Washington State defense has no answer for Washington’s offensive onslaught

PULLMAN — The big question entering Saturday night’s Apple Cup was could Washington State’s defense — the top-ranked unit in the Pac-12 in points allowed — slow down Washington’s electric offense.

The answer was a resounding no.

Washington moved the ball with ease all night against the Washington State defense, propelling the Huskies to a 51-33 Apple Cup victory at Martin Stadium.

How bad was it for the Cougar defense? It allowed 702 yards, third most in program history behind the 745 allowed to USC in 2005 and the 719 allowed to Oregon to 2013.

Apple Cup
Huskies 51, Cougars 33

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“Credit to them, they went out there and made the plays, and we’re obviously not where we want to be in this moment, and it’s tough to take,” said Washington State coach Jake Dickert, whose team had a three-game winning streak snapped and finished the regular season at 7-5.

The Cougars will play in a bowl game to be determined in a few weeks, but Dickert said Saturday night’s loss will sting for a while.

It was much different a year ago for Dickert and the Cougars, who beat UW 40-13 at Husky Stadium in the largest margin of victory for WSU in the Apple Cup.

“I told them in the locker room, it should scar them and it should hurt,” Dickert said. “Scars are good if you learn from them. There is no joy in (the WSU locker room). I remember the jubilation from last year.

“This isn’t a game that we game plan for seven days. It’s 365 days a year trying to outwork an opponent.”

That the loss came on senior night when 13 seniors were honored before their last home game, made it sting a little more.

The game was closer than the final score indicated. Washington State trailed 28-27 at halftime and 35-33 entering the fourth quarter.

While UW kept scoring and racking up yards in the second half, the Washington State offense was held to 129 yards in the final two quarters (433 for the game).

“I thought their pass rush leaned on us a little bit in the second half, and I thought that the biggest difference,” Dickert said.

That said, it was the other side of the ball that was WSU’s biggest issue Saturday night by far.

“We gave up (51) points, so I am not focused on the offense,” Dickert said. “We win as a team, we lose as a team, and it wasn’t our best performance. But I thought our offense gave us a shot to stay in the game.”

Dickert said he thinks UW quarterback Michael Penix is one of the best deep-ball throwers in the country, and he threw for 484 yards despite the Cougars trying different schemes to stop him.

Dickert said he also thought the Huskies’ game plan on third-down plays was good. UW was 11 of 13 on third-down conversions.

“They checked the sideline way more than they have, so I think they had plans for the looks that we were giving them, and I just felt like we were one step behind,” he said.

The Cougars entered the game allowing a conference-best 19.8 points per game. Dickert said he wasn’t going to let “one bad performance sour all the good that I felt we’ve done throughout 12 games.”

Dickert said he was confident his team would be resilient and be ready for its bowl game.

“We’ll wipe this thing and learn from it,” Dickert said. “I told those seniors we’ve got one more (game), because we earned it. We’ll be ready to play, and now we’ve got to wait three weeks or so to get this taste out of our mouths.”