Kirby Moore leaves door open to major WSU changes after ugly loss to Fresno State

PULLMAN, Wash. - The recurring word used after a frustrating Saturday night was “re-evaluation.”

And first-year Washington State University football coach Kirby Moore vows to get to the bottom of the team’s offensive woes.

Moore answered questions for seven minutes following WSU’s 26-6 loss to Fresno State at Gesa Field:

Opening statement

“That performance wasn’t good enough, It starts with me as the head coach. The defense has kept us in a number of games. We can’t win games scoring six points. We need to re-evaluate a lot of things on a short week coming up on Friday.”

Home fans booing in the second half

“They deserve better. There are Cougs who travel and alums and people in the Northwest who travel from all over to get here, and they deserve a better product on the field.”

Why stick with struggling quarterback Caden Pinnick for the entire game?

“Yeah, with where we were at … just the rhythm (of the game) and wanted to keep him going there with the first group from an offensive-line standpoint. But everything on offense, obviously we’ve got to re-evaluate moving forward.”

As part of the re-evaluation, is Pinnick's starting job in jeopardy?

“I think you want to look at every play and see if it’s scheme, if it’s personnel or if there is a way we need to look at why that play went right or it didn’t go right. We’ve got to mark that on every play.”

Why should Pinnick be the starter at Utah State on Friday?

“Well, I think everything we’ve got to re-evaluate. It obviously starts with me as the head coach. On offense, we’ve got to find ways to score more than six points. That is the most important thing - we’ve got to score. Tuesday in the staff meeting, we said we needed to score 27 points to win this game. If we score 27, we win this game. We didn’t do that.”

Lack of touches for the WSU running backs

“You’ve got to convert first downs. I know we were 3-of-14 (against Fresno State). You’ve got to have better situations on second down as well. That didn’t happen. So give Fresno credit, they’ve got a good (defensive) front. They do a good job of seeing a lot of run in practice, and defensively, they do a good job defending it. So we’ve got to look at where that is at, and I think who we are playing, that should change from game to game.”

What are you looking at overall in the re-evaluation process and what is the starting point?

“It all starts with our process, and when we get done with a game, our process and our corrections - ‘Where do we start with our next opponent? ‘How many plays do we rep? Which ones do we call?’ Do we call them all off the same hashes as we rep them in practice?’ Today, there were a couple things from a protection standpoint, we needed to flip the protection. I can’t say, just from a practice standpoint, that exact look was given, and that is something that has to happen consistently moving forward.”

Where has the shortcoming been in the current evaluation process?

“Big thing, you look at the product on the field. That is the most important thing. We’ve got to score more points. We’ve got to score more than six points offensively to win games. … The (opposing) defense is game-planning just as much as we are. They’ve got really good coaches, too. So, with that, it’s having a plan and having a, ‘Hey, they are doing this, we’ve got to get to this.’ We’ve got to do a better job.”

How do you keep this team together during this rough patch?

“There is going to be noise naturally. The fans deserve better. Our leadership group has got to stay up and rally each other together. With that, we’ve got to come together and work. We’ve got a short week. That is the only way I know how to improve the product on the field. That starts tomorrow. Quick turnaround on Friday.”

Would you take over offensive play-calling duties?

“We’ve got to improve, right? With that, yeah, we will talk through all of that from a staff standpoint moving forward. The big thing, we’ve got to score more points on offense.”

What was your message to the players after this loss?

“We talked about naturally there is going to be noise, and rightfully so. We’ve got to have a better product on the field. We all agreed that we are a better football team than that.”

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