WSU rewind: In the craziness of Cougs’ 2OT win over San Jose State, don’t forget their game-tying drive

PULLMAN – There are multiple ways to dissect Washington State’s latest win, a 54-52 double-overtime victory over San Jose State Friday night, and there is no wrong way to do so.

The Cougars erased a two-touchdown deficit in the fourth quarter. They let the lead slip again. They tied the game with no time left in regulation. They secured an interception in overtime, only to throw their own.

If not for edge Quinn Roff’s forced fumble, they would have played a third overtime – and who knows what would have unfolded there?

“It’s incredible,” WSU coach Jake Dickert said, “this roller coaster of a football game.”

But what shouldn’t get forgotten is why the Cougars found themselves in a position to tie the game in the first place. With 26 seconds left, moments after the Spartans took the lead with a long touchdown pass, they covered 40 yards in three plays, taking apart the same type of defense that flustered and confounded last year’s WSU team.

Think about the way the Cougs started the series: They began at their 25. The first play of the drive ended in an incompletion by quarterback John Mateer, which took 5 seconds on the clock. So really, WSU covered 40 yards in two plays.

“So you’re looking at 26 seconds, two timeouts. All we keep saying is, ‘Get us to the 35-yard line. We can get the ball from there,’ ” Dickert said. “You still have an opportunity, all your plays to work deep over the middle of the field. We’re going to take a timeout.”

The Cougs were also facing the same rush-three, drop-eight coverage that nearly singlehandedly sunk their 2023 season, when defenses realized they didn’t need to commit extra defenders to stopping WSU’s rushing attack, instead dropping them into coverage. Quarterback Cam Ward often faced pressure from three or four rushers, and when he scanned downfield, he didn’t always have throwing windows.

To make the completion that gave the Cougars a shot, Mateer had to beat the same defense. Fortunately for him, Dickert and offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle had a plan. They studied the way the Minnesota Vikings earned a walk-off win over the New Orleans Saints in 2018, stacking two wide receivers on one side of the formation to free up the deeper receiver, Stefon Diggs, in the Saints’ soft zone coverage.

So WSU set up a similar formation. The Cougs put their best receiver, senior Kyle Williams, on the outside, just a few feet to the left and in front of wideout Josh Meredith. Mateer took a shotgun snap, Meredith ran a shorter route to occupy two defenders and Williams went deep, finding an empty spot in the zone coverage.

That’s where Mateer threw, right on target to Williams, who ran his route near the sideline on purpose. He made the catch and immediately ducked out of bounds at the SJSU 45-yard line, stopping the clock with 15 seconds left. It gave the hosts one more play to set up kicker Dean Janikowski with the best look they could.

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Perhaps most important: WSU retained both of the timeouts it had when the drive started.

On the next play, Mateer took another shotgun snap but didn’t like what he saw right off the bat. He scrambled to his right, where he almost unleashed another deep pass, then thought better of it and tucked it, running to his right. He was tripped up and taken down at the SJSU 35, setting up Janikowski with a 52-yarder, the second longest of his career.

Also worth noting is the effort from the Cougars’ offensive line, which earned a Pro Football Focus pass-blocking grade of 83.4, the unit’s best of the season. It’s tempting to think WSU’s offensive line should have easily held off SJSU’s three pass-rushers on the drive, but the group struggled to do so last year. When opponents caught on to that truth, Washington State’s season changed for the worse.

WSU’s offensive line – which rotated in right tackle Fa’alili Fa’amoe for his season debut after he missed the first three games with a knee injury – had its woes. The unit permitted one sack, which went against left guard Rod Tialavea, and seven total pressures. Three went against Tialavea, one against right tackle Christian Hilborn (who went to the bench when Fa’amoe rotated in), two against left tackle Esa Pole and one against right guard Brock Dieu.

But when they needed to, the five Cougars up front protected Mateer long enough to make the throw he absolutely had to have, the deep ball to Williams. From there, it was all up to Janikowski, who put his past struggles in the rearview mirror with the 52-yard kick that made the finish possible in the first place.