PULLMAN – During WSU’s three-game win streak over Stanford, Arizona and Arizona State, the Cougars jumped out to early leads that held true despite only scoring 20 combined points in the second half of the wins.

The second-half offensive woes reared their head again in the Cougs’ 51-33 loss to Washington in the Apple Cup, their eighth loss in the previous nine meetings of the rivalry.

“Just not doing our job, individually,” WSU quarterback Cameron Ward said in a postgame press conference. “Whether that’s with me, like the third-and-19 I threw a (pass) for one yard, that’s completely on me. Everyone’s responsible for it, we all take accountability for it.”

UW quarterback Michael Penix Jr.’s 485 passing yards were his second-most of the season and allowed him to finish as the FBS’s leading passer of the 2022 regular season. With the Huskies up 28-27 after the first half, Penix Jr. led Washington on four second-half scoring drives, three of which were in the fourth quarter, while WSU sputtered on offense in the second half.

Of WSU’s six second-half drives, only one got inside the Washington 30-yard line.

“We gave up 51 points,” WSU Head Coach Jake Dickert said after the game. “I’m not focused on the offense. We win as a team, we lose as a team. It wasn’t our best performance, and I thought the offense gave us a shot to stay in the game.”

Defensively, the Cougars allowed 378 yards of offense and 23 points to UW in the second half alone. In WSU’s 11 games prior to Saturday, they allowed 366 yards per game and 227 yards per game through the air.

“It’s disappointing, a little bit, just in how we’ve played in a couple of these big games,” Dickert said. “I thought we’ve been really good all season, I’m not going to have one bad performance sour what I feel like we’ve accomplished over 12 games on that side of the ball.”

The Cougar defense sacked opposing quarterbacks eight times over their three-game win streak but ran into a brick wall in the Washington offensive line. The Huskies, who had only surrendered seven sacks in the eleven games leading up to the Apple Cup, kept Penix Jr. upright against the Cougar front seven.

“You saw the pocket collapse many times, you saw him have to get out the pocket a few times too,” WSU edge Ron Stone Jr. said. “We were close, but close doesn’t really count in these types of situations.”

UW’s 703 yards of total offense was the third-most yards allowed by a WSU defense in a single game in program history.

“They played a complete game offensively, and we didn’t show up enough defensively,” Stone Jr. said.

All five of WSU’s losses this season have come against Pac-12 teams ranked in the AP Top 25 and were all within one score when both teams entered the halftime locker room. At halftime, the Cougars were up by eight against Oregon, down by three to USC, down by seven to Oregon State, down by seven to Utah and down by one to Washington.

“Unfortunately, in this game, there’s no celebrating close,” Dickert said. “We’ve been close in a lot of different games against a lot of good opponents. I think everyone realized the Pac-12 might be the premier conference this year in the country, and, yes, we lost to five top-20 teams, but at the end of the day we got to do what we need to do to get over that hump.”

Despite the loss, the Cougars still have one game left this season, with their bowl game yet to be announced.

Ian Bivona may be reached at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.