The Cougars, at 1-4, with their only win coming over FCS Duquesne, need a win in the worst possible way. Earlier in the year, I was concerned with process and what it meant for the future. No longer.

We just need a win, and I honestly don’t even remotely care how we get it. The season will be 50% over after tonight, and it’s hard to imagine a scenario where they’re able to redeem it if they don’t get a victory over Utah State.

The Aggies are not good. The Cougars, also, are not good.

Let’s rumble!

Consensus via TeamRankings.com.

Predictive model probabilities: 41% chance for WSU to win, 53% chance to beat the spread

The big news this week was that coach Kirby Moore was taking over the play calling duties. And while Craig and I are both on the record as being skeptical that it will matter much in terms of anything beyond a marginal improvement, I am quite intrigued by how Moore intends to go about managing the offense.

The team became extremely pass heavy the last two weeks under OC Matt Miller, which is kind of crazy, given how bad Pinnick has been. What makes it even crazier is that Moore was well known for effective running attacks as a coordinator at Missouri, and his first coach and mentor, Chris Petersen, was always known for physical running teams. So … is that the direction Moore wants to take the offense tonight?

The Cougars haven’t been good running ball, but they’ve been less bad at that than they’ve been at passing. And given just how much Utah State relies on field position to get what little they get offensively (more on that below), I could see Moore channeling his inner Jimmy Rogers and trying to play the long game in this one by controlling the ball, throwing only when necessary on late downs, and purposefully trying to make it a low-scoring affair with minimal possessions.

For what it’s worth, I do expect Pinnick to start, even as Moore indicated this week that all three QBs got reps in practice. It just makes the most sense for Moore to give it one more shot with Pinnick — who, let’s be honest, was Moore’s hand-picked QB — when he’s the one calling plays. And I’d be surprised if they don’t stick with him for at least a half, unless he’s just an abject disaster. I also don’t expect abject disaster — not because he’s not capable of it, but because I don’t think Moore is going to put him in positions where he can kill the team. I expect a low number of dropbacks early in an effort to keep the game manageable and hopefully build Pinnick’s confidence.

But if Pinnick is still a mess — maybe not actively causing you to lose, but also not helping you win — I’m very interested to see if Moore will make a change at some point during the contest. This is a game WSU can win without scoring a ton of points, but they’re probably going to need at least 20. How Moore chooses to try to get there will be fascinating … at least, I’m hoping for fascinating rather than maddening.

Utah State’s offense is bad — nearly as bad as ours, overall. Both teams are near the bottom of FBS in scoring against FBS competition. In advanced stats (via gameonpaper.com) We rank 138th in adjusted EPA/Play¹; USU is a bit better at 117th. With two offenses ranking in the 1st percentile, this is likely to be a rock fight.

However, there is an interesting aspect of USU’s offensive profile that sticks out because it deviates quite a bit from that low ranking. The Aggies actually are in the 37th percentile in explosive plays, and in the 75th(!) percentile in explosive rushing plays. That’s largely because of running back Javen Jacobs, who is averaging a whopping 7.3 yards per rush. He picked up 139 yards on just 10 carries last week against Boise State. USU is not particularly good running the ball overall (just 8th percentile in EPA/rush) but he’s a massively dangerous weapon. The Cougs are in the 37th percentile in EPA/rush allowed, which is pretty bad — they’ll need to be better today.

Receiver Eli Wood also plays a role. Utah State’s passing attack isn’t nearly as explosive — quarterback Grady Brosterhous, a Virginia transfer, isn’t a good passer with an EPA/dropback that ranks 117th nationally — but when he connects with Wood, good things happen for Utah State. Wood catches 70% of the passes thrown his way, and he’s got nearly twice as many targets and yards as anyone else on the team. Every time the ball is thrown his way, USU gains 8.5 yards on average. Expect WSU to try and tilt the field to shut him down.

Now, one would think those explosive plays would logically lead to points. As I mentioned above, it actually doesn’t. They really, really struggle with consistency — their success rate (a measure of staying “on schedule”) is worse than ours. But the occasional explosive play does allow them to regularly flip the field, even when they stall out: They rank 30th in “net field position” while WSU ranks 138th. The Cougars, of course, really struggle to move the ball at all, and they’re often pinned back even when the defense gets a stop.

That’s where stopping explosives will matter for the Cougars. WSU’s offense has been so putrid that maybe it doesn’t even matter where the drives start, but I think we all know that the best chance for the offense will be if it doesn’t have to go 80 or 90 yards for a TD.

Download this image to your device and follow along.

Per the Pac-12 availability report, updated Thursday night. There will be one more update a couple of hours before the game if you want to check for the latest.

The only surprise here is that Wrice and Hughes are questionable and not out, but we shouldn’t take that as an indication that they’ll likely play in the game. Moore characterized them both as “week to week,” although maybe it’s a good sign that they haven’t been downgraded since the initial report earlier in the week. WSU sure could use them both, as Matyus McLain and Linus Zunk continue to log heavy snap counts at defensive end.

Ellison and Brown each missed last week, so WSU went largely with a three-man rotation at linebacker of Keith Brown, DJ Warner, and Isaiah Hung. That would probably continue tonight.

A number of players on last week’s injury report — Kirby Voorhees, Trey Leckner, and Jalil Tucker are now off it after playing last week, so that’s a great sign that they emerged no worse for wear.

That’s a long list! Here are some notable names:

All games on Saturday, all times Pacific Time Zone.

#2 Georgia (5-0, 3-0 SEC) at #6 Alabama (5-0, 3-0 SEC) [-1.5] — 4:30 p.m., ABC

Oregon State (3-2, 1-0 Pac-12) [-15.5] vs. San Diego State (2-3, 1-0) — 3 p.m., USA

#23 Boise State (4-1, 1-0 Pac-12) [-6.5] at Fresno State (4-1, 1-0) — 7:30 p.m., CW

Texas State and Colorado State each have byes.