BOULDER — The Colorado Buffaloes and their ecstatic fans would beg to differ, but the postgame theme of the Washington State Cougars was the gnawing sense that they let a victory slip through their fingers.
They regretted that a string of dropped passes, overthrown passes and other sins of poor execution cost them dearly in a 38-24 loss to the 12th-ranked Buffs on Saturday afternoon at raucous Folsom Field.
Asked if he thought that his No. 20 Cougars (8-3, 7-1 Pac-12) would have taken control of the game and gained momentum with better execution early in the game, coach Mike Leach said: “I don’t think there’s any question. You guys saw the game. You saw how many times we got behind (CU’s secondary), how many times we dropped the ball and how many times we barely missed.
“Anybody who has watched us all year knows that that doesn’t happen very often. That’s always in our control. and we have to be better than that, especially on offense.”
Case in point: With Washington State leading 14-7 with 11 minutes remaining in the second quarter, Cougars quarterback Luke Falk threaded a perfect pass to Gabe Marks in the end zone. Marks dropped it. Two plays later, WSU failed to convert on a fourth-and-7 play from the CU 26.
Instead of leading 21-7 and quieting the crowd of 48,658, the Cougars saw the Buffs march back down the field and tie the game 14-14.
The game was billed as a showdown between a CU secondary — perhaps the best in the Pac 12 Conference — and Falk, who passes like a finely-tuned NFL quarterback. But by game’s end, Falk was an inefficient 26-for-53 passing for 325 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. After the game, his frustration was evident.
“We really shot ourselves in the foot,” Falk said. “We didn’t convert on those key downs and on those key plays. That was really disappointing. That’s all on me as a quarterback. I have to do a better job of executing and keeping the chains moving.
“We had some drops, yeah, but I had a lot of overthrown passes in that second half. I had some rhythm going in the first half, but I just couldn’t get into a rhythm in the second half for some reason.”
Falk gave grudging credit to CU’s defense, but mostly blamed the loss on the Cougars’ poor execution.
“I think we definitely missed some opportunities early on,” Falk said. “We were moving, but we missed on that fourth-down play and we had some miscues and some miscommunication on some plays. So who knows how it would be?”
“That fourth-down play” was a 3-yard completion to Kyle Sweet at the CU 15 early in the fourth quarter. The problem was, the Cougars need 4 yards for a first down and they were halted on a brilliant tackle by Nick Fisher. Colorado countered with a 46-yard field goal to take a 31-24 lead.
“We’ve just got to play tighter and a do a better job doing our job,” Leach said. “They’re a good football team, they earn what they get. We earned what we got, too.”