Dickert said. “You saw that jump from last year from Idaho to Wisconsin.”
The two biggest struggles for the Cougs in week one were developing the run game, and finishing once the game was in hand. The key to fixing it, Dickert said, is physicality.
“We got to be more aggressive to move people and Wisconsin is gonna be way harder to move. So it’s creating light boxes, finding angels, it’s knowing a lot of things pre-snap that we can do to get us into the best looks, but at the end of the day it’s toughness,” Dickert said. “Finishing needs to be a habit… We’ll be very artful in what we do physicality wise but we need to be tougher this week.”
As the Cougs continue to work towards potentially their final season of Pac-12 play, it is evident the Pac-12 is extremely tough this season, going 13-0 in week one. Defensive lineman Ron Stone Jr. said playing a team like Wisconsin is a great test early on.
“I’ve always enjoyed playing what people view as higher-ranked teams, or better teams in the pre-season because the Pac-12 is probably the most competitive conference there is right now. To be able to go against someone that might be able to give us that caliber of a look is a great thing going into the season,” Stone Jr. said.
Things may be different this year than last, but a critical win this week to start 2-0 before welcoming Northern Colorado next week would be a huge boost for a Cougs statement season. The game goes down at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at Martin Stadium and Dickert has a message for all Cougs.
“As a Coug fan base, to show up, to be loud, to have every seat packed, not just list a sell-out and not be there,” Dickert said. “I mean, there’s a lot of things that matter for this game perceptually for Washington State. So let’s go do it, all of us.”
