As WSU welcomes No. 19 Wisconsin, the excitement lives around town — and on the streets

PULLMAN – There’s a road in Pullman, a street named Terre View that sits just outside Washington State’s campus, that helps explain the excitement around the Cougars’ home matchup with No. 19 Wisconsin better than anyone could.

During the week, scores of fans packed into RVs and traveled to the Palouse for this game. Until Thursday night arrived and they got the green light to move to the parking lot across from Martin Stadium, the site of Saturday’s prime-time game, they had to line up their RVs along Terre View.

As the week unfolded, as Monday turned to Tuesday and as Tuesday turned to Wednesday, the RVs started to pile onto the street . First it was two RVs, then four, then eight, then 16 or 20. Driving along the street was a little like driving bumper cars at the amusement park.

How else to explain the magnitude of WSU’s meeting with No. 19 Wisconsin, the first Power Five team to visit Pullman in 25 years, and just the second overall?

“I know this,” WSU head coach Jake Dickert said. “Once you get to that Thursday and a lot of the install work is done, the RVs start coming to town, the traffic starts to pile up a little bit. You start to feel that energy. Obviously, Friday, you can just feel it, the fans starting on the field at night. It’s starting to really build. We stay in our little bubble sometimes, but you can feel it.”

For WSU, there may be no way to overstate the gravity of this game. It’s the first nonconference Power Five team to visit Pullman since 1998 and the first WSU game on ABC since 2004. It fits against the bigger backdrop, the reality that this might never happen again in Pullman.

That’s because WSU may not be part of a conference next season and beyond. The Pac-12 as it’s known has crumbled. Even on Friday as WSU and Oregon State filed a temporary restraining order against commissioner George Kliavkoff to determine the conference’s assets, it’s clear these types of opportunities do not come the Cougars’ way often.

“We consistently rate on TV. That’s been proven over and over,” WSU Athletic Director Pat Chun said. “Saturday night is another opportunity to remind everybody we’re a national brand.”

The challenging part for Washington State is that another national brand will be on Gesa Field at 4:30 p.m.

That’s No. 19 Wisconsin, the team with a strong running back tandem of Braelon Allen and Chez Mellusi, a new-look club with a new head coach in Luke Fickell.

What will WSU have to do to recall the game fondly? It might start on defense, where the Cougars will need to find ways to contain Allen, like they did to upset Wisconsin last season in Madison. This season, though, the Badgers have also received a boost from the speedy Mellusi, who rushed for 157 yards against Buffalo in last week’s victory.

Matching up with those two will be WSU’s defensive line – edges Ron Stone Jr. and Brennan Jackson, interior linemen David Gusta and Nusi Malani – and its linebackers, including Devin Richardson, Kyle Thornton and redshirt freshman Buddah Al-Uqdah.

How well they contain Allen and Melllusi might swing this one. On that front, the Cougars can’t defend the Badgers like they did last fall. New Wisconsin offensive coordinator Phil Longo has installed an Air Raid offense, lining up in formations with three and four wide receivers, forcing the defense to spread out and honor the pass.

In turn, that can pave the way for Allen and Mellusi, who combined for a shade under 300 yards last week. WSU’s challenge, among others, will be to find a way to do both – to bottle up the run and contain the pass.

“It’s a lot more similar to something like our offense,” Stone said. “They have the ability to run the ball, but they also have the ability to pass it. So it’s really just fundamentally playing our game, and trusting our keys and trusting our technique to help us eliminate them in space and things like that.”

On offense, WSU will need quarterback Cameron Ward to play like he did last week in Colorado – and maybe even better. A week ago, he completed 37 of 49 passes for 451 yards and three scores. If not for two fumbles, he might have put together one of the best performances in the country that week.

What the Cougars really need, though, is to find a balance on offense. In their 50-24 win over Colorado State last week, WSU running backs Nakia Watson (a former Wisconsin transfer) and Jaylen Jenkins combined for 14 carries and 26 yards. The Cougars’ leading rusher was Ward, who finished with 40 yards on 13 carries. Athletic as Ward is, WSU does not want him to be the team’s leading rusher.

“I really don’t,” Dickert said, “ever again.”

That much might be in the hands of WSU’s offensive line, which cycled through seven players in Week 1. Center Konner Gomness and left tackle Esa Pole were about the only staples. The rest – Ma’ake Fifita, Christian Hilborn, Brock Dieu, Fa’alili Fa’amoe and Christy Nkanu – all shuffled around, coaches tinkering with combinations as the game wore on.

Expect WSU to deploy the same strategy on Saturday. Expect, too, for this game to feel unlike any other in recent Martin Stadium memory. That’s the opportunity that awaits the Cougars.

“There’s a unique environment and climate here in Pullman on a game day Saturday that arguably no one else in the country has,” Chun said. “It’s just another opportunity to showcase that on a national stage.”