Progress, Continued

Well Cougs, our boys in Crimson went down again, but hey, it wasn’t that bad.  38-28, on the road, as a 35-point underdog?  I’ll take it. 

Some quick thoughts:

• Yeah, the 21 fourth quarter points can be called “window dressing”, if you want to go there.  It was, after all, 31-7 heading into the fourth quarter, and well, it’s natural for a very good team like Stanford to let down slightly.  Once the Cougs made it 31-14 early in the quarter and you thought “you know, maybe….”, Stanford came right back with a TD and went ahead comfortably, again. 
• Turnovers bit the Cougs again this week.  For the second straight week, they were in the negative side of the turnover ratio (minus-3 vs. Arizona last week, minus-2 in the turnover ratio this week).  That’s now a combined minus-5 over a two-week stretch.  Underdogs usually need to win the turnover battle to have a shot at an upset.  If you want to beat ranked teams, you simply can’t afford these types of turnovers.
• But I will say this – points are points, period.  They don’t put asterisks by touchdowns, you know what I mean?  Jeff Tuel found a way to toss four of ’em, and that’s saying something.  The Cougs came back and never gave up, and for that, we should feel good.  I’m sure many of you will agree with me, but some WSU teams in the recent past would have laid down when it was 31-7, and in fact it probably would have ended up a 52-14 score, something along those lines.  But not these guys.  These guys fight!  They believe that if they keep swinging, eventually good things will happen.
• That’s now four straight games where the Cougs have covered the spread, in case you were wondering.  I think the belief the players have in each other and what they are doing has really started to show itself, starting with the UCLA game.  No longer are we left talking about the little things they are doing right, things you don’t see on Saturdays.  Instead, we’re actually witnessing progress.  Actually going out and playing better in games against ranked teams can only help build this young program’s confidence.  As Ted Miller said:

  Washington State is going to embarrass somebody this year. And Cougars fans surely are starting to sense that the program is turning around in year three under Paul Wulff.

Well put.  You get the feeling that something good is coming.  And no longer does it feel like an “IF” situation, but rather “WHEN” it comes!