Washington State walked out of Husky Stadium with a 24-10 Apple Cup loss to No. 17 Washington, and the Cougars didn’t leave with just a defeat. They left with a clear list of problems that need fixing fast before Saturday’s trip to Kansas State.
The defense gave WSU plenty to like, but the offense and special teams were a different story. Washington State went 0-for-11 on third down, and seven of those tries came with seven or more yards to go. That’s a brutal place to live for any offense, and coach Jake Moore said the Cougars have to get themselves into better situations earlier in drives.
"Third-and-7-plus (yards) against anybody in college football is going to be difficult," Moore said.
Moore also pointed to the start of drives as the real issue, saying Sunday after the game and again at his Monday press conference that WSU needs cleaner first-down execution.
"The most important thing early in the drives, you’ve got to execute on first down and get in a rhythm," Moore said. "It took us longer than we wanted to get in a rhythm there.”
Quarterback Caden Pinnick felt the squeeze all afternoon. Washington’s front was in the backfield often, Pinnick was sacked three times, and the pressure never really let up. Even so, he called the 0-for-11 night on third down the kind of thing that can happen in a weird game.
"That is how the ball rolls sometimes," Pinnick said. "We cannot really plan that.
We’ve definitely got to get better and got to improve on that part of the game. When you go 0-of-11, you are not going to win a lot of games on third down.”
Special teams was another sore spot. Jack Stevens has been reliable everywhere he’s played, and after taking a redshirt season at South Dakota State, he won WSU’s kicking job last fall as a transfer. He made 16 of 19 field goals and all 33 extra points in 2025, and his .842 field-goal percentage ranks No. 4 all-time in Cougars history for a single season.
But Sunday turned messy. Stevens missed a 52-yard try on WSU’s first series, which was understandable from that distance.
Later, with just under seven minutes left in the third quarter and the Cougars still hunting points in a 10-game, he was sent out for a 27-yarder that went through the uprights before a delay-of-game penalty wiped it away. After the five-yard penalty, Stevens pushed the 32-yard retry wide right.
Moore said the whole field-goal operation needs to run cleaner.
Stevens did connect on a 42-yarder with 4:30 left to pull WSU within 17-10.
Then came the biggest item on Moore’s checklist: turnovers. Pinnick threw two interceptions, including one in the first half on a tipped pass, and Kirby Vorhees lost a fumble at the Cougars’ 24 with 9 1/2 minutes left before halftime.
"Ball security," Moore said, "we did not achieve that."
Washington State has seen the cost of giveaways before. Last season, the Cougars didn’t turn it over until Week 3, when they had five turnovers - three interceptions and two fumbles - in a 59-10 loss at North Texas State.
And in 2025, the pattern has been clear: in the three games where WSU had three or more turnovers, the Cougars went 2-1. In the five games with no turnovers, they were 4-1.
Pinnick knows the standard has to rise quickly.
"I’ve just got to play better, prepare better and mostly help give my guys a chance to actually have a chance to go win something," Pinnick said.
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