Cougars are nowhere near where they should be under Leach

After Saturday's loss to Arizona, Washington State is now 11-22 under third-year coach Mike Leach. (AP)

After the first 21 minutes of Saturday’s game, Arizona was ahead of Washington State 31-0. I figured the Cougs were completely finished, but they rallied to close within 31-16 at halftime only to be outscored 21-0 in the third quarter.

It’s just like the entire season for Washington State – some glimmers of hope along with heavy doses of reality that remind you over and over again that this isn’t a good football team.

And it’s not just that we’re the worst team in the Pac-12 – I don’t care if Colorado’s overall record is worse than ours, the Buffaloes would beat us on a neutral field if we’re being honest with each other – we’re comically bad.

What other team in the nation, seemingly week after week, gives up a punt or a kickoff return for a touchdown? This week it was an 81-yard punt return for Arizona’s first touchdown. Just to keep the laugh track going, we managed to allow a touchdown on our own on-side kick, and if that wasn’t enough, we were called for two penalties on that play.

But then, what do you expect from a joke of a team? It bothers me that my kids were laughing at the Cougs. All they’ve ever known is despair when it comes to Washington State football.

“I’ve only seen one big Cougar win in my life,” said 10-year-old Stevie as he left the family room, heading upstairs to watch something else, anything else, after Arizona scored again. He referenced the 2012 Apple Cup as the only big win, and in the past three years, he’s pretty much right.

The Cougars are 11-22 under coach Mike Leach. Five of those wins were gimmes over Eastern Washington and UNLV in 2012, Southern Utah and Idaho in 2013 and Portland State this year.

But big wins? Arizona last year in Tucson qualifies. USC in Los Angeles qualifies, but that was before Lane Kiffin was fired. And the two wins over Utah – last year to become bowl eligible and this year when we rallied from a 21-0 deficit – those qualify, too.

But overall, we’re not nearly as good as I thought we’d be three years into the Leach era. I figured we had hired a rock-star coach who would turn things around right away. I was wrong about that, I should’ve been more patient, but now, three years in, didn’t you think we’d be farther along than this?

We had two weeks to prepare for Arizona, and we played like that? In a home game?

I thought a comment from a reader about Bud Withers’ story in The Seattle Times captured things pretty well:

“What other job allows you to pontificate about leadership as exemplified by Geronimo, turn in increasingly worse performances and receive a pay raise and amped-up offices in return?”

I read all these stories about our inexperienced secondary, and I guess we have a lot of young kids back there for whatever reasons, injuries among them. But I keep thinking, aren’t we three years into this thing? Why don’t we have more quality depth back there? Other teams suffer injuries and hold the fort a hell of a lot better than we do.

And speaking of injuries, I’m beyond tired of this stupid secrecy when it comes to sidelined Cougars players. We don’t know why wide receiver River Cracraft came out of the game Saturday. We just assume he got his bell rung, but we’ll never know because Leach won’t tell us what’s going on. Starting center Riley Sorenson did not play Saturday because of an undisclosed injury.

Why is it “undisclosed?” What’s the problem with saying the kid has a pulled hamstring or a sprained ankle or whatever the case may be? As if, what, the Cougars are going to get drilled worse than they’ve already been getting drilled with opposing coaches knowing the nature of the injuries to our starting players? It’s ridiculous.

And speaking of ridiculous, why was quarterback Connor Halliday in the game in the fourth quarter? Someone, please explain that one to me, and try to make sense with your explanation. I’m hard-pressed to understand that one there.

We were behind 52-16, and Halliday is out there throwing the ball all over the place, which I’m usually fine with, but come on, why would you have your starter out there when you’re behind by 36 points?

Think the season’s been bad? How bad will it be if Halliday gets hurt? Don’t you increase the chances of that happening by having him out there taking meaningless snaps?

How about getting backup Luke Falk some experience in case Halliday does in fact get hurt? I just don’t get that one at all. I guess it’s more important for Halliday to throw 79 times and enhance his darkhorse campaign for the Heisman Trophy.

Halliday broke Alex Brink’s school record for passing yardage on Saturday, which is great, and it’s not his fault that the Cougars’ defense hasn’t allowed his final season to end on a winning note. But plain and simple, Falk should have been in the game in the fourth quarter.

Now we need to win our last four games to become bowl eligible, and let’s just stop the nonsense by saying that’s not going to happen in anyone’s dream world. We could beat Oregon State in Corvallis on Nov. 8 and Washington in the Apple Cup on Nov. 29, but we’re sure to lose to USC this Saturday and to Arizona State on Nov. 22.

More likely, the way we’re playing, allowing an average of 50 points over the last three games, we’ll go 0 for 4 and finish the season 2-10.

The Go 2 Guy also writes for SeattlePI.com and KitsapSun.com. You can reach Jim at jimmoorethego2guy@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @cougsgo.