To take down No. 25 Boise State, WSU will have to find a way to slow down RB Ashton Jeanty

PULLMAN – A smile flashed across Jordan Malone’s face. He laughed as he considered the question, which will go a long way in determining the outcome of Washington State’s road test against No. 25 Boise State Saturday evening.

What do you emphasize in tackling to bring down Ashton Jeanty?

“The best tackle is any tackle,” said Malone, WSU’s safeties and nickels coach. “Hold on for dear life.”

Malone was mostly kidding, explaining the Cougars spent much of this week’s practice working on tackling to slow down Jeanty, the engine of the Broncos’ offense, one of the best running backs – if not the best – in the country. There’s a lot that goes into that effort, and through three games, none of BSU’s opponents have found a formula that works well.

To take down Boise State in Saturday’s game, set for 7 p.m. pacific on Boise’s blue turf, Washington State may have to become the first team to do so. It’s the Cougars’ first game of the Pac-12/Mountain West scheduling agreement, which the conferences struck to provide games this season for WSU and Oregon State, the two schools left behind by the departing 10 members.

At the very least, the Cougars will be a little more rested than usual. Last Friday, WSU outlasted visiting San Jose State in a double-overtime thriller, eking out a 54-52 win on quarterback John Mateer’s game-winning two-point conversion and edge rusher Quinn Roff’s strip sack on the Spartans’ ensuing two-point try. It helped WSU move to 4-0 for the second straight season.

Last fall, this is about the time of year when the Cougs’ season went sideways, a six-game losing streak scuttling their campaign and sending them home without a bowl game appearance for the first time since 2014, COVID year notwithstanding. How can WSU avoid a similar fate this year?

It will start with taking down BSU, a game that will have significant implications for both teams’ chances at making the College Football Playoff, which now has 12 spots. The Cougs and Broncos will likely be vying for one of seven at-large spots, and while a loss wouldn’t necessarily knock either club out of contention, a win would make their case particularly compelling.

Consider WSU’s upcoming schedule after this game: At Fresno State, which figures to be the toughest tilt on the remainder of the slate, then home against Hawaii, on the road against San Diego State, home against Utah State. Rack up wins in that stretch and the Cougs may like where they stand when they wrap up the year.

One problem for WSU: Boise State will be right there in contention for one of the final spots, which is what makes this game one of the bigger ones in recent memory for the Cougars. They may be in a tough spot in school history, trying to rebuild the Pac-12 despite the conference’s invitations getting turned down recently, but they’ve never had an opportunity like this.

For the Cougs, it will start on defense, where they’re coming off a rough showing. They might have been facing one of the country’s best passing offenses in San Jose State, but they did permit 52 points in two overtimes, their secondary getting burnt on several occasions, including on a go-ahead touchdown pass in the final 30 seconds of the game.

In that one, WSU allowed two rushing touchdowns to Floyd Chalk IV, one a 66-yard rush and the other an 18-yard scamper. San Jose State entered that game with the Mountain West’s worst rushing offense.

But the Cougs did improve in one area on defense: They tackled better. They missed just nine tackles against the Spartans, according to Pro Football Focus, a major improvement on their previous three games, in which they whiffed on at least 15 tackles each time. They’re still one of the country’s worst-graded tackling teams – PFF slots them at No. 124 of 134 FBS teams when it comes to tackling – but they’ve begun to show signs of life.

For WSU, that may never matter more this season than it will on Saturday. Jeanty, who ranks first nationwide with 10.5 yards per carry, has forced 26 missed tackles, which ranks seventh in the country. So much of the way he’s broken out as a Heisman candidate this fall has to do with the way he’s made it nearly impossible for defenders to bring him to the ground 1-on-1.

Can the Cougs do so? Only time will tell, but they’ve certainly committed time to practicing it this week.

“The most important thing that’s going to help you have success and help us win this game is our tackling plan, not our game plan,” Malone said. “Obviously we gotta have our game plan that’s sound to be able to do the things that (we) do.

“But you gotta attack, and that has been the focus. It hasn’t been one (practice) period that didn’t start off with tackling for us, because the tackling plan is the most important thing. He’s gonna get some runs. But as a secondary, you gotta be able to make sure it’s not 70 (yards), that it’s only like 10, it’s only like nine.”

For WSU, where that number ends up may tell us a lot about the numbers on the scoreboard by the end of Saturday’s game.