The WSU Defense held Oregon to 20 points with timely stops on 3rd down and forced a missed field goal in 4th quarter.
Cougs Go Duck Hunting
Tough defense and opportunistic offense helps shock Ducks in the Palouse.
Coach Cougnix always plays Coach 6feet tough. Each meeting has been a dog fight for 2 or 3 quarters and usually, the Ducks pull away in the 2nd half. This game looked to have that same feel. WSU was able to take the initial lead after forcing Oregon to punt on their first possession and driving for a score from Brett Bartolone on a nice pass from Connor Halliday. Oregon was able to tie it up after an interception in the Cougar end of the field and De'Anthony Thomas was able to walk into the endzone from the 1. Washington State was then able to keep the Ducks out of the endzone on the next two possessions forcing field goals to make the halftime score 13-7. The Cougars got the 2nd half kickoff and marched down the field and scored with a nice pass from Halliday to Gabe Marks to give the Cougs the slim 14-13 lead. The Ducks answered, but took their time dicing and slicing up the Coug defense and took back the lead from a touch pass across the middle from Marcus Mariota to Colt Lyerla. Expecting a collapse, Coach Cougnix took a deep breath and told the kids to "just relax and have fun, nobody expects you to win. Shock them." Halliday and Bartolone took the message to heart and on a 3rd and 3 in the middle of the field the two connected on a long TD pass that put the Palouse crowd in an uproar. With about 4 minutes to play, the Cougars had a 21-20 lead. Oregon of course would not be scared or intimidated and would take the ball down field and get in scoring position. A hold and a nice read from Daryll Monroe on a read option left the Ducks with a 4th and 3 with 2 minutes to play inside the Cougar 20. A quick timeout from Coach Coug to conserve time gave the Ducks time to think about it, and not thinking it would affect the kicker, the Cougs game planned the 2 minute offense from the sideline. Unexpected from anyone in the stadium, the kicker shanked it to the left and Pullman felt a slight tremor as the Crimson and Gray went crazy. With time still left on the clock and Oregon with 3 timeouts remaining, the offense had to go on the field and put together some first downs and run clock. It seemed to work great on their first 2 plays as the Cougs got a first down burning 2 timeouts. But 1 more first down needed to be made. Connor Halliday decided to run to the sidelines and ended up running out of bounds stopping the clock and in the course of the play got injured to send in Austin Apodaca. On 3rd down, Apodaca was able to pick up a huge first down, and the Cougs were able to kneel the ball for a huge win against a very tough opponent.
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