PULLMAN, Wash. — Coming off its bye week, the Washington State football team is faced with a daunting task ahead, as they must face No. 14 Utah Thursday evening.
The Cougs are on a two game losing streak, but are hoping to turn around their second half struggles from the last two weeks.
"I am a solution based leader. The problem is there, so how do you want to solve it? We added more good on good and one on one at the end of practice to try to make sure that we are emphasizing finishing football games," WSU head coach Jake Dickert said.
In the last two weeks combined, the Cougs have scored a grand total of seven points in the second half. In both games, quarterback Cameron Ward's completion percentage has plummeted.
"We are not built as an offense yet to say, 'Hey, we are down 14 points in the fourth quarter, we just need to throw it every time,' and then let other teams tee off on us. Everyone talks about Cam and Cam owns his part in it, but it's protecting him, it's running the right routes, it's establishing the run, it's not having negative plays and I think that was the culmination of the Oregon State game," Dickert said.
Defensively, the Cougs are only allowing 21 points per game, but there is one specific area the defense has been lacking the last few weeks.
"We have to create more turnovers and be more dominant in that area of the game. Recently, we have not been as much as we want to, so moving forward we are definitely attacking that ball as much as we can and that will be our focus moving forward for sure," WSU senior linebacker Daiyan Henley said.
Even though WSU is playing on Thursday night, players are excited for the challenge ahead.
"It feels good to play a Thursday night college football game. It kind of simulates in your mind an NFL night. To play on Thursday is great and then we get another full weekend," Henley said.
It will be Thursday night lights at Martin Stadium. The Cougs and Utes are set to kick off at 7 PM. We will have highlights and postgame coverage on KREM and krem.com.
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