SPOKANE — Washington State quarterback Kevin Lopina may be ready to start Saturday’s Apple Cup game against archrival Washington, coach Paul Wulff said Tuesday.
Lopina was knocked out of last weekend’s game at Arizona State late in the first half after suffering a concussion during a sack. Wulff expected Lopina to be cleared to play in Saturday’s showdown between two of the worst teams in the nation.
“If he is cleared he will start, but he is not officially cleared yet,” Wulff said during a conference call with reporters.
Backup J.T. Levenseller, a freshman, suffered a hand injury against ASU, but also can play.
Washington State (1-10, 0-8 Pacific-10) will have backup running back Logwone Mitz back for the game, but kick returner Chantz Staden is likely out for the season with a devastating knee injury suffered last weekend. Freshman Kevin Norrell will perform kick return duties.
Cornerback Tyrone Justin, linebacker Myron Beck and defensive lineman Andy Mattingly are slowed by injuries, but may play. Defensive lineman Kevin Kooyman should be back at full strength, Wulff said.
The game with Washington (0-10, 0-7) is the first time the Apple Cup has matched two teams with 10 losses each.
“Probably like everyone else I couldn’t imagine it,” said Wulff, who played at WSU.
“But it’s not really about records, before, now and in the future,” he said, adding the game is more about pride and bragging rights.
“We want to win it,” he said. “It’ll help take some of the sting out of the season, obviously.”
One game will not affect the future of either program, said Wulff, who was hired in December after Bill Doba was forced out. Still, a place in the history books is at stake.
Through a nightmarish football season, one question has remained unanswered: Is this the worst Cougar team in history?
While direct comparisons across different eras of college football are difficult, there is a case to be made that the program has reached the bottom of the barrel.
That’s based on the fact that the Cougars rank at or near the bottom of their peers in both offense and defense, have yielded an unprecedented number of points, and are getting blown out in games by unnatural margins.
Yet a win Saturday and the following weekend at Hawaii could leave the history books largely unchanged.
The 1970 WSU team under Jim Sweeney went 1-10 (beating Idaho) and posted a second consecutive 0-7 mark in the league.
That 1970 team is often cited as the worst, although its margins of defeat averaged just 41-21. This year’s team is losing by an average of 48-12.
There were other low points. The 1969 team beat Illinois in the season opener and then lost nine in a row to finish 1-9. As recently as 1998, the Cougs went 0-8 in the Pac-10 under Mike Price.
This team is pounding firmly on the door of futility.
Of the 119 major college teams, the Cougars rank 118th in scoring at 12.6 points per game, and 118th in defense, allowing 48.4 ppg, an astonishing combination that is nearly matched by the Huskies, who are 117th in scoring and 116th in defense.
Even worse, the Cougars are approaching the record for most points yielded in a season. They’ve given up 533 points, while the major college record is 566 allowed by Eastern Michigan in 2002. Louisiana-Lafayette in 1997 has the record for average points allowed, 50.3 per game, including a 77-7 loss at Pullman.
The Cougars have been shut out three times this season and scored just 3 points two other times.
Wulff blames the nightmarish season on a combination of injuries, lack of physical and mental toughness, youth and the inability of some veterans to adapt to new schemes. He says the Cougars are woefully short on strength, speed, athleticism and depth.
The statistic that most infuriates him is turnover margin, in which the Cougars are last in the nation by giving up 2.18 more turnovers than they get in each game.
“That killed us this year,” Wulff said.
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