Idaho, Boise State, California, Arizona, Oregon State, Stanford and, most recently, Montana State, have all fallen victim to Washington State this season en route to the Cougars’ 7-0 start.
Seven and 0?
For all you Duck fans out there, that is not a typo. Indeed, the Cougs are 7-0, and ranked 14th in the nation. Meanwhile, the Ducks are 6-1, and barely ranked higher than Wazzu at No. 11. At No. 10 in the BCS, the Cougars are ranked higher than the No. 13 Ducks.
Could anyone have believed this when the Pacific-10 Conference media chose Washington State to finish last in the conference at the start of the season? They were chosen farther down than California, which has yet to win a game.
Quarterback Jason Gesser and Washington State head coach Mike Price, that’s who. Even Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti has become a believer.
When asked to discuss Washington State’s offense earlier this week, Bellotti replied: “Do I have to?”
“Gesser, and those receivers, and their running backs and the offensive line … they spread you out,” he said. “Gesser is extremely mobile — he’s got great touch on the long ball. They’re a great football team that is statistically by far the best team in this conference.”
That’s right, Gesser — the same player who saw his season end last year when the Ducks unceremoniously broke his left leg. But he has come back with a vengeance this season, averaging 265.4 yards per game in the air, the best in the Pac-10.
“(Gesser) can improvise and do things on his own,” Price told the Daily Evergreen about the redshirt junior. “He can make something out of nothing.”
Which is exactly what he has done. Wazzu has a chance to go 8-0 with a win over Oregon, which hasn’t happened since the 1930 squad went 9-0. That team lost to Alabama in the Rose Bowl. The Ducks had a chance to make school history last week, but couldn’t pull out a win against Stanford.
Another star for the Cougars is redshirt junior Mike Bush, who also plays hoops. The 6-foot-6 wide receiver represents the same challenge Teyo Johnson provided last week, only with a twist. Johnson is not a focal point of the Stanford offense. Bush averages 86.7 yards a game receiving, a tough task to stop for the smaller Oregon secondary.
“Bush is 6-foot-6 and is a very talented athlete,” Bellotti said about the Cougars’ two-sport star. “Teyo Johnson did a great job of using his body. He’s a tremendous athlete, (and) he’s a basketball player.
“So Bush presents the same problems and we’ve talked a little bit about how we can counter that,” he added. “It’s not for public consumption yet, but we’re going to try to do our best.”
But the Washington State offense as a whole has to be scary for the much-maligned Oregon defense. Ranked first in the Pac-10, the Cougars average 44 points per game, pass for 327.4 yards per game and average 492.4 yards per game of total offense.
This week may be a mismatch for the Oregon defense, and it will take one heck of an effort to stop Gesser and Co.