When a fanbase experiences a season that goes off the rails in the way that last season did for WSU, I think you sort of end up on high alert for anything at all that might portend a similar demise in the subsequent season. So when the Cougars struggled as mightily as they did to score points on Saturday against Fresno State — saved, thank goodness, by a pick six from Ethan O’Connor — a sort of panic set in pretty quickly with me.

It’s probably not reasonable to freak out after a win. It’s probably illogical to draw such parallels between two distinctly different seasons featuring two distinctly different teams.

I don’t care. Don’t talk to me about reason. None of that matters.

We can’t do this again.

I actually found myself getting a little viscerally angry at the performance of the offense on Saturday, which — to my mind — really had no excuse for its prolonged stretches of impotence. No matter what the broadcast said, Fresno State’s defense is actually not good, and we certainly should not have had as much difficulty as we did in that game. The Bulldogs were fresh off giving up 45 offensive points to UNLV at an eye-popping 8.04 yards per play clip. The Rebels had open guys running all over the field, all day.

The Cougars, meanwhile, did not have open guys running all over the field. Everything seemed hard: Their yards per play was a season-low 4.28, which is fewer than New Mexico, Sacramento State, and Michigan managed against the Bulldogs. Read that sentence again, if you need to. WSU has a lot more offensive talent than at least two of those teams, and WSU certainly has a better QB than Michigan. And if not for O’Connor and a pair of missed field goals (plus some extremely ill-timed penalties) by Fresno State, we’d be sitting here staring at yet another loss in the last two seasons due almost entirely to a feckless offense.

That’s why I’m sounding the alarm. Because unless something changes, this team is absolutely going to lose a game it should not.

Offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle has been in charge for 18 games, and in that time, his unit has been at or under 5.0 yards per play seven times. Those are “stinkers,” and if we divide them by the total number of games, we get a very real stat that I totally did not just make up right now — Stinker Rate: 39%. For context, Mike Leach only went at or below 5.0 six times in his last three years combined — a stretch of 39 games. That’s a Stinker Rate of 15%.³

Maybe it’s not fair to compare Arbuckle to one of the great offensive minds in football history, and maybe we’re still in the “small sample” portion of this. But there’s a standard around here for offense, and the Stinkers have appeared far too frequently already. Perhaps even more concerning is that the Stinkers also appear to be part of larger trends — in the wrong direction. Here are Arbuckle’s two seasons stacked on each other; the dashed line is a trend line for yards per play across each season:

This year’s trend line is obviously being skewed by that insane first performance against Portland State, but it would be trending down even without that high start point. These numbers aren’t opponent adjusted, so in past years, you might be able to say that the competition gets tougher as the year goes along. But you can’t really say that this year — although I will allow that the last two games have been on the road, and that’s definitely not easy.

Instead, what this implies is that Arbuckle comes into each year with a great plan for how to attack defenses, they adjust after a few games end up on video, and then he’s unable to adjust back. Maybe that’s not actually what’s happening, but there’s really no other narrative that I can think of that doesn’t involve you twisting yourself into a pretzel to try and explain it away — no major injuries, nothing that would readily present itself.

Scheme is obviously only one part of the equation here; there’s Jim Walden’s favorite saying that “it’s not the Xs and Os, it’s the Jimmies and Joes.” I also generally subscribe to that, and I do think there was a bit of a case to be made for that last season, particularly with the struggles of the offensive line. You could probably make a reasonable argument that they sort of got found out and their talent deficiencies in that particular spot couldn’t have been papered over by anyone, not even Leach.

But the time for those excuses has come to an end. I don’t think anyone can look at Saturday’s game and say that WSU didn’t have the superior “Jimmies and Joes” when its offense was on the field. About the only place where you could argue that maybe it was a wash was on the line. But I don’t think you could even convince me of that, honestly.

I don’t know enough about offensive scheme to be able to say why it wasn’t working, or how to fix it. That’s way (way way) above my pay grade. What I can say is that it sure seemed like Arbuckle did not put his team in the best possible position to succeed on Saturday, and while it hasn’t always felt like that this season, it definitely felt like that the deeper we got into last season. And damn if I’m going to just sit here and hand-wave it away again.

Because stat sheets don’t accurately convey play calls — for example, QB scrambles and sacks go down in the “rush” category — I went back and charted each offensive play from Saturday’s game, which you can review yourself here. It sure felt like we got very pass heavy in the second half, but I wanted to verify.

It was, in fact, true. The first half featured a nice mix of play calls that seemed to keep Fresno State off balance: 30 called passes, 18 called runs. Here’s the breakdown, in order of frequency:

I think it’s worth noting that the handoff number actually featured two to wide receivers — one of which resulted in a TD, the other of which resulted in a good gain. Also, the dropback number is even skewed a little upward simply because of a 2-minute situation, where designed runs are going to be rare.

There was a lot of variety, and while the results weren’t spectacular, they were at least pretty OK: 229 total yards, 5.3 yards per play. The Cougs were having to work hard for it, but they also were consistently moving the ball — as one of our members on Slack likes to say, “the other team has a coach, too.” The Bulldogs also were coming off a bye week, and they were prepared.

Nothing in that first half was concerning to me from a coaching standpoint, because the only thing that kept the Cougs from putting more 13 points on the board were a couple of bad turnovers by John Mateer. Depending on your level of optimism, WSU left anywhere from 6 to 14 points on the field because of those mistakes, and that’s obviously not Arbuckle’s fault.

The second half should have been the time to exert our will. Instead, the team sputtered — and it’s not hard to see what happened. Think about the table above, and compare it to the first three drives coming out of the locker room:

Man, even Leach thinks the Cougs passed too much there.

I think there are three potential explanations for Arbuckle’s strategic shift:

If I were to guess, I would assume it’s some combination of 1 and 2, because if it’s 3 … man, I don’t really want to consider that possibility. WSU wasn’t especially good at running the ball in the first half, but of their 18 called runs — either keepers or handoffs — eight would be classified as “successful”² for a success rate of 44%. Again, not great, but certainly passable and certainly not something that would suggest “clearly we can’t run the ball and should abandon it altogether.” Unless you think the last four called runs of the half — which were all “unsuccessful” — should dictate the second half strategy to that degree? I certainly don’t.

I also will point out that WSU’s success rate on passes in the first half was 50%. That’s pretty good! The question becomes: Do you then lean that much harder into it, at the exclusion of the run game — as if the run game played no role in the success of the passing game?

And is that even a wise thing to consider when Mateer is your quarterback?

To me, that’s the crux of the issue here. Arbuckle is in charge of an offense that has a dynamic and powerful runner at QB who is, at best, merely an average to above-average passer (your mileage may vary). He’s also got a running back who is strong and explosive. And the choice is to … throw the ball 16 times in 17 snaps? With the one, singular handoff going to the backup running back? With zero QB keepers?

Obviously, the strategy completely backfired: Of the 16 called passes, only five were successful (31%). That’s something made all the more frustrating by that fourth and final drive: In plus field position and needing only a field goal to stretch the lead to eight and reduce Fresno State’s chances of winning to something quite small, WSU ran the ball pretty damn well:

A person in the Slack said they thought that was largely due to Fresno State being tired. But I don’t actually buy that at all: Fresno State’s defense was barely on the field the second half, prior to that final drive. WSU had held the ball for just over 4 minutes of game time — and just 19 snaps — with its first three drives after the break. Additionally, Fresno had held the ball for back-to-back possessions before that run-heavy drive (thanks to the pick six). There’s really no reason at all why the Bulldogs wouldn’t have been about as fresh as they could be at that point.

And the Bulldogs really just kinda got run over. Huh.

It sure feels like that when push comes to shove — when the sledding gets difficult — Arbuckle leans on what is most comfortable to him: Trying to outthink the opponent with the passing game. I often start feeling like Arbuckle runs the offense for the guys he wishes he had, rather than the ones he does have.

Not only does that not really fit WSU’s personnel, I don’t think that fits the identity that Jake Dickert wants to build. And, to be honest, some of this falls on the head coach — if your coordinator isn’t carrying out your wishes, you’ve got to be able to put your foot down and demand it.

Dickert all but did that on Monday at his media availability:

I know Arbuckle is still very young. And Dickert has alluded to last year being a learning process for his coordinator. But Saturday feels like a warning sign that maybe Arbuckle didn’t learn as much from last year as we hoped, and Dickert seems to finally drawing a line in the sand after saying multiple times over the past year and a half, “I think we could have run a little bit more.”

At some point, Arbuckle has got to get it right and show everyone why he was considered such a brilliant offensive mind at such a young age. And Dickert has to be willing to hold him accountable for it, because the buck ultimately stops with the head coach. If his coordinator isn’t carrying out his wishes, he’s got a pretty major leadership problem — and it’s on him to fix it.

The leash for learning on the job at WSU is only so long, and Arbuckle ought to be getting close to the end of it unless something changes.

Like everyone else, I always focus too much on offense. So let’s give the defense their flowers for what was an excellent performance: 17 points allowed, 338 yards, 5.4 yards per play, two sacks, two interceptions, one defensive TD.

This is exactly what they were supposed to be able to do to the Bulldogs, who came into the game with a not-very-explosive, turnover-prone offense. With the exception of one pass — which came out of the slot, like we worried about before the game — Fresno State remained not-very-explosive and turnover prone. In fact, Fresno State did not have a single explosive passing play (15+ yards) — not even one! — after the first quarter. That’s incredibly remarkable.

I think it’s especially so because we know how banged up the defense is, particularly on the back end. But Jamorri Colson made a couple of cameos, and O’Connor did his thing where he looks like he’s teetering on a disaster, only to come up with a huge play. Stephen Hall, meanwhile, was his excellent self. Tanner Moku, Adrian Wilson, Tyson Durant, Kapena Gushiken — all were great in their spots. Even the defensive line was able to get some pressure.

They all should be incredibly proud today, because it was the defense that won that game.

I said after Boise State that I thought the defense was a lot better than what the final stats showed, just because so much of that was Ashton Jeanty’s individual amazingness. I thought the process looked good, and against a less talented team, I think that was proved correct. Unlike the offense, I really like the way the defense is trending, and they’ve got another chance to turn in a dominant performance this week against Hawaii.

The redshirt freshman corner has been anything but a bastion of consistency, but he sure does have a knack for coming up with huge plays. He took the field Saturday surely knowing that Colson was set to eat into his playing time, and he came up with yet another massive play. Watch it again, just for funsies:

It’s also easy to forget, but O’Connor had another interception wiped off by a late hit on the QB. That one probably was an even better play, if not as impactful — he tracked it over his shoulder like he was the receiver and hauled it in.

One of the cool things about being a college football fans is watching players develop. I feel like O’Connor is blossoming before our eyes.

For the second week in a row, we were subjected to Petros Papadakis and his partner calling the game from a studio in Los Angeles rather than at the site of the game. I will say, right off the top: I actually like Petros as a broadcaster. I think he’s funny and insightful and treats games with the kind of seriousness they should be treated with — which is to say, not much. It’s a game!

He’s also embarrassing himself professionally.

He and his partner miss the most elementary things and get the most basic calls wrong over and over and OVER simply because they’re watching on a monitor and not actually sitting in a press box. When you and I are sitting on our couches, we’re counting on the broadcasters to be our eyes and ears in the stadium. When the broadcasters have the same seat you do, they’re pretty damn worthless.

Beyond that, the open contempt that Fox has for its viewers by doing this in the first place is just infuriating. It’s not like they tell us, “hey, we’re not on site,” like they did when these broadcasts were necessary during Covid. No — instead, they give us “live” shots where they put a view of the stadium behind the broadcasters to make it look like they’re in the stadium. Only one problem! See if you can tell what that is:

How can they be in a shot with the press box behind them if they are IN the press box??

As the Pac-12 enters into its media rights negotiations, I hope against hope that both Fox and ESPN are nowhere near us, other than to maybe drive the price up. Both broadcasters have made it clear time after time after time over the course of years and years that they have never given even one singular fuck about anyone not driving CFP ratings. Everyone else exists to fill time so they can jack up their carriage fees to pay the Flavor of the Month tens of millions of dollars to bloviate on their airwaves in the mornings. That’s the whole game.

I can’t even explain how refreshing the CW broadcasts have been, just feeling like someone actually cares to put some effort into a broadcast, and that our broadcast actually matters. If all things are relatively equal, I hope the Pac-12 is able to tell ESPN and Fox to kick rocks at the end of this negotiation. Their product sucks, and we deserve better.

To be honest, I’m tired of writing and I want to get this newsletter out. I’ll just say that Hawaii is bad, and we ought to beat them handily.

Kickoff is at 12:30 p.m. PT on Saturday from Pullman, with the broadcast set for the CW. That’s 9:30 a.m. on the Hawaii players’ body clocks, in case you were wondering.

GFC.