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Stanford Cardinal vs Washington State Cougars Football Preview

At first glance, this is a game that the Stanford Cardinal should win by 50 points. It’s Washington State, after all, that’s coming to The Farm to play football on a sleepy Saturday afternoon in the San Francisco Bay Area. Then again, after giving this game a second look, there’s reason to think that maybe, just maybe, the visitors from the Palouse could actually make this game interesting.

Don’t laugh, and don’t dismiss this buildup as a way to generate artificial hype for a go-round on the college gridiron. Washington State truly could compete with Stanford (well, for at least three quarters, certainly long enough to stay in the conversation) and make the favorites compete a little bit in Palo Alto, California.

While Washington State remains at 1-6 overall and 0-4 in the Pac-10, the Cougars – while bereft of a conference victory since 2008 – are actually getting better. Their record simply doesn’t show it. Coach Paul Wulff’s team shows signs of finally being competitive after a truly toothless and hopeless trek through misery in 2009.

WSU’s last three games have featured a study in perseverance and tenacity from a group of young men that refuses to mail in the rest of its season. On Oct. 2, Wazzu was tied with UCLA at 28-apiece in the first few minutes of the fourth quarter. The Cougars gained a first-and-goal at the UCLA 1 but saw a touchdown get overturned on second-and-goal. UCLA stood up the Cougars on fourth-and-goal before driving 99 yards for a touchdown. Washington State absorbed a 42-28 loss, but Wulff’s roster began to trade punches on relatively even terms for the majority of a game. That kind of contentiousness hadn’t defined very many Wazzu football fights over the past two seasons.

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On Oct. 9, Washington State stayed in the ring for a long time against an Oregon team that owns one of the most high-powered offenses in America. The Ducks, after 26 minutes of play, held a slim 22-17 lead over the Cougars, and after 41 minutes, Wazzu was still in the thick of the fray, trailing by a 36-23 margin with four minutes left in the third quarter. WSU registered a plus-two turnover differential to keep the Ducks at bay and force the defending Pac-10 champions to dig a little deeper. Oregon won 43-23, but Wazzu won a fair share of respect around the league.

Last weekend, Wazzu scored only seven points, but the Cougars held Arizona to just 24 points. Arizona never scored more than one touchdown in any quarter, and found itself leading by only 14 points as the fourth quarter started.

In 2008 and 2009, Washington State was frequently down by 30 or 40 points entering the fourth quarter, but now, the Cougars are putting themselves within striking distance of Pac-10 adversaries. With an extra bounce of the ball and a timely play, the boys from the eastern part of Washington could make life a little bit more intriguing for Stanford and coach Jim Harbaugh. Stanford looked like a great choice to crush USC on Oct. 9, but when the Cardinal noticeably underperformed and needed a last-second field goal to dig out a 37-35 win, the prominence of the Stanford team took a hit in the eyes of many national commentators.

Washington State versus Stanford: It’s a game that looked like a complete mismatch before the season started. Stanford is still a much better team, but if these teams are separated by fewer than 20 points entering the fourth quarter, don’t be terribly surprised. Wazzu is slowly but surely climbing back up the Pac-10 ladder. One of these days, the Cougs might not win, but they’ll fashion a nail-biter that a rival school won’t enjoy.

By Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer