Cats Stats: Washington State’s pass-heavy offense presents unique test for Arizona defense

The offense the Arizona Wildcats will face Saturday night is unlike any other.

No one passes the ball more than Washington State. Others use principles of the “Air Raid” attack. Mike Leach’s Cougars run it in its purest form.

The offense is such an outlier that preparing to face WSU is akin to prepping for a triple-option attack — except that the run-pass ratios are reversed.

Just how extreme is Washington State’s offense? And why is it so effective? Here are some of the key numbers:

The website TeamRankings.com tracks team pass-play percentage. Since Leach became their coach, the Cougars have led the nation in that stat every season.

This year’s team is passing the ball 70.6 percent of the time. (Note: TeamRankings.com only counts games involving two FBS teams.) East Carolina is second at 60.4 percent.

Starting with Leach’s first year, 2012, here are WSU’s annual pass-play percentages: 74.3, 76.6, 77.2, 73.5, 65.6, 71.8, 70.6. No other school has a single season at 70 percent or higher during that span.

Only once this season have the Cougars attempted fewer than 50 passes in a game; they threw the ball “only” 40 times against Oregon State on Oct. 6.

Meanwhile, not a single Arizona opponent has attempted as many as 50 passes in a game this season.

The last time it happened? Oct. 28, 2017, against … Washington State.

The Cougars threw a mind-boggling 84 passes that night, completing 58 of them for 602 yards. They lost 58-37, turning the ball over four times, including Colin Schooler’s 66-yard pick-six in the fourth quarter.

Washington State’s 2018 average of 53.7 pass attempts per game is more than 18 higher than the No. 2 team in the Pac-12, Oregon State (35.5). WSU’s rival, Washington, attempts roughly half as many passes per game (27.7).

Because they pass the ball so often — and so well — the Cougars lead the Pac-12 in total offense by more than 100 yards, even though they’re last in rushing by more than 30 yards. (Arizona is second in the Pac-12 in total offense, by the way. The Wildcats are first in rushing, sixth in passing.)

You would think all that passing would hurt Washington State’s defense. Running the ball is supposed to be the way to keep it away from the other team, at least according to traditional thinking.

You would be wrong.

The most pass-happy team in the land leads the Pac-12 in time of possession, at 32 minutes 46 seconds per game. The Cougars have lost the time-of-possession battle only three times this season: vs. Utah, Oregon State and Cal.

The games against the Utes and Golden Bears were two of WSU’s narrowest escapes. The game against Utah was extreme even by Leach’s standards: The Cougars ran the ball only 13 times for a net of zero yards.

Last week against Colorado, Washington State possessed the ball for 41:46. The Cougars ran 94 plays to the Buffaloes’ 54 in a 31-7 victory.

Washington State converted 11 of 20 third downs, compared to Colorado’s 2 of 11. Third-down efficiency is one of the reasons WSU is able to play keep-away so well.

The Cougars rank fourth in the Pac-12 in third-down percentage (44.2). They’re second in fourth-down percentage (69.6).

Most important, they’re first in completion percentage (69.5). Which brings us to the pilot of this particular Air Raid attack.

Or is it Leach’s sorcery?

Whatever the case, graduate transfer Gardner Minshew has operated Leach’s offense as effectively as any of the prolific quarterbacks Leach has coached.

Minshew leads the nation with 3,852 passing yards. He ranks first in the Pac-12 with 29 touchdown passes and a 69.6 percent completion rate.

(Oddly, Minshew has a lower pass-efficiency rating than Arizona’s Khalil Tate, who has completed 56.2 percent of his throws with a 19-6 touchdown-to-interception ratio. Minshew’s completion percentage is 13.4 points higher, and his TD-INT ratio is 29-7.)

Minshew hasn’t thrown for fewer than 319 yards in a game, and he has completed less than 60 percent of his passes only once (Utah).

None of those numbers really stand out in the context of past Leach quarterbacks. They’re astounding compared to Minshew’s stats at East Carolina.

In 17 career games with the Pirates — mostly against AAC competition — Minshew completed 57.9 percent of his passes with 24 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. He had 365 fewer yards in those games (3,487) than he has in 10 with WSU. Last season, his completion rate topped 60 percent in only three of 10 games.

Maybe we should have seen this coming, though – and not just because Minshew used to be a Pirate. (For the uninitiated, Leach is a pirate aficionado.)

In his last four games at ECU, Minshew averaged 54.8 attempts and 371.5 yards. He topped 400 yards twice and passed for 351 in his final Pirates appearance.

Part of what makes Leach’s offense so hard to defend is that, besides the quarterback, it doesn’t depend on any one player. Or two players. Or even three.

Seven different Cougars have led or tied for the lead in receptions in 10 games this season. At least nine WSU players have caught a pass in every game, including 12 apiece against Eastern Washington and Colorado.

Ten players have caught at least 15 passes. Eight have caught at least 20. And six have caught at least 30, the most by any team in the country. To put that last stat in perspective, Arizona has only two with 30-plus: Shun Brown and Shawn Poindexter.

We saved the most astonishing stat for last.

Despite attempting at least 182 more passes than any other team in the conference, Washington State has surrendered the fewest sacks in the Pac-12: seven.

Only two teams in the country have yielded fewer: Army, which runs the option and has thrown only 79 passes all season; and North Carolina State, which has 189 fewer attempts than WSU.

If you combine pass attempts and sacks, the Cougars have had 544 dropbacks this season. WSU quarterbacks have been sacked only 1.3 percent of the time they’ve dropped back to pass.

(Note: This does not account for QB rushing plays for no gain or positive yardage; without going through play-by-play footage, it’s impossible to know whether they were designed runs or scrambles.)

Oregon State has allowed an FBS-high 44 sacks. Using that same formula, Beavers QBs have been sacked on 11 percent of their dropbacks.

UA coach Kevin Sumlin laughed when asked how his team can go about generating pressure against a quarterback who hardly ever gets sacked.

“You have to have a mix of different things, whether it’s pressure, whether it’s coverage,” Sumlin said. “You can’t just go into the game with one thing against a scheme like this and against a veteran quarterback. We’re going to have to mix it up and obviously take some chances.”

Two opponents have sacked Minshew two times: Eastern Washington and Utah. In half the games he has played for Washington State, Minshew has not been sacked.