Kirby Moore’s first season at Washington State keeps circling back to the same uncomfortable place: the offense shows life, then loses it, and the Cougars walk off frustrated again.
That pattern showed up Friday in Logan, Utah, where WSU dropped a 17-16 decision to Utah State in its Pac-12 road opener and fell to 1-5 overall. For a program that is now looking at only a puncher’s chance at a postseason bowl game, the same old offensive drift is becoming impossible to ignore.
Moore has leaned on a familiar message after each loss, praising effort and pointing to collective responsibility when the offense goes cold. On Friday night, he did it again.
“Yeah, where we’re at, I am as frustrated as anyone,” Moore said in his post-game press conference Friday in Logan, Utah. “And you’ve got to keep getting up.
That is what our players have continued to do. They are going to keep fighting.
Our staff is going to fight like hell and put our guys in the best position and work to improve - and obviously to get a better product on the field.”
It’s the kind of coach-speak WSU fans are increasingly tired of hearing, especially when the production on the field keeps swinging from promising to broken.
The conversation naturally starts with quarterback Caden Pinnick, who started Friday night after a week of questions about his status, and after Moore announced Monday that he was taking over offensive play-calling duties. Pinnick flashed enough to make the first half look like progress. Moore wanted more quick throws and more chances for the sophomore to create with his legs, and for a stretch, that plan worked.
Washington State put together two sustained first-half drives, including a 54-yard march in 15 plays that chewed up 9:20 and ended with Jack Stevens’ 43-yard field goal for a 6-0 lead late in the first quarter. Then Leo Pulalasi ripped off a career-long 54-yard touchdown run late in the half, and the Cougars were up 16-3.
“You look in the first half, we sustained some drives there, got in the red zone and did a nice job,” Moore said. The one (offensive series after Utah State’s botched kickoff catch), we got a quick, short field. But outside of that, we drove the field.
“I thought (Pinnick) was doing a nice job finding completions and had a couple of scrambles.”
And then the second half arrived, and everything tightened up again.
The Cougars stopped moving the ball with any real rhythm. They turned it over twice.
Pinnick’s third-quarter fumble on a designed run was his seventh turnover in six games. As the game wore on, he drifted back into the same damaging habits that have haunted this offense all season: holding the ball too long, taking bad sacks, and absorbing negative plays.
The issues weren’t just on the quarterback. Washington State’s offensive line added penalties to the mess and couldn’t consistently keep pressure away from Pinnick or the running backs after halftime.
“In the second half, again, it was a collective effort - the holding (penalties) up front … the illegal motion (penalty) and then we’ve got to make sure we’ve got better ball security,” Moore said.
Pinnick, who spoke after the game, didn’t dodge the larger problem. He called out the mental drift he believes has shown up once the offense starts rolling.
“Why I think (we hit the wall after moving the ball) is really (having) a complacent feeling, thinking we are good,” Pinnick said. “I don’t know, it sucks because when you look back on it, we were moving the ball, as we should.
For us to continue to stall out, it sucks. It is probably a mindset thing.”
He also took the blame directly, even as the offense around him continued to unravel.
“Obviously, when I do bad, we all do bad,” Pinnick said. “I am not saying that egotistically.
That is realistic. If your quarterback is playing terribly, it is hard to ask all 10 other guys to fill in one spot.
It’s my fault.”
In Other News...
Washington State Let Another Winnable Game Slip Away
Washington State had plenty of chances to turn a messy, turnover-filled afternoon into a much-needed win, but the Cougars could not make enough of their breaks count against Utah State. Jack Stevens provided two field goals, Leo Pulalsi added a touchdown run, and for stretches it looked like the game might tilt the Cougars way as both teams worked through penalties, stalled drives and defensive stops.
Instead, the kind of game Washington State had to close out slipped away in a hurry, leaving the Cougars with another frustrating result in a season already full of them. Utah States late push kept the pressure on throughout the finish, and the loss dropped Washington State deeper into the Pac-12 standings with more questions than answers about how this team is going to finish. [Read more 🡒]
Washington State Felt How Costly A Few Missed Stops Became
Missed tackles and missed chances are the kind of small defensive errors that can tilt a game in a hurry, and Washington State had to live with that reality after a late stretch turned costly. Utah State linebacker Asher Cunningham was all over the field, piling up a career-high 17 tackles while flashing the kind of disruption that can change a games rhythm, and the Cougars were left chasing the kind of stops that never quite arrived when they needed them most.
There were bright spots up front for Washington State, including nose tackle Jirah Leaupepetele, who logged two solo stops and his first full sack of the season. He also made a critical late-game tackle as the Cougars tried to steady things defensively, but the bigger issue was the sequence of plays they could not finish cleanly enough to keep the pressure from spilling into the final outcome. [Read more 🡒]
Washington State's Offensive Reset Already Faces A Brutal Question
Washington States offensive reset was already under a microscope before kickoff against Utah State, with coach Kirby Moore taking playcalling duties away from Matt Miller in an effort to spark a unit that had needed a jolt. The Cougars did get points early, and kicker Jack Stevens was steady in the first half, drilling all three of his field-goal attempts, including a 50-yarder, to keep the game within reach.
But the follow-up only sharpened the concern. Washington State was blanked after halftime in a 17-16 loss, with the offense stalling amid turnovers and penalties, and the margin for error suddenly looks even thinner with Oregon State next on the schedule. [Read more 🡒]