Gameday Guide: WSU vs. Toledo

In today's newsletter ...

• Gotta Win

• Critical Info

• Gamblin’

• Unit breakdowns

  • Toledo’s offense vs. WSU’s defense

  • WSU’s offense vs. Toledo’s defense

• What I’ll be watching for

  • Who plays at running back for Toledo?

  • Rockets on the road

• What you can watch for: Gameday Bingo!

  • Toledo

• Other games of interest

  • Game of the day

  • Next opponent

  • Opponent after that

  • Late-Night Sicko Special

Gotta Win

I do not have the time to do the research necessary to confirm my assumption, but I have a hard time imagining that any team in the country will have as difficult a four-week stretch this season as the one that WSU just wrapped up: Three road games — two of them against top 20 opponents — spanning nearly 10,000 miles crisscrossing the country.

To their credit, the Cougars (3-4) acquitted themselves about as well as we could have hoped. As disappointed as we all were with the way that the loss to Virginia ended, it wasn’t difficult to picture a reality where WSU didn’t win any of the three games, and they did at least secure that to go along with the close losses. There are some who rant about moral victories or whatever, but I think they’re in the minority — in general, it seems we’re all feeling about as good as you can feel about a team that has now lost four out of five.

Here’s the thing, though: At some point you have to win again or the good vibes get squandered a lot faster than they are built. And for that reason — to say nothing of the impact on their bowl chances — today is a must-win.

Cougs everywhere are desperate for a team and a program they can get behind as we finish navigating football wilderness. At this point, even casuals have heard about what the team did the last two weeks. Back at home for the first time since Sept. 20 against an opponent that is not on the level of Mississippi or Virginia is a game that Jimmy Rogers and the Co. simply must win if they want to build on the foundation they laid down over the last four weeks.

It’s not a slam dunk. I’m going to guess that many of you reading this will be thinking, “c’mon, how good can Toledo be? They’re in the MAC.” The answer is … well, it depends where you look, but most of the predictive models peg WSU and Toledo as roughly equal quality. The Rockets are 4-3; their FBS wins have come by a combined 101 points (plus a 60-point win over FCS Morgan State), while the losses have come by a combined 14 (all on the road). That includes an eight-point loss at Kentucky to start the season. Predictive models see a plus-87 point differential against primarily G5 competition and think, yes, this team is probably a pretty good G5 team.

Conversely, those analytic models are thinking somewhat along the same lines when they see WSU at minus-49 against FBS competition with just a 3-point win over FCS Idaho. The Cougars have played a much more difficult schedule, and the models account for that. But one team having multiple blowout wins and the other team having multiple blowout losses tends to mean something. Which is suppose is why the betting public just can’t make up their minds: The consensus line opened with WSU as a small underdog, then quickly swung to a small favorite, then last night swung back to a small underdog.

Of course, the disastrous debacles against North Texas and Washington look more and more like very strange outliers at this point. You could make a pretty convincing case right now — particularly off the last two games — that WSU is somewhere between marginally better and a lot better than their ratings.

But they have to prove it by winning this game. Otherwise, the tremendous effort of the last month becomes little more than a frustrating footnote in a frustrating season.

Critical Info

• Game time: 12:30 p.m. PT

• Location: Back Home

• Weather forecast at kickoff: 50 degrees with a 50% chance of rain, with 13 mph winds and gusts up to 20 mph

• How to watch: The CW

• How to listen: WSUCougars.com

• Live stats: StatBroadcast 

Gamblin’

Consensus via VegasInsider.com.

Trends: WSU is 4-3 ATS, having covered three straight games while going under the number each time. Toledo is 5-2, but just 1-2 ATS on the road. Combined, the teams have gone over the number 7 out of 14 games.

Predictive model probabilities: 54% to win, 55% to cover (at +1.5)

Unit breakdowns

Toledo’s offense vs. WSU’s defense

We made a kind of a big deal last week about how much Virginia relied on its running game. Well, this is more of that — Toledo ranks right behind the Cavaliers in rushing attempts this season, but their run/pass ratio is even more pronounced than Virginia’s, having thrown it just 214 times against 280 rushes.

The only game in which Toledo rushed for fewer than 165 yards was in the opener at Kentucky. In that one, they managed a mere 80 yards on 26 (non-sack) rushes. Running it 26 times at 3 yards a pop is a serious commitment to the bit, and the Rockets are going to keep pounding away at it today pretty much no matter what the results are.

The Cougars had a ton of success against the Hoos last week through three quarters, then faded at the end. There are a number of perfectly reasonable explanations for why that happened — tired legs from travel, lack of depth up front from injuries, too much time on the field because of a struggling offense — but the bottom line is that Toledo is going to keep chopping that wood and WSU is going to have to be stout against the run from start to finish or Toledo will have the opportunity take control late in what is likely to be a close game.

That’s not to say that the Rockets can’t throw the ball, just because they do it infrequently. Fifth-year senior quarterback Tucker Gleason — who, stunningly, has spent all five years at Toledo — is an effective and efficient passer. He has four games this year of more than 10 yards per attempt, including throwing for 294 yards on 28 attempts in last week’s blowout over Kent State. He’s also a big guy at 6-foot-3 and 245 pounds, and they’ll use him in short-yardage situations as a runner. On the plus side, he’s not the kind of runner WSU has struggled with.

Junior Vandeross III is the favored receiver with 45 catches for 556 yards and 7 TDs.

WSU’s offense vs. Toledo’s defense

The Cougs have remained on the struggle bus to scoring points, even as the running game has improved. Now, one could argue that scoring 21 and 20 the last two weeks on the road against ranked opponents is an improvement over earlier in the season, but it’s still approximately three TDs and if the Cougs could have just scored 23 last week, they’d have won.

The forecast for points today seems … iffy. The weather is going to be awful, for one thing. And the metrics really like Toledo’s defense. But this comes with a massive caveat: The have faced absolutely dreadful offenses. FEI rates the offenses they’ve faced 135th. I understand that Toledo can only play who they’ve played, and that these metrics can only adjust for who they’ve played, but man … something about it seems like they might be a bit of a paper tiger. They’re certainly unproven in a way that WSU is not.

The last time the Cougs were at home, they put up 24 points through three quarters on Washington, which is roundly considered to be a pretty damn good defense. I know we keep saying it, but it feels like this offense has been on the cusp of a breakout at some point.

Maybe the weather suppresses scoring. Maybe the couple of weeks we had where Zevi Eckhaus didn’t turn the ball over were a mirage. But I think today is a great day to score 30.

What I’ll be watching for

Who plays at running back for Toledo?

There aren’t a lot of running backs in college football anymore who can be somewhat accurately described as a “workhorse,” but for the second consecutive week, the Cougars are facing one of them. Or are they?

Toledo’s leader in the backfield is Chip Trayanum, a sixth-year runner who started his career at ASU for a couple of years before transferring to Ohio State for a couple of years and then transferring to Kentucky for a year before landing at Toledo this year. He’s a former 4-star recruit who is an absolute load at 5-11 and 227 pounds, and what made him a 4-star in the first place is that he’s pretty damn fast for a guy that size.

Through six games, he rushed for 601 yards on 103 attempts, which ranks him 15th nationally in carries per game. A reporter for the Toledo Blade said on the Couch GM podcast this week that "he has single-handedly revolutionized" the Rockets’ rushing attack. But then he didn’t play last week against Kent State, which surprised everyone, and there has been absolutely no indication this week as to whether he’ll play today. The coach went on and on about the other guys who he says are great and can pick up the slack, but that’s silly: None of them are Trayanum. Whether he plays today will very much influence the way this one goes.

On Tuesday, Toledo coach Jason Candle was asked if he’ll be back.

“I don't know. We'll see. You know, we'll see what tomorrow brings as far as practice goes, but, um, confident in those guys if if he can't go. You know, the other guys that have done a good job and, um, much improved in pass protection this year from previous years. And uh, you know, obviously they are what they are when they get the ball in their hands. That's that's easy to see."

That sounds an awful lot like a guy who doesn’t think Trayanum is going to play, and if the first thing that comes to your mind about the backups is that they did well in pass pro … ? Anyway, if Trayanum is out, I like the Cougars’ chances much better.

Rockets on the road

Toledo has played three games away from home. They’ve lost them all. Not only that, their overall strength of schedule is rated 128th by SP+ and 128th by FPI, while FEI estimates that an average FBS team would have just one loss against their schedule, which makes it the 129th hardest schedule by that metric. The Rockets, of course, have three.

The Cougars, meanwhile, have a strength of schedule rated 27th by FPI, 25th by SP+, and an average FBS team would have four losses against this schedule, according to FEI (35th). WSU has been tested by top competition. Toledo has not — their close road game with Kentucky doesn’t even really stand up at this point, with how bad the Wildcats have been. I think makes it real, real tough to trust that the Rockets are as good as the metrics think they are.

Add on the fact that WSU is playing its first home game since Sept. 20 in front of what should be a decent-sized Family Weekend crowd, and I think there’s a very real chance that there’s a significant home-field boost for the Cougs against a team that simply hasn’t played in front of a truly hostile crowd since week 1 at Kentucky.

I know this is being forecast as a close game, and perhaps it will be. But don’t be surprised if the Cougs — battle tested and fired up to be back in Pullman in front of a friendly crowd — come out on top by double digits.

What you can watch for: Gameday Bingo!

Injury Impact

Toledo

There is very little out there definitive on the Rockets’ side. Candle didn’t shed any light on it this week¹ , and this list at Covers.com is extensive. Make of it what you will; I’m actually only interested in whether

WSU

The Cougars continue to be hit hard on the lines. Right tackle Christian Hilborn missed his second consecutive game, and then his backup, Jaylin Caldwell went out with an injury. It resulted in a reshuffling of the line, which played a huge part in WSU’s troubles with blocking late in that game. Rogers’ assessment of Caldwell did not sound promising on Monday: “We’ll see what the doctor’s say.”

When asked about other various players who have been missing time — Hilborn, Raam Stevenson, Kaden Beatty, Mike Sandjo — Rogers didn’t sound like he expected any of them back this week.

The curious case of receiver Devin Ellison continues; he did not play last week despite being deemed by Rogers as healthy. Something else is obviously going on there.

“I think a lot of this stems from you got to be healthy and you got to be uh go through a week's worth of practice staying healthy,” Rogers said on Monday. You got to know what you're doing when you're out there and we've gotten into a rhythm right now where players that are at practice that are going through practice that get the reps.

“We’ve got to trust that you know — they know what they're doing because they're the ones that are taking the reps. And then when you get reps, you got you can't make mental mistakes. You got to be able to execute. You got to do the little things right. And that's kind of where we're at.”

Other games of interest

Here are some other games you might want to watch today. All game times PT.

Game of the day

No. 8 Ole Miss (6-1) at No. 13 Oklahoma (6-1, -5.5) — On right now! ABC

Next opponent

Oregon State is on a bye.

Opponent after that 

Louisiana Tech played on Tuesday and lost 28-27 to Western Kentucky.

Late-Night Sicko Special

Who wants some Pac-12 After Dark??

Colorado (3-4) at Utah (5-2, -13.5) — 7:15 p.m. | ESPN

1  Yeah, I said it.