Ethan O’Connor’s late pick six lifts WSU over Fresno State, 25-17

With Fresno State threatening to put the game away, Ethan O’Connor’s heroics shifted the tides.

Washington State was staring down the barrel of yet another October loss late in the fourth quarter. A month that has haunted them to the tune of a 1-7 record in the past two years. These October woes have derailed high season hopes and with Fresno State holding the ball up 17-13 with a little over seven minutes to play, it looked like WSU was headed towards the beginnings of another rotten October.

Not only did the Fresno State Bulldogs have the ball, but they had all the momentum. After scoring on back-to-back touchdown drives to begin the game, the WSU offense came to a screeching halt. Sputtering with two turnovers, one being an interception in the end-zone and getting just 3.1 yards per play after the first quarter. WSU was able to knock home a short field goal late in the third quarter to take a 16-14 lead, but surrendered a field goal on the ensuing drive to allow Fresno State to take the lead back.

And after WSU went 15 yards backwards on the next drive and a short punt to give Fresno State good field position, all the Bulldogs seemingly had to do was hold on to the ball, hold the momentum and run some clock to put the pressure on a WSU offense that was struggling to find their rhythm. On a 2nd and 15 from the Coug 43, Mikey Keene dropped back, looked right and fired toward his receiver Jalen Moss. What Keene failed to see, was O’Connor reading the play the whole way, jumping the pass and had nothing but green turf ahead of him as he sprinted his way to a game changing pick six.

There was still plenty of time for Fresno State to answer back. Down five after WSU’s second failed two-point conversion of the ballgame, Moss fielded the kick at the one-yard line and seemingly was taken down by the turf monster, falling down immediately to force the Bulldogs to go 99 yards if they wanted to take the lead back.

The Bulldogs called three straight runs up the middle for a total of seven yards, trotting out the punt unit under a sea of boos from the Fresno State faithful.

Now holding the ball with 4:44 to go, WSU let Wayshawn Parker with five carries on an eight play, 40-yard field goal drive that killed 2:58 off the clock and burnt all three of Fresno State’s timeouts.

Clinging to a five-point lead, the WSU defense did what it had done all day, bent but didn’t break. The Bulldogs crawled their way down the field and nearly set themselves up in a good position to take a shot at the end-zone after Raylen Sharpe somehow pulled down a 4th down catch inside the WSU 20 between three Cougar defenders, but a flag for illegal use of hands to the face erased that gasp of hope for Fresno State. Down to their final play, WSU got enough pressure on Keene to force a desperation heave that fell short of the end-zone, first down marker and receiver, allowing WSU to escape Fresno with their fifth victory of the season.