J-Hill shakes off adversity to lead Cougs

CORVAL- LIS, Ore. – It was late in the first half during an Oregon State field-goal attempt that Washington State was flagged for what referee Jack Folliard described as “disconcerting signals.”

Right. As if the Cougars and Beavers hadn’t been sending them to the paying customers all afternoon.

Would you believe I-don’t-want-it-you-take-it fumbles on three successive plays? A couple of colossal red-zone whiffs by Wazzu? Some OSU quarterbacking so hapless that the Cougars’ Alex Brink should be owed a week of valentines from the Internet grumps just out of gratitude?

“I still say there are no ugly wins,” insisted WSU coach Bill Doba.

Sorry. And not only was the Cougars’ 13-6 escape here Saturday ugly, it didn’t even compensate with a good personality – unless you count the fact that it was the fulcrum on which Wazzu’s season tipped.

But certainly the most disconcerting signal for the Cougars had to be the sight of Jason Hill, now officially the greatest receiver in school history if not simply the best, stranded on the sideline through another fourth quarter, clutching his right arm tight to his side, his shoulder painfully bruised.

“That’s two years in a row I came down to Oregon State and didn’t finish the game,” he lamented.

But there was a, well, concerting signal for the Cougs, too. Maybe a couple. This time there was no meltdown when he left the game, even if the offense didn’t get much of anything done (“The defense is playing so well they’re carrying us,” Brink acknowledged). And before Hill left, there was the vision of him streaking down the sideline – and down the middle – and Brink finding him with passes we were beginning to suspect were no longer part of the WSU repertoire.

But one – a 25-yarder that he managed to tightrope inbounds – finally moved him past Gluey Hughie Campbell atop WSU’s all-time receiving yards list. Two plays later, he snagged a 29-yarder on a blazing post pattern for his 30th career touchdown – and the only one of the game. And, yes, those were the two plays that battered his shoulder.

All in all, a big day for the player they call J-Hill. A hard day.

A hard week.

It was on Tuesday that the Cougars’ senior captain left the team to fly to San Francisco and be with his mother, LaVerne Hawkins, who had suffered a heart attack the previous Thursday. He was back with the team before it left for Corvallis, after his mother had a pacemaker surgically implanted on Thursday, but Hill admitted to a level of anxiety he hadn’t previously endured.

“I’m human like everybody else,” he said. “It hurts, but it’s a part of life. I tried not to put it on my teammates – tried not to stress them with my stresses, and I think I came out and played good for them today.”

It wasn’t just a family thing, and it wasn’t just a football thing. It was everything.

“There are a lot of people who depend on me, including my family back home,” he said. “So I can’t let anyone down.”

If that seems like a lot of self-imposed pressure, well, it is. But Saturday’s victory and the near-miss loss to USC a week earlier provided stark testimony to just how right he is – how important Hill is, fully integrated into the offense, to the Cougars’ hopes and dreams.

Against USC, he was held – not a bad description – to just 49 yards. He scored a touchdown but he wasn’t a difference maker – not the way Steve Smith was for the Trojans, and it seemed less about what he was doing than what the Cougars were putting him in a position to do.

That changed dramatically on Saturday, when he was sent deep on the second and third offensive snaps. Neither resulted in a reception, but the second drew an OSU pass interference penalty – and a tone was set.

“You’d rather get a catch than a call,” Hill said, “but we’ll take it.”

And in that game-turning three-play drive in the third quarter, they took all of it.

“That’s always part of our offense, but we just hadn’t executed it,” said offensive coordinator Mike Levenseller. “It wasn’t a matter of that one time being a magic call, but it wound up being a difference maker.”

Naturally, future opponents will undoubtedly go to school on OSU’s rather indelicate approach to deal with J-Hill, so it’s Wazzu’s challenge to find other ways he can make a difference. On the other hand, the Beavers pretty much scuttled anything else – Hill’s 121 yards accounted for more than a third of the offense.

No wonder Hill was already antsy about being back for next week’s game against red-hot Cal.

“I’d better be able to play,” he said.

But not as antsy as he was Saturday.

“I found myself a little too hyped up,” he confessed. “I wanted to perform for my mom and for my team, and show everyone that even though I missed a couple of days of practice that I’m a gamer.”

So is Mom. Turned out she was released from the hospital Saturday and made it home to watch the game on television.

Just to see if that new pacemaker was up to handling some disconcerting signals.