Cougars hope to keep scoring streak alive

PULLMAN — They play without confidence. They play without weapons.

They play without players.

And today, they play fourth-ranked USC. Washington State's beleaguered Cougars host the Trojans without real hope, but with the weight — maybe the burden — of history.

They have this streak going, second-longest active one in the country, of scoring in 280 straight games. It dates to 1984, to a 44-0 shutout by Ohio State in Columbus. The only longer streak belongs to Michigan, 294 games.

It's arcane, known mostly to media people and the closest followers of the program. First-year coach Paul Wulff says lots of other things are taking precedence. It's not even something most players know about.

"No, I actually didn't," sophomore guard Andrew Roxas said this week. "But that's pretty cool. I don't think any of us would want it to end."

It's been so long ago, the last shutout predates The Times' in-house electronic files. I trundled off to find more about it in library microfilm.

Naturally, the details seem isolated, not having the benefit of the next quarter-century of mostly prolific offense to put them into context. For one thing, the Cougars had been shut out only two years before that.

Times columnist Steve Kelley wrote about WSU's defense, which that day allowed 310 yards rushing to the Buckeyes and Keith Byars, and how WSU wasn't stopping people like a team that had been forecast a Pac-10 contender.

Here's how then-coach Jim Walden was quoted in a wire story: "Some days you get a lot of flowers, and some days you get a lot of stones, but today we got a lot of Buckeyes."

Hmm. You won't find that in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.

"I'll always remember, we had a 19-play drive and didn't get a point," Walden said this week. "I told one of the coaches, 'I'm so damn tired of calling plays, I'm running out.' "

WSU had 305 yards total offense, and had Mark Rypien, Rueben Mayes and Kerry Porter in the backfield. Mayes rushed for 83 yards on 14 carries.

Later that season, on consecutive weeks, WSU would outlast Stanford, 49-42, in its greatest comeback in history, and Mayes would abuse Oregon for an NCAA-record 357 yards rushing while the Cougars scored 50 points.

The week after Columbus, WSU slipped past Ball State, 16-14, and it has been scoring ever since, sometimes prodigiously, sometimes pedantically. Seven times since then, it has scored a single field goal and there were times under Mike Price during a lost-cause game when he'd put up three rather than choose a macho attempt at seven.

When Washington clinched a Rose Bowl berth in Pullman in 2000, Price had Drew Dunning hit a field goal, down 37-0 in the last minute of the third quarter.

Why not? It's points, which could be very hard to come by against USC. If ever the streak seemed to need last rites, it's today.

The Trojans are first in scoring defense nationally at 9.4 points allowed per game. WSU averages 8.3 in Pac-10 games.

This number might be more indicative: Twenty-three WSU players have started a game for the first time this year, 15 on offense. WSU's top two tailbacks may be out again, and the quarterback injuries are unrelenting. Kevin Lopina returns as the starter against the 42 ½-point-favorite Trojans (4-1).

"It's important we try to eliminate as much contact as we can with him," said coach Paul Wulff.

So look for a lot of run game today from WSU (1-6), even if it averages a yard per carry. Expect maximum-protection pass plays. The game plan is liable to look like it's been stolen from Woody Hayes.

Referring to Lopina and emergency quarterbacks J.T. Levenseller and Dan Wagner, Roxas said, "We're going to try to keep them clean and try to run the ball."

This is a school that built a name on offense, from Rypien to Drew Bledsoe to Jason Gesser. Today, that certification looks old, yellowed and very vulnerable.