PULLMAN, Wash. — Washington State's 38-35 loss in the final seconds against New Mexico on Saturday ruined their chances to compete for a national championship.
Lobos quarterback Devon Dampier scored one touchdown to cut into a 14-point Coug lead in the second quarter, and another one with twenty seconds remaining in the fourth quarter to put the nail in the coffin.
However, Jake Dickert and the Cougs are focused on the next game: a matchup with new rival Oregon State.
“You’ve got to go right back to the next thing," Dickert said. "It’s being 1-0 in a new week, it’s handling success adversity, it’s handling the learnings from losses, it’s all of those things in conjunction. So, not that whether you win or lose doesn’t matter, it makes you feel good winning, but at the end of the day, by this time, you’ve got to come to today’s 4:30 meeting and you’ve got to be snapped into the next challenge."
While a lot of the football world saw the Cougs and Beavers as allies, the last two standing in the Pac-12, Dickert hasn't bought into the alliance.
“I’ve never gotten into the ‘they’re our buddy.’ Oregon State is not our buddy," Dickert said. "They would’ve left us as fast as we would’ve left them. It just is what it is. It’s one of our biggest rivals now. That’s the way I’ve looked at it. That’s not bulletin board material, they would say it the same way, let’s go compete.”
Washington State and Oregon State kick off at 4 p.m. on Saturday.