WSU rewind: In win over Fresno State, CB Ethan O’Connor shows his smarts and Cougs’ pass rush stalls again

PULLMAN – As Washington State cornerback Ethan O’Connor has emerged in his team’s secondary, earning a starting role as a redshirt freshman, coaches and teammates have repeated a variation of the same phrase to describe him.

He’s a ball hawk.

He has a nose for the ball.

“Ethan has a knack for the ball,” WSU coach Jake Dickert said after his group’s 25-17 win over Fresno State Saturday evening.

O’Connor has proven that time and again. With his go-ahead pick-six in Saturday’s game, he now has three interceptions on the season, making him one of only six players in his class nationwide with that many. He may be starting because veteran Jamorri Colson was out with an injury the first five games of the season, but warts and all, O’Connor has indeed found the ball several times.

Dig a little deeper, though, and we find out O’Connor’s teammates aren’t just repeating some cliche to praise him. He isn’t lucking his way into interceptions. He’s grabbing them because he’s emerging as one of the Cougars’ smartest players on defense.

Take his interception in Saturday’s game. On the play, he’s lined up on the outside to cover Fresno State receiver Mac Dalena, whose only real job is to run straight ahead and clear out O’Connor, making space for wideout Raylen Sharpe to run a hitch route and make a catch. O’Connor recognized it, waited for FSU quarterback Mikey Keene to make the throw, leapt in front and took it 60 yards the other way.

But O’Connor only knew what to expect because he remembered that the Bulldogs ran the same play in the first quarter. He read that play well too, bringing down Tim Grear Jr. right as he made the catch, but O’Connor didn’t get there quite in time to jump in front of the pass.

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Nearly three hours passed between those plays. In between, O’Connor made another interception, this one in the end zone, only for it to get wiped out by WSU edge Quinn Roff’s roughing the passer penalty. When O’Connor was finally brought down, he landed awkwardly on his side, forcing him to enter the injury tent for some 10 minutes, receiving treatment from trainers.

None of it stopped him from remembering that Bulldogs play. O’Connor was so confident he would see it again, that he would jump in front of the pass, that sometime before his pick-six, he turned to defensive back Kenny Worthy and told him what would happen if FSU ran the play again.

“I was like, bro, I’m gonna get a pick, and it’s gonna be during this exact play,” O’Connor said. “I was telling all of them, it’s gonna be this exact play, and I promise I’m gonna jump it and take it to the house, and that’s what happened. You just gotta speak stuff into existence sometimes.”

O’Connor has spoken plenty into existence this season. He secured his first interception in WSU’s win over Texas Tech on Sept. 9, leaping and picking off Behren Morton. He snared his second two weeks later, picking off San Jose State quarterback Emmett Brown in the end zone in the first overtime of that one.

But with those two picks, O’Connor showcased more of his awareness and athleticism. To make his interception on Saturday, he proved he’s one of the team’s smartest defenders too, making him one of the Cougs’ most valuable assets – even with Colson back in the fold.

Is O’Connor a perfect cornerback? Not at all. In last month’s Apple Cup, he got burned by UW receiver Giles Jackson for a touchdown. For the season, O’Connor has yielded a pair of touchdowns, and with a slender build and 6-foot-1 frame, he makes for an easy target for some opposing offenses.

But O’Connor has now shown he’ll make interceptions when he has the chance. He’s also proven he’s smart enough to remember plays and capitalize on them. Even if WSU reinserts Colson back into the starting lineup, as he was expected to before suffering a jaw injury before the season, O’Connor likely has some type of role locked up for the remainder of the season.

“It was a lot of pressure,” O’Connor. “I was nervous. I was super, extremely nervous, to be honest. But after a while, when you finally get the groove and you get the connection with those guys, you practice and you’re going against guys like K-Dub (Kyle Williams) and Kris Hutson, your nerves slowly go down. Those are great players.”

Elsewhere on WSU’s defense in Saturday’s game, the Cougs’ pass rush finally broke free late in the fourth quarter, when the Bulldogs got the ball back, down eight with a chance to tie the game. It was then that WSU’s edge rushers finally harassed Keene and forced him to flush from the pocket and throw a couple balls away, making it harder on FSU to complete a comeback.

All told, the Cougs totaled just seven pressures and one sack, which came from backup defensive tackle Khalil Laufau earlier in the game.

WSU earned a Pro Football Focus pass-rush grade of 58.6, the unit’s second-lowest of the season. This came against a Fresno State offensive line that profiled as vulnerable, entering Saturday’s game with nine sacks given up, some of the most nationwide.

WSU now has just six sacks in six games, tied for No. 114 nationally. On Saturday, the Cougs’ pass-rush was nearly invisible until the final drive of the game, when they knew the Bulldogs would be passing, allowing them to rush Keene without worrying about play action or rushes.

Some of that, Dickert said, had to do with the fact that Fresno State faced too many third-and-short and third-and-medium situations, where the Bulldogs could feasibly have run or passed. Of the 10 third downs FSU faced, seven were third-and-6 or shorter. That made it difficult to cut WSU’s edges loose, Dickert said.

But that’s now six straight games to open the season where the Cougs’ pass rush has yet to generate any meaningful, consistent pressure on the opposing quarterback. Can they do something to solve that problem?

“We’re still growing with some of those things. We gotta be better affecting the passer,” Dickert said. “I think we got one sack tonight, so we gotta grow in that area.”