What the heck happened to Washington State?

Was it Bill Doba? Is it the current coaches? The players? There are questions that need to be answered (maybe I'm just a bitter Cougar fan that has watched his team fall as deep as he's ever seen).

The Cougars never stood a chance against Oregon Saturday at Martin Stadium. They lost to the Ducks, 63-14. WSU trailed 14-0 three minutes into the game and never made a game of it (the closest they got was 21-7, but Oregon scored two minutes later to extend the lead).

All eyes were on redshirt freshman quarterback Marshall Lobbestael. He wasn't awful, but he didn't shine either (I guess he played about as good as expected). Lobbestael completed 22-of-41 passes for 192 yards and two touchdowns. On the downside, he threw two interceptions and lost a fumble. You can't blame him (too much) for the drubbing.

The running game didn't help his cause (even though the score forced them to pass more than I'm sure they wanted to). Wazzu finished with 79 yards on the ground (on 32 carries)...66 yards came on WSU's two final drives.

Lobbestael (who was very hard on himself after that game) earned plenty of postgame praise:

Offensive coordinator Todd Sturdy: "I was proud of Marshall. It's the first time he's been put into the situation where he had to prepare for a Pac-10 ball game with all the pressures that go along with that throughout the week. I thought he handled it very well. I was impressed with his maturity."

Wazzu's defense can take much of the blame for the beat down. Washington State allowed 507 yards of total offense (346 yards rushing; 161 through the air). They didn't force one turnover and made Oregon punt only five times all game. Jeremiah Johnson and LeGarrette Blount each ran for three touchdowns and looked unstoppable. Starting quarterback Jeremiah Misoli also did well, completing 9-of-16 passes for two touchdowns.

Defensive coordinator Chris Ball summed it up well: "We knew going into the game we had to tackle, and we didn't tackle."

One final stat...

WSU has lost their two Pac-10 games by a combined score of 129-17. It doesn't get any more embarrassing than that.

Next up: UCLA at the Rose Bowl. The Cougars have had the Bruins number in the recent past, but I'm not sure I have much confidence going into this one (check the stat above).

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