Luke Falk and the Cougars set for a huge week after beating Arizona

Gabe Marks caught four touchdowns in Washington State's win Saturday win over Arizona. (AP)

As predicted in the “Smokin’ Jim Moore Lock of the Week,” the Cougars beat Arizona 45-42 Saturday in Tucson, setting up a Pac-12 North Division showdown this Saturday night in Pullman.

By coming through as a 6 ½-point underdog, Washington State also put itself in position to host ESPN’s “College GameDay” for the first time. You can see Cougar flags every Saturday morning on “GameDay,” but ESPN’s weekly college football show has never been to Pullman.

The two “finalists” for the show are Stanford-WSU and Notre Dame-Temple. The Owls are 7-0, but seriously, who cares about Temple? It’s a far better story for ESPN to come to Pullman. How many fans have seen Ol’ Crimson flying in the background of the studio set week after week, year after year on campuses around the country?

It holds much greater interest to fans around the country to finally see the home to these Cougar flag-wavers, and there would be storylines galore, starting with Mike Leach, continuing with Luke Falk and then getting into the possibility that the Cougs could lead the Pac-12 North if they beat Stanford. Hey, maybe Lee Corso will pick the Cougs and wave with Butch’s head on his head.

Who would you want to see as the guest celebrity Coug on the show? Jack Thompson, the Throwin’ Samoan? Jason Gesser? Drew Bledsoe? Klay Thompson? Mike Price? Someone else?

All of these things are in play after Washington State’s win over Arizona, which was never in doubt – OK, sort of in doubt, but the Cougars never trailed after scoring on their opening drive.

Luke Falk threw six touchdown passes, four to Gabe Marks, and I’ve lost track of their three-game totals, but they’re putting up pinball numbers. The Air Raid offense has been mostly unstoppable in the three-game win streak over Oregon, Oregon State and Arizona.

I jumped out early on Russell Wilson when I called him the best quarterback in franchise history after his first year, so why not keep it going with Falk. He’s not the best quarterback in Washington State history, and he’s only started 10 games, but if you put him in the conversation, no one would laugh you out of the bar.

Falk has been accurate and prolific and I’m amazed at how he limits his interceptions for the number of times he chucks it – 62 times against the Wildcats, for instance, with no picks.

Plus think about this for a second – Falk was sacked twice Saturday. Throwing the ball 24 times against the 49ers, Wilson was sacked five times. And there’s no question which QB is more mobile or which offensive line is better.

We had only one special-teams gaffe this week, allowing a 69-yard punt return for a TD, but I’ll take that given the multiple special-teams gaffes we usually have in a game.

And I know Arizona scored 42 points, but our defense is much improved. I don’t feel like the other team is going to score every time they have the ball anymore.

Love the running game too. Last year there’s no way we would’ve been able to close it out with three straight running plays to get a critical first down at the end of the game. On Saturday we did.

This is turning into a remarkable season, and part of the reason it’s been this much fun is that it’s so unexpected. After the Cougars lost to Portland State in the opener, most of us thought the season was shot. Fifty-nine minutes into the Rutgers’ game, we were sure of it.

But now the Cougs are 5-2 and one game from clinching a bowl berth. At this point, we can hope for a bowl in the higher-rent district. I don’t know if we’re good enough to beat Stanford – I’m guessing the Cardinal will be an 8-point favorite in the Halloween night game.

But we’ve won as home underdogs before, and the way we’re playing, we could beat any of the other four teams on our schedule too – Arizona State Nov. 7, at UCLA Nov. 14, Colorado Nov. 21, at Washington Nov. 27.

Whether or not GameDay comes to Pullman, it still shapes up as the most exciting week of Cougar football in more than 10 years.

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.