Washington State Cougars beat Stanford in Week 7 – Our Takeaways
After knocking off Stanford 34-31, the Wahington State Cougars have won three in a row. These are our top five takeaways from Saturday’s narrow victory.
The Washington State Cougars showed resilience and heart in their win over Stanford Saturday in Pullman. The offense avoided costly mistakes and scored when it needed to. Meanwhile, “the bend don’t break: defense held in the end. This may have been the most satisfying win of the Rolovich era. Let’s go over this week’s key takeaways.
1. de Laura delivers again
Jayden de Laura played his cleanest game yet for Wazzu. He completed just under 60 percent of his passes to seven different Cougars receivers. Most importantly, de Laura finished with no turnovers. One big highlight this season is his development as a Pac-12 quarterback.
2. Mad Max returns
Max Borghi sealed the game with a touchdown at the 1:30 mark. Against the Cardinal, Borghi had 89 yards rushing to go along with two touchdowns. The senior had been relatively quiet the last few weeks; it was good to see him back in a prominent role.
3. Too much give
3. Could the Washington State Cougars defense please bend a little less while not breaking? While they did enough to win, the defense gave up the lead in the fourth quarter. It felt like every time the Cougars pulled ahead; they D let Stanford right back in. Their performance continued the 2021 trend of weak second-half play. To remain in contention for a division title, the unit needs to be more consistent through all four quarters.
4. Peaking at the right time
This winning streak comes at the perfect time. The Washington State Cougars face three ranked teams over the next three weeks. BYU comes to Pullman next week, followed by road games against ASU and Oregon.
They will close things out with a home game against Arizona followed by the Apple Cup in Seattle against UW. This run against ranked teams will be one of the key factors in deciding head coach Nick Rolovich‘s future should he make it past Monday.
5. Rolo Watch
Can this be the last week of Rolo-watch, please? The other key factor in Nick Rolovolich’s future should FINALLY have some resolution this week. The saga of Rolovich’s status comes to a head at Monday’s education employee vaccination deadline. He’s applied for an exemption due to religious reasons, and we’ll know if he was granted one.
Will he still be coaching the Cougars against BYU? I don’t know. But we’ll all be glad when this is no longer a weekly topic of discussion.
Their narrow victory over Stanford has CougNation buzzing with hope. Will this momentum carry through a tough slate of games coming up?