Tough turnaround for Cougars

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Tough turnaround for Cougars, who must travel and play on same day


WACO, Texas -- The Washington State Cougars, coming off the most lopsided loss in school history, can't wait to get back on the football field. Literally.

The Cougars agreed Thursday to move up their scheduled Saturday morning game at Baylor to Friday at 5:30 p.m. PDT because of weather and travel problems related to Hurricane Ike.

A Thursday flight could not be arranged, so the Cougars are scheduled to take a 3 1/2 -hour flight out of Pullman on Friday and land in Waco, Texas, about 4 1/2 hours before kickoff.

Asked when the Cougars last played a road game on the same day they traveled (except to neighboring Idaho), athletic director Jim Sterk quipped, "Probably the last time they played Gonzaga." The Bulldogs dropped football in 1941.

Fox Sports said the game will be shown live on Fox College Sports and delayed to 11 p.m. on FSN. A video stream off the Baylor scoreboard screen and audio of the Bears' radio broadcast will be available free at wsucougars.com and baylorbears.com.

WSU coach Paul Wulff played down difficulties posed for his players by the last-minute travel and date changes.

"It's all how you handle it," Wulff said. "We're not going to really worry about it. ... We don't need to look at the fluff on the outside. We need to just play some football."

Baylor and the Cougars discussed rescheduling the game for Dec. 6 (the teams do not share bye weeks), but Wulff said he preferred playing Friday because the Cougars play at Hawaii on Nov. 29 and he did not want to lose a week of recruiting.

 

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The Cougars have kept their starting quarterback a secret, but WSU has far more problems than quarterback play. Coming off a 66-3 loss to California, a shaky defense now faces a speedy, athletic quarterback in Baylor freshman Robert Griffin.

Rivals.com ranked Griffin the No. 3 dual-threat quarterback among high school seniors last year. He graduated early (seventh in his class), enrolled at Baylor in January, went through spring football, then joined the track team in time to take third in the 400-meter hurdles at the NCAA championships. WSU wide receiver Jeshua Anderson finished first.

The 6-foot-3, 200-pound Griffin originally committed to Houston, but he followed coach Art Briles to Baylor when Briles changed jobs. Griffin replaced Miami senior transfer Kirby Freeman in the first half of the opening game, then started last week and passed for 294 yards and three touchdowns.

"I'm the leader of the team," the 18-year-old Griffin declared.

"He's a scary guy," Washington State coach Paul Wulff said.

Griffin also ran for 42 yards and a touchdown while operating a hurry-up, no-huddle offense similar to that run by WSU. The Bears struggled in a 41-13 loss to No. 23 Wake Forest -- "A disgusting opening game," Briles said -- then steamrolled Northwestern (La.) State 51-6.

WSU opened against two teams coming off bowl wins, but simple errors in execution by the Cougars have led to some of the worst offensive and defensive statistics in the nation.

"You never imagine it starting out this rough," senior quarterback Gary Rogers said.

Wulff said Rogers, shaky in his first two career starts, may yield or share quarterback duties with Kevin Lopina.

Both teams have plenty of questions on both sides of the ball, including the secondary.

Briles managed to keep a straight face when he dared to say that "Washington State is a very good football team," but Wulff knows that's a lie. Wulff is preaching the need for patience by WSU fans and improvement by WSU players.

"I really believe we can get a lot better," Wulff said.