Wildcats Go for Broke, Fall Short

You wondered how Washington State might handle its chance to stake a claim to history. Would the Cougars boot it, fumble it, throw it all away?

It was almost all of the above Saturday, as Washington State rallied from 14 points down, took its first lead in overtime and then needed a hair-raising defensive stop when Arizona scored on its tie-breaker possession but failed on a gutsy, let’s-get-those-buses-started, two-point conversion attempt.

Easy as that, Washington State held on for a wild 35-34 victory before a vocal if not pathetic crowd of 31,137 at Martin Stadium.

Gee, what’s so special about this team? The Cougars are only 7-0 for the first time since O.E. “Babe” Hollingbery’s 9-0 1931 Rose Bowl squad. The Cougars are only ranked in the top 10 for the first time since the Eisenhower Administration and only in national title contention.

Forget about Missouri, this must be the “show-me” state.

“Come on,” Cougars’ quarterback Ryan Leaf bemoaned afterward. “Seven and O for the first time since ’30 and we can’t sell out a 37,000-seat stadium?”

Cougar fans may not care, but miracle seasons are made of this: Washington State looked lousy most of the game, unable to put away a now 3-5 Arizona team that surrendered 752 all-purpose yards in a loss to Washington last week and played Saturday without injured leading rusher Trung Canidate and the second half without star defensive tackle, Joe Salave’a, who turned an ankle in the second quarter.

Yet the Cougars won.

Leaf threw for a career-high 384 yards and three touchdowns but acknowledged he was outplayed by counterpart Ortege Jenkins, a redshirt freshman making his fourth career start.

“The better No. 16 on the field today was the one in white,” Leaf said of Jenkins, who passed for four touchdowns and ran for another.

Washington State was also penalized 12 times for 112 yards and missed two field goals.

Yet, the Cougars won.

They won in overtime when Jenkins rolled right on a two-point attempt and was stopped short of the goal by three Cougar defenders, led by corner LeJuan Gibbons, Jenkins’ former teammate at Long Beach Jordan High.

Jenkins heaved the ball forward into the end zone as he was hit.

Mayhem ensued. Was it a fumble? Who recovered it? Penalty flags flew.

“I thought he was down,” Gibbons said. “Then I saw the flag and said, ‘Oh my God, we’ve got to go through this again.’ ”

No, they didn’t. The play was ruled an illegal forward fumble. Game over.

No one was happier than Gibbons, who was torched all day by his friend Jenkins.

Arizona Coach Dick Tomey’s decision not to kick an extra point and risk another overtime was not a surprise. Tomey, a member of the NCAA rules committee, went for two last year and failed in a four-overtime loss to California that led to rule change that now requires teams to go for two points after the second overtime period.

“Sometimes you play winning football and you’re not rewarded with a win,” Tomey said. “I think that was the case today.”

Washington State Coach Mike Price thought he was going to have to give the halftime speech of his life after his team staggered into the locker room, trailing 21-14.

But Price found his players motivating themselves.

“There was no Knute Rockne from me,” Price said. “It was all them.”

Washington State tied the score in the third quarter on Leaf’s 48-yard scoring pass to tailback Michael Black, then watched Arizona take back the lead late in the quarter when Jenkins burned Gibbons on a 34-yard touchdown pass to Brad Brennan.

Washington State tied the score again, 28-28, on DeJuan Gilmore’s one-yard run with 11:42 left, then failed to on score on three consecutive possessions--one starting at the Arizona 43--before pushing the game to overtime.

Arizona won the coin toss and elected to defend, standard operating overtime procedure. Washington State started at the Arizona 25 and needed seven plays before Leaf could sneak over from the one.

Arizona took its overtime turn and appeared doomed when it faced fourth and 14 from the 29. But the Wildcats were bailed out when, uh-hum, Gibbons was called for pass interference on receiver Rodney Williams in the end zone.

Arizona had a fresh set of downs at the 14, but Gibbons at last got redemption with his game-saving tackle.

Miracle seasons aren’t always pretty. Last year, Arizona State pulled out mesa-hangers against Washington, UCLA and USC en route to its 11-0 ride to the Rose Bowl.

Washington State has that look.

“You can’t help think we’re a special team,” free safety Ray Jackson said.

Washington State can get to its first Rose Bowl since 1931--a 24-0 loss to Alabama--by closing with four victories.

Three schools in the Rose Bowl race--Penn State, Michigan and Washington State--remain unbeaten, leaving open the chance for a possible alliance-busting national title-game showdown in Pasadena.

But not so fast.

“We don’t care about that,” Leaf said. ‘I hope we drop in the polls. I only care where we’ll be on Jan. 1. We’re not talking national championship, like that team in Seattle.”

That team, Washington, is host to Washington State on Nov. 22.

Next up for the Cougars? Next Saturday. At Arizona State.