NFL News NFL News, Reports and Updates
Nov. 17—PULLMAN — One of the strongest indictments of Washington State’s defense on Saturday night in a 38-35 loss to New Mexico came from the mouth of veteran linebacker Kyle Thornton.
After the game, after the Cougars surrendered a game-winning touchdown rush to UNM dual-threat quarterback Devon Dampier, Thornton confirmed that WSU’s defense had done its homework on Dampier headed into the game. Then he offered a comparison to the Dampier the Cougars saw on the field and the one they saw on film.
“I wouldn’t say that he surprised us by how impressive he was,” Thornton said. “I thought he was exactly as advertised.”
Thornton meant it as a compliment to Dampier, who piled up 193 yards and three touchdowns on 28 carries, lots of them designed quarterback keepers. But it also works to put the Cougars’ defense under the microscope: If they knew what to expect from Dampier, so much so that they weren’t surprised by anything he did in the game, what stopped them from slowing him down?
“Any time you involve the QB run game, it always kinda complicates things, because you are essentially hatted out,” Thornton said. “At some point it does become one-on-one, and I thought they were getting to it in a lot of different ways. They were really doing a good job hiding it with a lot of motion, making us communicate a lot on the back end before they actually got to it.”
All told, Dampier ran 22 QB keepers for 156 yards and three touchdowns, including the final dagger inside of a minute to play. With Saturday’s game in the books, Dampier now leads the country in rushing yards by a QB with 1,079, and he’s tied with WSU’s John Mateer for most missed tackles by a quarterback with 48. Few opponents have found ways to slow him, and the Cougs were the latest victim.
The troubling part for WSU, though, is in how obvious New Mexico made its…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/wsu-rewind-cougars-loss-mexico-045900010.html
Author : The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.
Publish date : 2024-11-18 04:59:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
