Kirby Moore called his own shot. Now can his offense answerLOGAN, Utah – Earlier this week, Washington State coach Kirby Moore made the right move.
In announcing that he is taking over the Cougars’ playcalling duties, taking them away from a longtime friend in offensive coordinator Matt Miller, Moore demonstrated his understanding of the urgency of the moment. The Cougars’ offense has been floundering. Something had to change.
But will that be enough to help WSU secure a road win over Utah State on Friday night, set for 6 p.m. on the CW? All kinds of things could unfold, but here’s predicting the answer will be no, leading to an Aggie victory.
It will be fascinating to see what kinds of effects Moore’s control over this offense will have. Quarterback Caden Pinnick could look much sharper and much cleaner, avoiding the turnover problems that have plagued him early in his WSU career. But if the issues have less to do with playcalling and more to do with Pinnick himself, it’s possible he looks the same, which would make it exceedingly difficult for the Cougars (1-4, 0-1 Pac-12) to earn a win.
To be clear, WSU’s offensive woes have hardly been all Pinnick’s fault. Receivers have dropped passes and run routes short of the sticks. Offensive linemen have not been perfect. And the Cougs have gotten very little in the passing game from their tight ends. Nobody in this unit should be absolved of blame.
But the head of the snake is the quarterback, and even if the Cougars make a change at that position, it’s hard to foresee this offense taking down a Utah State defense that ranks fifth in the Pac-12 in scoring defense. QB Owen Eshelman has yet to see the field in any meaningful capacity, and the athletic Julian Dugger would have to prove to the Aggies’ defense that he can hurt them with his arm.
It’s a tough spot for WSU, no matter which QB gets the majority of reps in Friday’s game.
Final score: Utah State 13, WSU 7
The Cougar QB question looms large ahead of Utah StateWashington State at Utah State
Friday, 6 p.m.
Line: Utah State favored by 5½
TV: KSKN Radio: 920-AM
Key matchup
WSU QB against the Utah State defense: Usually, we would analyze the WSU QB’s matchup against the Utah State defense, but it’s unclear who that will be. The Cougars might stick with Caden Pinnick, who has languished to the tune of six turnovers in his first five games, or they might switch it up. They might go with redshirt freshman Owen Eshelman, who has yet to play any meaningful snaps in his college career, or they might pivot to redshirt sophomore Julian Dugger, who has broken some nice runs but hasn’t proven much with his arm in his limited playing time as a college QB.
For the sake of analyzing something, let’s assume WSU is sticking with Pinnick. The biggest focus for Pinnick will have to be avoiding turnovers, which he has not done in a consistent way yet. He has thrown an interception in all five games so far, and he also lost a fumble against Arizona, accounting for the majority of the Cougars’ nine total turnovers.
But will coaches stick with Pinnick for the entire game? It’s possible that even if Pinnick starts, coaches keep him on a short leash, wary of the turnover and pocket-presence issues he has faced. If those come bubbling up again, look for Moore to pull the plug.
How the Cougs win…
Because of the instability WSU is facing on offense, look for its defense to swing this one. Utah State quarterbacks Grady Brosterhous and McCae Hillstead have taken 17 sacks combined, and they have combined for 10 interceptions, the most of any team in the country. That doesn’t just open up things for Cougar defensive ends Matyus McLain and Linus Zunk. It could also mean a big day for WSU’s secondary, namely Jaylen Thomas, who has two interceptions on the year.
How the Aggies win…
Utah State can win this game by preying on WSU’s offense, which looks anything but potent at the moment. Pass rushers Adonis Jackson and Jordan Pendleton have combined for two sacks on 16 pressures, meaning the WSU offensive line will have to keep its quarterback – whoever it is – clean and upright.
If the Aggies can generate a turnover or two, as the Cougar offense has been wont to offer up, they can likely get it done at home.
Key stat: Minus-5
Can a key stat be a negative number? That’s WSU’s turnover margin on the year, a key reason behind its slow 1-4 start to the season. Can the Cougars improve that number? Can their defense take advantage of Utah State’s turnover problems, which have resulted in a margin of minus-7? Those patterns may swing Friday’s game.
Quotable
“I think Coach (Moore) is a great play-caller,” WSU tight end Jack Pedersen said. “Obviously, he did a great job at Missouri. That’s why he’s here. That’s why he’s the head coach here at Washington State. I think he’s going to do an amazing job, and I think we’re all excited to just get back out there and get a new opportunity.”
Moore's offense showed some pulse, but the Cougs still left plays on the fieldPULLMAN – The beginning of this Washington State season, the gauntlet the Cougars would see to open the Kirby Moore era, was always going to be difficult to parse. They faced three Power 4 teams in their first four games. Two were on the road. One came on a short week.
The Cougars were expected to come away from that stretch with one win and three losses. Thanks to a 34-24 setback to Arizona here on Saturday evening, WSU has fulfilled that much, which is not an indictment on these Cougars. But it does bring up the question that may define the rest of this season.
How many of the problems WSU’s offense is facing are a product of the stiff competition, and how many are the product of self-inflicted wounds that the Cougars would commit against the Pac-12 foes coming up?
We won’t know that much until conference play arrives when WSU hosts Fresno State next weekend, but the early returns on the Cougars’ offense are far from encouraging. Think about this stat, which is now official after Saturday’s game: In three games against FBS competition, WSU has produced three offensive touchdowns and committed six turnovers. The Cougars have lost seven total.
Moore’s team was expected to lose the games it has. It’s the way the Cougs’ offense is costing the team, though, that raises cause for concern.
“We gotta make sure we have a plan that everyone’s on the same page,” Moore said, “going from the half to the third quarter, especially in a tight game like that where our defense is battling, and we gotta find more ways to create explosive plays. We had them in the first quarter, in the first half, and had opportunities there to score even more. And then in the second half, we didn’t. So we gotta look at the film and see where we went wrong.”
In this one, WSU quarterback Caden Pinnick completed 24 of 41 passes for 241 yards, one touchdown and one interception, which came in the first quarter. If an Arizona defender hadn’t bobbled the ball later in the first half, Pinnick would have thrown two. Those were two costly decisions. Consider the other turnover Pinnick lost, a fumble that happened because he tried to throw the ball while being dragged down, and you start to see some of the poor decision-making that has led to Pinnick’s total turnover number this fall: four.
The reason that trend looms large for WSU: Pinnick is committing turnovers because of listless decisions, not because Power 4 athletes are making spectacular plays. Remember his interception last week against FCS Duquesne, when he threw into what became triple coverage downfield? Those are the kinds of poor decisions that have created such a gaping hole in the Cougars’ offense.
It would be one thing if Pinnick was playing a solid brand of football and a freak Power 4 defender, the kind that Arizona and Kansas State can afford, used his strength to jar the ball loose. That would be forgivable. But that’s not what’s happening. It may be Pinnick’s first season of FBS ball, but he has been too slow to differentiate a good decision from a bad one, especially when he’s looking to stretch the field vertically.
That raises a fair question: How can WSU coaches help Pinnick avoid those kinds of turnovers? How can they help Pinnick make better decisions, like in the third quarter, when he slid and gave himself up one yard short of a first down?
“We’re all in this together,” Moore said. “So it starts with me, obviously the offensive staff. Just having that dialogue with him, whether it’s in practice on the headset, reminders, making sure he knows exactly the stipulations, or even there on the third down. We ran the quarterback, he slides. That’s an unfortunate one. It’s a QB-designed run, and so we got to make sure he’s on the same page with that.”
The other problem the Cougars are facing is consistency. Their first drive in Saturday’s game, an 11-play, 71-yard scoring series, was nearly flawless. It ended when Pinnick took a QB keeper 11 yards into the end zone, following a string of perfect blocks, capping a perfect series. If that’s the way the Cougs were going to play in this one, well, the Wildcats should have been on their heels.
But WSU’s offense hardly looked the same after that. In the third quarter, the Cougs put up these numbers: 3 points, 149 total yards, 44 rushing yards, two three-and-outs, four punts and three sacks taken, giving Pinnick 10 sacks taken on the season. That opened the door for Arizona to turn a three-point deficit into a four-point lead, adding two more scoring drives in the fourth frame.
The Cougs can rebound from this. They showed what their offense can look like on that first series, and by showing an increased willingness to take shorter throws, Pinnick looks more than capable of making adjustments. But the biggest one he’ll have to make to avoid meeting the same fate against Pac-12 teams is more about trimming things out of his game.
He’ll have to make better decisions, better calls on when to try to stretch the ball down the field and when to be OK with checking it down. Fresno State’s defense figures to give him more opportunities to show that kind of acumen. But it’s on Pinnick, Moore and offensive coordinator Matt Miller to put themselves in a position where those changes don’t become just possible, they become probable.
“Give Arizona credit; they have a unique scheme,” Moore said. “So there was different variations of zone, whether it was inside, outside. Obviously, the quarterback pin-pull there we scored on in the first quarter. So there were some ID things there. Give them a ton of credit with how fast and hard those guys played. But we gotta have an answer as well with protecting the quarterback and having some more opportunities in the pass game.”
