Football Predictions for 2014
Written by Marco Romero
As it stands the WSU cougars have an overall record of 2-5 in the conference, within the Pac-12 North the football team is 1-3. As general rule of thumb, a successful season can be defined by a bid to a bowl game. To be considered eligible a team must at the very least win 6 games. Therefore, the Cougars need 4 more wins. Unfortunately, there are only 5 games remaining in the season. Of those 5 games, 3 are against ranked teams in the top 25 by the AP poll, which for intents and purposes is the standard for college sports rankings. The other two games are both rivalry games.
The outlook for the rest of the season is bleak. While WSU has had good performances against very good teams, including the #2 ranked Oregon ducks, attains the all-time record for passing yards in a game , and leads all division I teams in passing yards, these milestones have not translated into wins.
The team relies heavily on Connor Halliday’s arm as they average 499 passing yards a game, and only 44 rush yards. They will face a 5-1 Arizona team, a 4-2 USC team both of whom are competing for a bid in the conference title game. Given that these are losses WSU will be out of contention not only in the conference but also at large.
The only silver lining in the season would be a win in the apple cup. To this point UW and WSU have had two opponents in common, Cal and Stanford. UW lost to Stanford by a smaller margin and handedly defeated Cal, where WSU lost. But WSU does have home field advantage and given the intensity of the rivalry has good chance of winning. As such I believe that WSU could win both rivalries and end the season 4-8. This means that at best WSU will tie for last overall in the division. But depends on the results elsewhere in the division to determine where the team finishes as my assumptions would leave the team 3-3.
