Sounding off: Washington State coach Paul Wulff

Highlights from Washington State coach Paul Wulff’s portion of the Pac-12 coaches teleconference from Tuesday morning.

(On having more confidence after beating Colorado.)
Anytime you can prove to do it once, your belief to do it next time is that much greater. I think we all probably learned that.

(On worrying about a letdown after a dramatic win.)
We didn’t play a great football game. There are a lot of things we could have done better. It was an emotional ending but we need to play better football than we did and we’re capable of it.

(On what the Cougars need to do to slow down the Bruins.)
Their strength is running the football. They’ve faced some really solid football teams to come up with those numbers. That’s going to be our challenge. We know we won’t stop it but we’ve got to be sound and we can’t give them big plays. We’ve got to be a lot better at defending the run than we’ve been.

(On differences from last year’s UCLA defense to this year’s.)
Schematically, they changed a little bit. They play a little bit more zone. They look a lot better. I think their athletes are bigger and stronger from a year ago.

(On how it feels to be 3-1 at this point in the season as opposed to 1-3 a year ago.)
It feels different. There’s a little bit more in your step when you come to work. I warned the players to unerstand that we haven’t accomplished a whole lot yet. We’ve got to keep grinding and moving forward. There’s a lot of room for growth.

(On limiting UCLA’s running attack.)
It’s not easy but they are very committed to running the football. We’ve got to win our battles up front. We’ve got to be consistent in our gaps. We’ve got to make sure they earn their yards.

(On former UCLA defensive line coach Todd Howard’s effect as Washington State’s defensive line coach this season.)
He’s developed a tremendous amount of consistency and the players have a lot of confidence in him. He’s developed them all enough to make them functional. He’s done a really nice job working with the kids we’ve got.

(On who will start at quarterback for the Cougars. Junior Jeff Tuel was injured in the season opener after throwing just two passes. Senior Marshall Lobbestael has played each game since but Tuel could return this week.)
“I don’t know that yet. We’ll see how these next three practices go and how he feels heading into this game. It may be a game-time decision to see exactly where he’s at.

(On whether Lobbastael has played well enough to keep the job over a healthy Tuel.)
It’s more about Jeff’s health. Does he mentally and physically feel good? It’s going to take a little time. We’re going to give him his reps and get him moving forward one way or another. Marshall is our guy. He’s playing good football and he’s going to stay our guy until someone plays better than him. When is Jeff going to play better than him? I think that’s going to take some time.

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