Splitting the eight played games of the 2023 season for the WSU football team has been a rollercoaster ride of emotions for fans. WSU went from the best underdog story in the nation, reaching heights as high as No. 13 in the nation, to becoming one of the most disappointing teams over the past four weeks. 

Wins over Wisconsin and Oregon State highlighted a fantastic start for the season, with Cam Ward looking like a Heisman-caliber quarterback. Head coach Jake Dickert had his relative coming out party as one of the better coaches in the nation, with his quote at the end of the win over the Badgers making rounds in the college football landscape. 

“This moment, it’s everything. We belong in the Power Five,” he said. “These kids have worked their ass off. I’m so damn proud of them, to double down in the moment. We’re all we got, we’re all we need.”

After four weeks of some of the best WSU football in recent years, the Cougs had a bye week ahead of their matchup against UCLA in the Rose Bowl. Nothing seemed to be off from the bye week and coming out it appeared that WSU would take care of business and continue their hot start against the Bruins. 

From the attitude of the team to their performance on the field, everything did change.

While Ward has still been the best part of this 2023 team, the difference in his personal production has been drastic, but more importantly, the team as a whole has gone from a sneaky contender to being on the cusp of missing a bowl game entirely. 

WSU lost to UCLA and lost big Arizona to start their losing streak, then they fought hard for a half against Oregon and got upset against a one-win Arizona State team. After the Oregon loss, Dickert said that the team could grow from the loss but is not looking for consolation. 

“This can be a building block for us. There is no second place, there are no consolation prizes, we came in here to get the win. It didn’t happen, but I love the fight of our team,” Dickert said. 

Struggles have come from both sides of the ball, with the offense playing very poorly against Arizona and UCLA and the defense playing poorly against Arizona State and Oregon.

Dickert, a coach with a defensive background took the blame for the loss to the Ducks. 

“I take that solely on me. I’ve got to make sure I put these guys in better positions to execute,” Dickert said. “Against a good team, you can’t ever relax, you can’t ever settle. I thought they stayed ahead of us in the run game.” 

Whether or not he is completely to blame, it was a sign of things to come as the defense against the Sun Devils was historically bad for the program. 

The difference between the team that played in the first four games and the last four games has been astonishing, with individual statistics and team play taking a hit. 

First up, Ward has been a great QB overall for the season, but his stats are greatly carried by his performance over the first four weeks. In those games, he went 106-of-142 passing (74.7%) for 1,390 yards and 13 passing TDs and an additional three rushing TDs without throwing a single interception. In his next four, he’s gone 110-of-167 (65.9%) for just 1,142 yards with just three TDs and three interceptions. 

While Dickert has praised Ward’s development and said he is showing his value both on the field with his play and off the field with his leadership, his production has taken a dive. 

The offensive scheme has changed throughout the season, with the passing attack becoming heavier and the run slowly being abandoned over time. In the first four weeks, the team averaged 34.25 attempts per game and averaged 127.75 yards per game. While it is heavily impacted by their 229 yards against a weaker Northern Colorado team, they had at least 86 yards in every game and had over 100 against a tough Beavers team.

In their recent strength, they’re running the ball just 21 times per contest for just 48 yards a game. After scoring eight times on the ground through four weeks, they’ve punched the ball in with their legs just four more times, with two of them coming from Ward against Arizona State alone. 

Passing has also seen a dip, evidenced by Ward’s lack of production recently. The offense playcalling from Ben Arbuckle has shifted toward a higher number of screens and mid-range passes, with him all but eliminating short passing, where Ward thrived in the first half.

After completing 82.5% of his short-range passes (between one and five yards) for 288 yards through his four games, Arbuckle and the WSU offense is using those routes as much as deep passes (passes of more than 15 yards). 

To start the year, 24% of the passing plays for WSU were screen passes, but that number has increased to 28.7% in recent games. But the more drastic difference has been in the increase in mid-range passing (between five and 14 yards). After calling mid-range throws 29.3% of the time in the first four games, those play calls have come out 36.9% in recent games.

The change in play calling has not completely been the downfall of the team, but the efficiency the offense certainly has made it harder to score. The Cougs were converting 60.4% of their third down tries to start the year, but have converted on just 26% of tries through the game against Arizona State. 

Defensively, the team has also taken a significant dip in production. The defense line had eight sacks in the first outings and has gotten just five sacks recently, with four coming in one game, the one against UCLA. 

They defended the pass and got pressure on the QB way better earlier in the year, getting 22 QB hits and breaking up 18 passes in the first four and getting 14 QB hits and 11 pass breakups recently. 

Not only have they struggled to stop the opposing QB’s arms, the WSU defense has been running all over by every team. Pac-12 opponents are averaging 216 rushing yards against the Cougs and have scored 19 TDs, a clear reason that they have managed just one win in Conference play so far. 

As the Cougs prep for their final stretch of the season, something needs to change and they need to find consistency on both sides of the ball if they want to find themselves in a bowl game. 

The rest of the way, the Cougs take on three unranked teams in Stanford, Cal and Colorado, with the team needing just two wins to have bowl eligibility. But those two wins will not happen if they keep on their downward spiral.