Sacks have become Cougs’ bag

PULLMAN – The noise starts to build the moment after the defender breaks free from his blocker.

Careening into a pocket meant to exist without him, the defender zeroes in on the ball. Only one goal remains – sack the quarterback.

“You see nothing else but the quarterback,” Washington State defensive end Mkristo Bruce said. “Everything else is blanked out. You see the quarterback, and all your senses just intensify.”

The quarterback sack is quick, sometimes painful and almost always significant.

It is a momentum-changing moment on the field and a crowd pleaser around it.

When it comes to sacking the quarterback this season, no one in the country has done it more often than Bruce (10) and no team has done it more than the Cougars (27). Forty-two teams in Division I-A have fewer sacks than Bruce this season.

“Once you hit him and you bring him down, it’s the biggest high in the world,” Bruce says, his head tilting to the side as he exhales. “You hear the crowd go crazy, everybody’s jumping up and down. It’s better than any roller coaster.”

But not all sacks are the same, and with every sack comes more than one side of the story.

“It absolutely is the worst possible feeling you can have,” said WSU senior Sean O’Connor, who has played at guard and tackle on the offensive line this season. “The worst ones are where you get beat physically and you know it. You kind of turn around and give him the, ‘Look out!’ Oh, it’s terrible. Because you can play great for 65 plays and then on the 66th play the guy comes through and gets a sack and you know it’s on you.”

Even worse, the offensive lineman has an unstated responsibility to help his quarterback get off the ground – at the one moment when he’d probably prefer to take refuge behind a couple of teammates.

“You want to make sure he’s OK,” O’Connor said. “So you want to go help him up and make sure that no one’s piling on or putting a cheap shot into his ribs. We try to protect him as best we can.”

A defender, especially on the defensive line, spends most of the game searching for a way to get to the quarterback. Offensive linemen are trained on a daily basis every nuance of positioning and power to keep these players as far from the passer as possible.

The quarterback is taught specific escape routes if protection breaks down, and between them an offense can frustrate a bloodthirsty defender to no end, especially if he leaves the field empty-handed.

“There’s always a buildup. The guy’s got something to say for four quarters,” Cougars quarterback Alex Brink said. “The guy from USC, Lawrence Jackson, he was talking to me the whole game but he never got a sack. ‘Oh, I’m here, I’m here. I’m coming.’ But I was like, ‘Well, you haven’t gotten a sack yet.’ After the game he said to me, ‘I just wanted to get one.’ “

Should a defender reach his target on time, he almost always has something to say. (In addition to a heavy hand placed oh-so-carefully on the quarterback’s helmet.)

Some players will admit to planning their postsack words for a quarterback in advance, and they rarely forget their best lines – not to mention their teammates’ – after the fact. Junior defensive tackle Aaron Johnson has four sacks in his WSU career, two of them coming this season.

“One time I said, ‘Hey, my name’s Aaron Johnson … remember that,’ ” he recalls. “(Mkristo), he says all kinds of stuff. … In the Stanford game, he started counting. Sack the quarterback. ‘One.’ Sack the quarterback. ‘Two.’ “

Bruce finished with five in that game, but defensive players seem to agree that getting one big sack can be far greater than getting multiple sacks of lesser importance.

Scott Davis collected three sacks against Oregon State last week, but it was the final one – on a fourth down – that sealed the Cougars’ win and sticks in his mind as his personal favorite.

Davis didn’t get a big hit on the Beavers’ Matt Moore, but the senior linebacker knows it’s better to get a sack minus the style points than to whiff altogether.

“Most of the time they’re going to see you coming and try to make a move,” Davis said. “You’re better off to break down and get some cloth. … (If you miss) you look like a fool. You get yelled at by your coach, the players, the offensive coaches, everybody. You’re either a hero or a zero.”

Even Bruce admits to missing out on multiple sacks this season because he’s gone for the big hit when a more conservative approach would have worked. Still, the defensive end will be looking for more sacks on Saturday.

If the crowd starts to roar, California quarterback Nate Longshore should know what’s coming his way.

“You get that taste in your mouth,” Bruce said. “Once you’ve had the best food you’ve ever tasted, you want to taste it again.”

Notes

Wide receiver Jason Hill practiced again in a no-contact jersey Thursday, another indication that the senior may play against Cal on Saturday. … Right tackle Charles Harris, however, missed the practice after spraining an ankle Wednesday. Head coach Bill Doba said he is unsure of Harris’ game status, but added that O’Connor would start at right tackle if Harris is unavailable.