Gameday Guide: WSU vs. Louisiana Tech

IN TODAY'S PREVIEW ...

• Washington State (4-5) vs. Louisiana Tech (5-4)

• Critical Info

• Gamblin’

• Key matchups

  • WSU’s offense vs. Tech’s defense

  • Tech’s offense vs. WSU’s defense

• What I’ll be watching for

  • Managing Zevi

• What you can watch for: Gameday Bingo!

  • Game of the day

  • Next opponent

  • Opponent after that

Washington State (4-5) vs. Louisiana Tech (5-4)

This is where the rubber meets the road for the Cougars, who have three games remaining to secure two victories and thus guarantee a non-losing season propel them into a bowl game in Jimmy Rogers’ first season.

Two of them are at home, and while the road game — next week at James Madison — is far from unwinnable, there’s little doubt that this one and the season-ending rematch against Oregon State are WSU’s most probable chances for victories.

The Cougs are coming off their second bye, and while it’s usually cliche to say that the bye came at the perfect time, I’m not sure you could accuse me of being cliche when I say it right now. Not only should the week off allow a number of important players who have been injured to get back on the field — which is, by far, the most important thing — it also allows us to get a bit of much needed distance from the stench of that befuddling loss to the Beavers.¹  

Are the Cougars ready to bounce back? They’ve shown a lot of resiliency this year following poor and frustrating performances.

Critical Info

• Game time: 7 p.m. PT

• Location: Back Home

• Weather forecast at kickoff: 49 degrees and partly cloudy, slight breeze. No rain!

• How to watch: The CW

• How to listen: WSUCougars.com

• Live stats: StatBroadcast 

Gamblin’

Consensus via VegasInsider.com.

Trends: WSU is 5-4 ATS, having beat the spread four straight times before losing to OSU as a favorite. Louisiana Tech is 6-3 ATS, but has beaten the spread just once in their last four. WSU has gone under the number in five straight, and Louisiana Tech has gone under the number in 6 of 9 — though they’d gone over in two straight before last weekend.

Aggregate predictive model probabilities: 70% to win, 52% to cover (at -7.5)

Key matchups

WSU’s offense vs. Tech’s defense 

The biggest question coming out of last game was whether Jimmy Rogers would consider making a change at quarterback after the OSU debacle. He gave absolutely no indication this week that he was even considering such a move. That doesn’t mean that a change is impossible, but it does mean that No. 4 is very likely going to be back out there on Saturday.