SPOKANE — Backup Marshall Lobbestael, who played at Oak Harbor High School, will start at quarterback when Washington State plays at No. 7 Oregon this Saturday.
Quarterback Jeff Tuel will miss this week and his season may be over after suffering an acute compartment syndrome injury in his right calf last Saturday in Washington State’s loss to Oregon State.
“With five weeks left in the year I wouldn’t expect this to cause him to miss the next five games, but it definitely could be this week and next week,” Washington State coach Paul Wulff said Tuesday. “At this point his body needs to heal.”
Tuel suffered a bruised calf early in the first half and also re-aggravated the area around his left clavicle fracture, an injury that sidelined him for more than a month earlier in the season.
The calf bruise was treated on the way back from Seattle as well as during the day Sunday, when Tuel underwent a CAT scan on his clavicle.
The clavicle is sore, but not fractured, director of athletic training Bill Drake said after practice Tuesday.
Late Sunday night, Tuel felt pain in the calf and checked into Pullman Regional Hospital. The calf was drained of blood, no surgery was necessary and Tuel is expected to recover fully.
Two years ago, running back James Montgomery suffered the same injury and it progressed to the point he needed surgery, losing a foot-long section of muscle.
In Tuel’s absence, Lobbestael will make his seventh start of the season. The fifth-year senior is still sixth in the conference in passing efficiency and seventh in passing yards.
Washington State (3-4, 1-2 Pac-12) has lost three straight games heading into the contest with Oregon (6-1, 4-0). That included a 44-21 pounding at the hands of Oregon State last weekend in Seattle in a game many WSU fans thought their team would win.
That has brought a spate of criticism for Wulff, who is on the hot seat after three losing seasons.
Wulff said he understood why some fans were angered by the loss, but he reminded them that the expectations of victory are a sign of how much WSU has improved in recent years.
“People expect us to win,” he said. “That’s been a long time coming.”
Wulff also cautioned fans not to give up on the team.
“We are in the eighth game of the year and still talking about a (possible) bowl game,” Wulff said. “When was the last time we had that in Cougar Nation?”
The loss to Oregon State dealt a blow to WSU’s hopes of qualifying for a bowl game. After Oregon, the Cougars face California, Arizona State, Utah and Washington, and need to win three games to qualify.
“It’s a 12-round fight and we lost round seven,” Wulff said. “We’ve got a good, tough young team.”
That team will face a stiff challenge at Oregon, which lost its season opener to LSU and has hardly been challenged since. Oregon sports an offense that averages 537 yards and 48 points per game.
“We have got to be physical and we have got to make plays,” Wulff said. “We have got to be very sound, very disciplined, very focused.”
Last year, they hung with Oregon for three quarters before losing 43-23 in Pullman.
“Our kids played hard and did a lot of good things against them,” Wulff said.
Oregon leads the overall series 43-38-7 and has won four in a row.
One problem for the Cougars has been a reduction in offense since the Pac-12 season began. They have not scored more than 25 points in their past three games, all losses
Wulff pointed to injury problems on the offensive line, plus the disruption of having Tuel and Lobbestael sharing the quarterback job in recent weeks.
“Switching quarterbacks here and there the last two weeks has affected us,” Wulff said.
The schedule has also been unfriendly. Washington State has played only one game in Pullman, versus No. 4 Stanford, since Sept. 10, and won’t be home again until Nov. 12. That’s a span of 62 days with one home game.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
