PULLMAN — Each of the past two weekends, Washington State players have boarded a team plane and flown back home with a sour taste in their mouths. In each experience, they had just acquitted themselves well against power-conference opponents, capturing the attention of nervous home fans in tense fourth quarters.
In both affairs, losses to ranked foes Ole Miss and Virginia, the Cougars stared down the barrel of losses. They may have come under different circumstances — WSU kept things interesting throughout the game against Ole Miss, while the group collapsed in the fourth quarter of a loss to UVA — but after both, if you squinted hard enough, you came away with the same kind of sentiment.
If the Cougars play like that against the teams on the rest of their schedule, they’re gonna win a lot of games.
The Cougs’ first chance to prove it comes this weekend. WSU will host Toledo at 12:30 p.m. Saturday on The CW, the crimson and gray’s first home game in more than a month. After a grueling stretch, three straight road games with a bye week sandwiched in after the first, the Cougars have now arrived at the portion of their schedule that figures to provide more opportunity.
To make the most of it, WSU will have to take down a Toledo team that has opened the season with a 4-3 mark. In head coach Jason Candle’s nine full seasons at the helm of the program, the Rockets have made seven bowl games, including wins in two. He’s won at least seven games in each of the past three seasons, including an 11-win season in 2023, when Toledo captured the MAC championship.
But these Rockets have not enjoyed the same success, at least not yet. They have yet to win a game on the road this fall. In their two conference road games, they’ve dropped one-score decisions to Western Michigan and Bowling Green. Their offensive line has yielded six sacks on 55 pressures, perhaps opening things up for the Cougars’ pass rush, which has been a net positive for that unit all season.
But WSU is only a 1.5-point favorite for a reason. The Cougs will have to poke holes in the Rockets’ defense, which ranks fifth nationally against the pass (140 yards per game) and sixth nationally against the run (84 yards per game). Edge rusher Malachi Davis has piled up four sacks on 15 pressures, and safety Braden Awls has picked off two passes, two microcosms of what makes this Toledo defense so sturdy.
“They play great defense and fly around, really physical,” WSU coach Jimmy Rogers said. “Holding people to 14 points per game and an offense that is really talented and really explosive. They get the ball to their best players and utilize their strengths. So we gotta get ready to play a tough one here at home. Really have the same type of preparation as we have had the last two weeks, because I thought that part was really good. Our focus was great for those two weeks.”
WSU may be 3-4 on the year, but the squad still has every chance to make a bowl game — for what would be the ninth time in the last 10 full seasons. This weekend’s result will figure prominently into the Cougs’ postseason outlook. To meet minimum bowl eligibility requirements, they’ll only have to win their remaining three home games: against Toledo, a middling Louisiana Tech team and one-win Oregon State, which is mired in the most forgettable of seasons.
If those are the only games the Cougars win the rest of the year, they’ll wind up at 6-6 overall, and with the traditional Pac-12’s bowl tie-ins still intact, that would likely land them in the Armed Forces, First Responders or Gasparilla Bowl. Those are near the bottom of the pecking order, but with 75 new players in Rogers’ first year, maybe an appearance in one would amount to a successful first season in the Rogers era.
But it’s also entirely possible WSU does more winning than that. The Cougs also have road games lined up against Oregon State (an exceedingly rare in-season home-and-home series) and James Madison, the latter of which profiles as easily their toughest task remaining. Win even one of those games and WSU could be looking at a 7-5 record, which could come with a cameo in the LA Bowl or the Sun Bowl.
Even so, WSU has much bigger fish to fry in the immediate future. The Cougars will likely take the field Saturday without starting right tackle Christian Hilborn, who is nursing a knee injury, and maybe even his backup, Jaylin Caldwell, who exited early from last week’s game with his own knee injury. If that’s the case, look for Washington State to move left guard Johnny Lester to right tackle and sub in Noah Dunham in at left guard, which is what coaches did when Caldwell went down against Virginia.
The Cougs could be even more short-handed on their defensive line, a tough stroke of luck against the Rockets’ rushing offense, which ranks 28th nationwide with 200.7 yards per game. Up front, WSU is already down starter Max Baloun (out for season), backup Kaden Beatty (undisclosed injury), while defensive end Raam Stevenson and tackle Mike Sandjo are questionable.
Above all, the Cougs will have to display more discipline than they did in their loss to the Cavaliers, when they blew a two-score lead in the fourth quarter. Quarterback Zevi Eckhaus will have to avoid turnovers, unlike his two-interception showing last week. And if they can keep their improved ground game humming, the Cougars could be looking at a nice win over a steady Toledo club.
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