The Cougs traveled to Fort Collins Saturday looking to rebound after losing the Apple Cup in Pullman the week prior. They came away with the victory 20-3, securing their first road win of the season against the Rams.
The Cougar defense held Colorado State to just a field goal on their first possession of the game. This was a big change from the past two weeks, where the Wazzu defense let up 118 points total against North Texas and Washington. In a post game interview, corner Colby Humphrey mentioned the change in defense.
“As a Defense it was about us responding. The past is the past, we can’t change it. Now we are moving on to next week and we got a good win,” said Humphrey.
The Cougs seemed to have finally found their starting quarterback in Zevi Eckhaus. He started a sharp pass to Jeremiah Noga for a 35-yard touchdown to put the Cougs up early 7-3. The Cougs would continue to have a successful first quarter with a 37-yard field goal by Jack Stevens.
The defense stepped up in the beginning of the second half when Rams running back Justin Marshall fumbled the ball over to the Cougs. Linebacker Anthony Palano talked about the defense success this week in a postgame interview.
“We know what we’re capable of and we know what we can do and what our standard is on defense,” Palano said. “Everybody just believes that. And this week of practice was a really good week of practice.”
After getting the ball back, the Cougs would drive down for a 21-yard field goal putting Wazzu up 13-3.
The defense would continue to shine with stops on 3rd and 1 and 4th and 1 to get the ball back in the offense. They would capitalize with a short throw from Eckhaus to Ademola Faleye to bring the score to 20-3. Both defenses would hold each other to no points in the second half.
Zevi Eckhaus threw 16/28 and 189 yards with 30 rushing yards. Zevi threw the teams only two touchdowns. Zevi continues to be a bright spot for the Wazzu offense in his first win at Washington state as the starting QB.
“It’s a lot better when you win the game.It was good for us. I think it’s going to be great for the team to kind of carry us over into this bye and just can’t take it for granted,” Eckhaus said.
The Wazzu offense was able to run the ball for 158 yards, the most in a single game this season.
“We ran the ball really well today. That’s important because if we’re going to pass the ball successfully, we got to be able to run the ball,” Eckhaus said. “I thought the guys did a really good job today, whether it was establishing the line of scrimmage, whether it was breaking tackles.They just did a really good job.”
The Cougs secured the win in Fort Collins and will head into the bye week 3-2. Head coach Jimmy Rogers talked about what the team can do in the bye week to improve.
“We got to get better at situational awareness. We got to get better at tackling. We got to continue to work our feet in the line of scrimmage and running off the ball at O line. We got to make sure that the communication is clean,” Rogers said. ”We got to be able to win in the red zone. And then obviously just continue to work on the small things. There’s plenty of things that we’ll see on this film that will be addressed and we’ll move forward.”
The Cougs will take on the No 4 Ole Miss Rebels in Oxford Oct 11. The last time the Cougs beat a top five team was against USC in 2017.
