Washington State falls to Wyoming 15-14

Yeah you read that correctly.

Well, as my close and personal friend Taylor Swift would say- what a valiant roar, what a bland goodbye.

Last night, unfortunately, your Washington State Cougars fell in their third straight loss to Wyoming, 15-14, in another truly frustrating watch it as the ship goes down sensation.

I genuinely had half a mind to just start recapping the 2024 Apple Cup for the bit, just to bring some joy back, but you came here expecting to read what happened, so I’ll tell you what happened!

The first half started a little bumpy, the Cougs weren’t quite off on the right foot to kick off the first quarter, but their luck quickly shifted after Mateer was sacked (it’s no fun, huh John?). Five plays, 70 yards, all boiling up to a dynamic touchdown from Kyle Williams.

Wyoming answered with a field goal, their preferred method of scoring this game until they ruined my night – more on that later. This field goal ended the first quarter, and at this point all of our sanity was still intact!

WSU chipped away at the next few drives, swapping between Mateer and Wayshawn Parker to scoot their way down the field. That duo cobbled together a string of 7 yard gains, no gains, 3 yards, etc- until Mateer did what he does best: take advantage of a window wide enough to fit a small child, and somehow come out on the other side with a touchdown or narrowly escaping physical danger of some sort. I pray for his mother, I really do.

Admittedly, that was the most interesting thing to come out of the second quarter. I say this because after the touchdown, both teams were just sort of playing to play. It seemed that momentum and swing was within reach when our Jamorri Colson intercepted a pass, but with great interceptions comes great potential to fumble when your offense takes the field which is exactly what happened.

It looked like the Cougs were ready to take advantage, Mateer sending a 15 yarder down the field to Kris Hutson, followed by another successful pass to Carlos Hernandez, then another pass to Hutson. Things were moving!! But, a timeout and a false start on Washington State became the lead up to a Mateer fumble, opening the door for another Wyoming field goal, and a very sad though we technically had the lead at this point, kind of no one was straight up having a good time 14-6 entrance to the second half.

Welcome to my halftime interlude! I usually rarely recap because I am ridiculous and don’t take anything seriously, but I think a fair amount of us are at the “if I don’t laugh I’ll cry” stage of grief regarding this season. For that reason, I’m going to write a little poem. Scroll if you don’t want to read it.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
If you’re left scratching your head
I am too!

There are things that I’ll cherish from this season galore
I can’t remember them now
But I’m sure there’s at least four

Don’t think too hard about what might be lost
Just make yourself a salad, excellently tossed!

I couldn’t think of a better rhyme to go with “lost” that wasn’t “cost” and frankly I do not want to think about money right now, so I hope you enjoyed my poem! Back to the game!

I’m not going to sugarcoat it the second half was not good you guys.

If you’re looking at the ESPN Play-By-Play (don’t) the next series of events are just really sad. Punt, punt, punt (rotating WSU Wyoming WSU, naturally, because nothing in life is fair) FIELD GOAL to break it up, but unfortunately the field goal was… for WHYoming.

For me, this was when something deep deep down inside me knew it was over. 14-9, Cougs still had the lead, but if you’re like me, that unbalanced score sprinkled fertilizer and water over the small seed of doubt that lives within my chest, and that seed grew into a horrible ugly flower.

Washington State simply lost control. Things looked promising when Wyoming fumbled twice, but even that couldn’t right the ship.

Really quick, I have to google what the version of a miracle except it’s a horrible outcome is. Please hold.

Misfortune?

Sure.

Washington State had the misfortune (yes, okay I like that word there, that works) of a Wyoming touchdown with 24 seconds left on the clock. In the game. Total.

When Mateer came back on the field after a failed two point conversion on Wyoming’s end (ha, suck it) that brought the score to 15-14 Wyoming (if that looks familiar, it’s because you read it in the title, and it’s the final score, nothing gets better from here) his pass was intercepted. Yeah.

And that just about ended the game! Wait- it totally did end the game. Wyoming came on the field for three seconds to kneel and plunge a dagger into my heart medieval style.

I’m sure very soon here our beloved website will be filled with various analysis and commiseratory woes being shared among likeminded individuals, like when you and your friend both go through breakups at the same time. We aren’t quite at the let’s throw on our cute ankle boots and take shots out of those plastic pink colored shot glasses that we got at the Dollar Tree our freshman year of college and didn’t wash first and it’s a miracle the plastic didn’t give us some sort of disease although what harm could that do beyond the Strawberry Lemonade flavored Vodka we were putting in there that our friends older boyfriend bought us. Universal experience? No? Alright well, we learned something new about 18 year old Emma didn’t we?

To be completely honest, I’m a little at a loss for words about this one. Which is a shock since I have somehow penned 1019 in this recap alone. And who wants to read a thousand words about a game we lost? Well, you, ya sicko, if you’re still here.

RARE MOMENT OF SINCERITY HAPPENING IN THIS PIECE RIGHT NOW: it hurts my heart that this happened on senior night. I don’t want the end of this season to be how our seniors remember their time here. All of those guys have been invaluable and brought so much to the program as players and as people, and it has been the honor of my life to chat with some of them about their time here and what they took from this school that we all love so much.

Some of you love it so much that you’re still reading. How are you still reading this?

Let’s wrap this up shall we? The game was a bummer. There will be another game. Oh god, there’s going to be another game. And then we wait! And we see. And we take the off season to forget, my dad compared the sensation to childbirth which is funny because he has not birthed a child, but my mom co-signed the theory so I guess it holds. I’ll let you guys know if I ever produce an heir, by some stroke of terror.

I love you guys, I love the seniors, and despite it all I love my frickin Cougs!