It was a little over a year ago that the Washington State Cougars trailed a Group of 5 opponent on the road at halftime as a first-year starting quarterback struggled a little to find his footing. In that way, the first half of Friday’s game against the Houston Cougars was not all that dissimilar from last season’s opener against the Wyoming Cowboys. The details are a little different, but the broad strokes are pretty close.
I’m not sure how much you remember about that 2018 game, but you might not recall that Gardner Minshew — at that point a virtual unknown to us — had completed fewer than 60% of his passes, throwing one of them to the other team, while only producing a single TD.