Washington State Football: 9/24 presser, USC done, Utah up next

SALT LAKE CITY, UT - NOVEMBER 11: Jalen Thompson #34 of the Washington State Cougars and teammates celebrate a first quarter turnover against the Utah Utes at Rice-Eccles Stadium on November 11, 2017 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by Gene Sweeney Jr/Getty Images)
SALT LAKE CITY, UT - NOVEMBER 11: Jalen Thompson #34 of the Washington State Cougars and teammates celebrate a first quarter turnover against the Utah Utes at Rice-Eccles Stadium on November 11, 2017 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by Gene Sweeney Jr/Getty Images) /
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Washington State Football
LOS ANGELES, CA: James Williams #32 of the Washington State Cougars looks for an opening to run during the second quarter against the USC Trojans at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on September 21, 2018. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images) /

Losing to USC

Leach believed the Cougars had opportunities in all facets of the game. “We could have won on all three sides of the ball,” he said. In his opinion, the loss came down to WSU making more plays in each area. The coach said there was no single play that happened in the game that made a difference between winning and losing.

On offense, Leach thought his offensive line played a physical game and are continuing to get better every week. When asked specifically about Minshew’s passes getting batted down at the line, Leach said the line did a better job opening passing lanes in the second half.

The WSU defense played well but let up some “explosives” to Southern Cal. Between that and holding the Trojans to several three and outs, Washington State’s defense was either “feast or famine” last week, according to Leach. He did think it was odd however that USC had such better footing on the L.A. Memorial Coliseum turf than his team did.

When asked about the number of penalties called in the game, Leach said he was more concerned with net penalty yards. The reason being, a team may get called for fewer penalties because they aren’t aggressive enough.

Additionally, Leach liked the idea of using Kyle Sweet on punt returns, even though he might be slower than Travell Harris. The coach believes the two most important things are first catching the punt and then making the initial tackler miss. A punt returner doesn’t necessarily have to be fast for that.