BFS Current Story UNEXPECTED! But Welcome! WOW! The weather in Pullman was what you would expect this time of year, cold, rainy and miserable. Typical Cougar home game weather. So you would expect the Cougars to feel at home and ready to play. But the Cougars looked far from that and the Cougar fans did as well. A reported crowd of 22,660 sat through the first half and then about 10,000 went home. WSU was out of school for Thanksgiving and hardly any students remained on campus to cheer for the Cougars. The stadium looked empty at the start of the game and by the end it was mostly Beaver fans left in the crowd. The weather may have been what was expected but the game was nothing near what I expected other then the Cougars final point total. The Beaver defense did what I thought they would do and hold the Cougars to 17 points (as predicted) but it was the offense and the method that the Beavers achieved victory in this game that is most surprising to me. The Beaver defense went into this game -5 for the season in turnover margin. They come out of the game +3 in turnover margin after grabbing 7 interceptions and a fumble in the game. WSU was done 21 to nothing after the first quater and had already turned the ball over twice. The Beavers took their first posession of the game and went 76 yards in 11 plays to go up 7-0. After that the Cougars fumbled and then threw their first interception, both of which went for Beaver touchdowns. The Cougars first half posessions went like this;
The Cougars turned the ball over 6 times in the their first 9 posessions of the game and were down 31 to 3 at halftime. In the second half the Cougars showed some life scoring on to quick drives of 2 plays for 80 yards and 4 plays for 80 yards. Both drives took less then 1 minute. But the Beaver offense responded both times by getting the ball back and scoring to quick drives of their own for touchdowns, 3 plays for 54 yards and 2 plays for 75 yards. The 2 play drive was highlighted by Clinton Polks 61 yard touchdown run that covered most of the field as Polk weaved through the Cougar defense from one sideline to the other. Two more late interceptions by the Beavers defense brought the total to 7 interceptions and 1 fumble recovery for the game. BY THE NUMBERS
A very impressive performance for the Beaver both on defense and offense. Lyle Moevao in his second start showed a lot of poise and threw the ball well and made smart decisions. The down side to the game is the loss of Yvenson Bernard. Bernard left the game at halftime with tightness in his knee. Today it was announced that Bernard underwent arthroscopic surgery on Monday to repair the knee. The Victory over the Cougars guarantess the Beavers their 7 bowl game in the last 9 years. And for the second year in a row Mike Riley has led his team from a 2-3 start to a bowl game by winning down the stretch in some big games. The Beavers now have 2 weeks to get ready for the Civil War and the Ducks in Eugene. Oregon has lost many key players and the Beavers have as well. So this season the name of the game needs to be changed to the "Battle of the Backups". So we now wait to see what happens on Thanksgiving when USC plays ASU and then the Oregon-UCLA game on saturday. Both games will impact where the Beavers end up when the bowl selections come out on Dec. 2nd. There is an outside chance that the Beavers could finish second in the PAC-10 and go to the Holiday Bowl if the remaining games play out a certain way. So lets get fired up and ready for the Civil War and another bowl game for our Beavers. GO BEAVERS! BFS |
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