Cougars try to regroup

PULLMAN – Five games into his second season, coach Paul Wulff had to stand on the sideline at sold-out Autzen Stadium on Saturday night and watch as his Washington State Cougars had their doors blown off from the start.

And never get them hooked back on.

“I think this is the first game of all of our games (this year) where I think they felt like they didn’t respond and play well,” Wulff said of his team’s attitude after the 52-6 spanking by Oregon. “Particularly in the environment. There was a certain level of being rattled out there.”

The Cougars (1-4 overall, 0-3 in Pac-10 play) went into the game with an offensive line, the engine of their offense, held together with duct tape. And the Ducks sliced through it enough to hold WSU to 158 yards of total offense, sack Jeff Tuel, who was knocked from the game in the first quarter, and Marshall Lobbestael four times combined and limit the Cougars to four first downs.

“We didn’t respond to their speed, the tempo that they came at us with on both sides of the ball, and even on special teams,” Wulff said. “We had some big plays on special teams that were called back because we got kind of beat with some speed and we ended up holding and creating our own issues.”

As the 13th-ranked Ducks’ offense upped its tempo and streaked to 318 rushing yards and 514 total yards, Wulff could just watch and think about the future.

“We want to be able to have that type of tempo,” Wulff said of a Ducks offense quarterback Jeremiah Masoli said was “hitting on all cylinders.”

“Maybe a different philosophy on the type of plays,” Wulff continued, “but we want to be able to have tempo like that.

“But it takes a veteran team and a mature program to be able to do that. We’re working our way toward that. It’s not happening as fast as we want, but I can’t speed up time right now. And that’s really what we need.”

Without a way to get older quickly, the Cougars must try to regroup this week. Their only home game of the month occurs Saturday. Arizona State comes to town after suffering a 28-17 loss to Oregon State at home last week. It was the Beavers’ first win in Tempe in 40 years.

The Sun Devils (2-2, 0-1) need a win. But not as badly as the Cougars.

“I think everybody just felt pretty disappointed,” Wulff said of the Oregon loss. “So we’ve got a big week in front of us to respond.

“I think we all want to get back on that field. We’ve got to redeem ourselves here a little bit.”