Yet again, Washington State’s defense doomed by explosive plays

BERKELEY, Calif. – Mike Leach has grown fatigued talking about the explosive plays Washington State’s defense has allowed this season.

The sheer volume would be enough to keep any head coach, defensive coordinator or position coach awake at night, let alone the manner in which they’re happening.

But until the Cougars make a fix, explosives could continue to be a theme of Leach’s postgame talks.

Once again, the big plays were a big issue in WSU’s defensive dud against Cal on Saturday at Memorial Stadium. Seven times in the 33-20 loss, the Cougars gave up a run or pass play of 20 yards or longer.

“We’ve been talking about this explosive thing for awhile and I’ll tell you what the trouble with those explosive plays are, I’ll tell you exactly what they are,” Leach said. “We go out there and play eith eight instead of 11, because we’re too soft and too undisciplined to do what we’re coached to fo. And as coaches, we’re not able to get the message through somehow and then all of the sudden, somebody’s not where they’re supposed to be and so then we give up an explosive play.”

The Golden Bears had at least one explosive in each of the four quarters Saturday, giving up a 27-yard rushing touchdown to running back Christopher Brown Jr. on Cal’s first play from scrimmage and a 52-yard passing touchdown from Devon Modster to Makai Polk that effectively sealed the result with 6:15 to play in the fourth quarter.

And in between, the play-by-play sheet was littered with Cal explosives.

There was Modster’s 35-yard pass to Kekoa Crawford, a 48-yard hook-up with Jordan Duncan, a 22-yard run from Brown, a 23-yard run from Trevon Clark and a 26-yard scramble from Modster that set up the game-clinching 52-yard pass play that came a few snaps later.

Cornerback George Hicks III insists the solution is simple.

“We’ve just got to do our job,” he said. “Give credit to Cal, they came out and made plays, but we have to do our job. It’s that simple. It’s guys making simple mistakes, things that we do all the time in practice, we’ve just got to execute better.”

The Cougars gave up one chunk play after another in a 67-63 loss to UCLA and the mishaps continued in losses to Utah and Arizona State. WSU recovered in a 41-10 win over Colorado, but the Cougars allowed one too many explosive plays in a 37-35 loss at Oregon – the most costly of those being an 89-yard scoring run from CJ Verdell.

Though it’s been an overarching issue for a team embroiled in defensive hardhips, defensive end Karson Block maintained “it’s never too late” to make changes.

“That comes down from what I was saying earlier, it’s preparation,” Block said. “No matter what we do, we can always prepare better. No matter how well we practice, we can always practice better, practice harder. And that’s how you fix those things. Just going all the way and diving in and fully committing and doing everything you can to possibly eliminate those.”