WSU rewind: Cougars’ loss to New Mexico puts their defense under the microscope

PULLMAN – One of the strongest indictments of Washington State’s defense on Saturday night in a 38-35 loss to New Mexico came from the mouth of veteran linebacker Kyle Thornton.

After the game, after the Cougars surrendered a game-winning touchdown rush to UNM dual-threat quarterback Devon Dampier, Thornton confirmed that WSU’s defense had done its homework on Dampier headed into the game. Then he offered a comparison to the Dampier the Cougars saw on the field and the one they saw on film.

“I wouldn’t say that he surprised us by how impressive he was,” Thornton said. “I thought he was exactly as advertised.”

Thornton meant it as a compliment to Dampier, who piled up 193 yards and three touchdowns on 28 carries, lots of them designed quarterback keepers. But it also works to put the Cougars’ defense under the microscope: If they knew what to expect from Dampier, so much so that they weren’t surprised by anything he did in the game, what stopped them from slowing him down?

“Any time you involve the QB run game, it always kinda complicates things, because you are essentially hatted out,” Thornton said. “At some point it does become one-on-one, and I thought they were getting to it in a lot of different ways. They were really doing a good job hiding it with a lot of motion, making us communicate a lot on the back end before they actually got to it.”

All told, Dampier ran 22 QB keepers for 156 yards and three touchdowns, including the final dagger inside of a minute to play. With Saturday’s game in the books, Dampier now leads the country in rushing yards by a QB with 1,079, and he’s tied with WSU’s John Mateer for most missed tackles by a quarterback with 48. Few opponents have found ways to slow him, and the Cougs were the latest victim.

The troubling part for WSU, though, is in how obvious New Mexico made its offensive gameplan. Dampier is clearly more comfortable as a rusher than a passer – he has more interceptions (12) than touchdowns (11) – and as this game unfolded, never did the Lobos try to hide it. They sat Dampier in the shotgun, mixed in some jet sweeps to running back Eli Sanders and watched that duo carve up WSU’s defense.

So for the Cougars, what was the problem? What prevented them from stopping an offense that made its intentions clear as day?

“There wasn’t enough adjustments,” WSU coach Jake Dickert said. “They do a good job of cracking, making your quarter safeties come down and make the plays. But at some point, we gotta get more aggressive and try to just get the ball out of his hands and make someone else beat us. And we were never able to do that.”

What was the reasoning behind that?

“We’ll watch the tape,” Dickert said.

It was clear that at least immediately after the game, neither Dickert nor Thornton had a firm grasp on the reasons behind their team’s inability to stop the Lobos’ running game. For the game, UNM totaled 360 rushing yards, good for an average carry of 7.3 yards. Dampier averaged 6.9 yards per rush, and Sanders turned in 8.3 yards per rush.

With that part of their offense humming, the Lobos had no reason to turn to their passing attack, and the Cougars could seldom convince them otherwise. Dampier completed 11 of 25 passes for 174 yards and one touchdown, which came on a WSU coverage bust in the first half. Dampier tried just three passes in the fourth quarter. He didn’t need to attempt many more.

That’s because WSU’s defense couldn’t find ways to make UNM’s offense uncomfortable, to make someone else beat them, like Dickert said. Dampier and Sanders accounted for 301 of their team’s rushing yards. The Lobos felt no need to try anything else on the ground, giving only eight carries to players not named Dampier or Sanders, which speaks to the Cougs’ absence of adjustments.

At some point, that circles back to defensive coordinator Jeff Schmedding, who would be the point man on adjustments. Schmedding’s defense did well to limit Fresno State to two touchdowns and Hawaii to one, but since then: San Diego State recorded 26 points, Utah State went for 28 and New Mexico went for a back-breaking 38, all without WSU making any changes as the game went on.

What’s behind that? It’s possible that Dickert and Co. are using Sunday to identify those issues, which wiped out WSU’s chance at making the College Football Playoff. Headed into a road test next week against Oregon State, they’ll need to hope they’re pointing to the right things.