Cal Football: Early Look at Washington State

Cougars will arrive in Berkeley with identical record to Bears, but with usual high-powered offense
Photo by Joe Comporeale, USA Today

Here is the early report on what you need to know about the Cougars:

KICKOFF: 4 p.m. Saturday at Memorial Stadium, Berkeley.

TV: Pac-12 Networks

WEATHER FORECAST: Berkeley is expected to be partly cloudy with a high of 72 degrees and no more than a 10-percent chance of rain next Saturday. Unseasonably warm.

WASHINGTON STATE 2019 RECORD: The Cougars have exactly the same record as Cal — 4-4 overall, 1-4 in Pac-12 play, leaving them in a tie for last place in the North division.

LAST GAME: WSU had a bye this weekend after losing 37-35 at Oregon a week earlier. The Cougars took a 35-34 lead with 1 minute left when Anthony Gordon threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Arconado. But Justin Herbert drove the Ducks into range for freshman Camden Lewis to kick a game-winning 26-yard field goal as time expired.

THE SERIES: Cal leads 47-28-5. WSU won 19-13 in Pullman last season, but the Bears pulled a 37-3 upset against an unbeaten and 8th-ranked Cougars team when the teams most recently met in Berkeley, two years ago. Cal and WSU have split the past six meetings after a run of eight straight victories by the Bears through 2013.

WASHINGTON STATE COACH: Mike Leach, 58, is one of college football’s most creative offensive coaches and one of the game’s most colorful characters. Now in his eighth season at WSU, Leach was 12-25 in his first three years but is 41-19 since, with at least eight victories in each of the past four full seasons. WSU was 11-2 last year, ranked No. 10 in the final AP To-25 poll, and beat Iowa State in the Alamo Bowl, earning Leach national Coach of the Year honors. Utilizing the Air Raid offense that he first learned under Hal Mumme at Kentucky, Leach consistently fields high-octane passing teams. WSU has scored at least 40 points in 21 games since the start of the 2015 season, including four times this season. Leach is a loose-cannon interview, which makes him popular with media. But he also has been controversial, and in 2009 was fired by Texas Tech (despite a record of 84-43 in 10 seasons) for inappropriate treatment of one of his players. Leach filed suit for wrongful termination but courts, including the Texas Supreme Court, have dismissed his lawsuits. A rare FBS head coach who did not play college football, Leach has interests that range from pirates to chimpanzees to the American artist Jackson Pollock. Last spring he taught a seminar at WSU on insurgent warfare and football.

WASHINGTON STATE STORYLINES: Just as Cal opened its season with a 4-0 record, WSU won its first three games, twice scoring more than 50 points against overmatched opponents before winning 31-24 on the road against Houston. But the WSU defense was exposed in a bizarre 67-63 home loss to a UCLA team that arrived in Pullman with an 0-3 record. WSU ran up 720 yards of total offense . . . and lost after the Bruins scored 50 second-half points. Two weeks later, during a bye week after a 38-13 loss to Utah, defensive coordinator Tracy Claeys resigned, a move that Mike Leach claims surprised him. WSU is 1-2 since then, with a win over Colorado and losses at Arizona State and Oregon. WSU is eighth nationally in scoring offense (41.8) but 89th in scoring defense (29.8).

WASHINGTON STATE’S BEST PLAYER: Gardner Minshew took the college football world by storm last season when he accepted Mike Leach’s invitation to trade a third-string role at Alabama for the chance to lead the nation in passing at WSU. Minshew threw for 4,779 yards and 38 touchdowns as a grad transfer with the Cougars, and now is a rookie sensation for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Well, redshirt junior Anthony Gordon is on pace to eclipse all that Minshew achieved at WSU. He has passed for an FBS-leading 3,387 yards and 32 TDs, putting him on pace for 12-game totals of 5,081 yards and 48 TDs. He has thrown for at least 400 yards in seven of eight games, and had 570 yards and nine touchdowns (9!) in the loss to UCLA. And here’s the potentially infuriating angle for Cal fans — Gordon grew up in Pacifica and played the 2015 season at City College of San Francisco, where he merely passed for 3,864 yards with 37 TD passes for a 12-1 team.

WILCOX VS. LEACH: Cal coach Justin Wilcox’s defense has done a better job than any in the Pac-12 at slowing Mike Leach’s offense. The Cougars have totaled just 22 points in two games against the the Bears the past two seasons, with the teams splitting those contests. That’s an average of 11 points per meeting. Against everyone else in 2017 and ’18, WSU is averaging 35.8 points. The Bears held WSU 27 points under its season average in 2017 and nearly 19 points off its average in 2018. Cal’s defense, coming off its worst game in more than a year in a 35-0 loss at Utah, will need to return to its previous form to hold down the Cougars again on Saturday.

BETTING LINE: Washington State opened as an 8.5-point favorite, according to VegasInsider.com.


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Jeff Faraudo
JEFF FARAUDO

Jeff Faraudo was a sports writer for Bay Area daily newspapers since he was 17 years old, and was the Oakland Tribune's Cal beat writer for 24 years. He covered eight Final Fours, four NBA Finals and four Summer Olympics.