Last week, it seemed as if Ben Arbuckle and the WSU offense had their parvum opus against UCLA. Apparently, they wanted to prove that it could get worse as against Arizona, they looked terrible after the first drive, failing to get anything going the rest of the way.
Unlike against the Bruins, the defense was not much better, as on both sides of the ball, the Cougs were utterly and completely outmatched.
First, defensively, Noah Fifita had his way the entire game, throwing for 342 yards and completing 79% of his passes. Their rushing attack also looked strong, as two different running backs had over 70 rushing yards and three separate players had a rushing TD.
After WSU scored first, the offense and defense combined their bad days to allow 44 unanswered points in what quickly became a slaughter on the Palouse.
Luckily for the Coug defense, the offense looked so much worse. Cam Ward looked lost, the playcalling for the very beginning was trying to do too much and it looked like Arbuckle was quickly delving into backyard football, drawing routes that seemed fun and trying to pull out all the tricks.
Coming into the game, Arizona had not intercepted a single throw on the year. On the Cougs’ third drive of the game, the two-QB set saw John Matteer take a backward pass and throw it up into triple coverage, which obviously got picked off.
It was a clear bad decision to throw the ball, but it felt like a precursor to the play-calling for the rest of the game. It felt as if the Cougs did not even try to establish any kind of flow, instead opting for the big play or bust mindset that can flame out as it did so quickly against the Wildcats.
After the opening TD, the Cougs had three turnovers on downs, four punts, two interceptions and a lost fumble. The last five drives of the first half? A turnover on downs, interception, punt, punt and punt.
One specific drive showed a lot of what was going wrong. It started with an eight-yard gain, but that quickly became negated with a negative rush and an offensive facemask penalty from Nakia Watson after Ward scrambled for six, which forced a punt. The line of scrimmage got sent back five extra yards with a false start penalty.
Ward’s final line was 192 yards and an interception, with him missing several seemingly wide-open receivers down the field and seeming to have been lacking the confidence to take shots down the field after the Cougs went down big, despite the needed feel for a spark.
The offense converted just 36.4% of their third-down conversions, part of which came from the fact they averaged 4.9 yards gained on first down, 0.4 yards less than the Wildcats.
A stifled offense got progressively worse as the defense looked like Swiss cheese that kept the fans completely neutralized, as many rightfully got out of their seats and left instead of staying to watch the Cougs get beat up.
It also became apparent that the maturity that head coach Jake Dickert had praised for the team had gone out the window at times, with two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties and other decisions that should have been easily avoided.
WSU, Arbuckle and Ward have another tough week ahead of them in practice before traveling to Eugene, Oregon, to take on the No. 9 ranked Oregon Ducks in what will be a true test if the offense can make the proper adjustments not to get blown out for the second straight week.
