Connor Halliday knows the critics are there.
He’s often his harshest one.
Thursday, the Washington State quarterback threw for five touchdowns and 532 yards, 25 short of the school record he already owns.
Yet that was overshadowed by the drive he couldn’t produce in Thursday’s 41-38 loss to Rutgers.
With the ball at WSU’s own 24 yard line with 3:18 to play, Halliday moved the Cougars as close as their own 41 yard line before the drive faltered.
“Coach (Mike) Leach always talks about building a legacy,” Halliday said Thursday. “Well, legacies are born on drives like that. We’ve got the ball with two minutes and a chance to go win it. We floundered.”
Halliday has a great shot at becoming WSU’s all-time leading passer. Now with 7,963 yards, Halliday is third behind Alex Brink (10,913) and Jason Gesser (8,830).
He is responsible for snapping WSU’s 10-year bowl drought. Despite the upward trajectory WSU has been on, Halliday is still a target of criticism whenever the Cougars “Coug it” and lose a game they should probably win.
“I’m not too worried about the frat boy tweeting at me,” Halliday said Saturday. “I don’t scroll through all of them, but I see some of them. If you’re going to play sports at this level, you can’t let that affect you. You’re going to read it and say, ‘Oh geez, that’s pretty mean.’ But if that’s going to bother you, you wouldn’t make it here.”
When Leach arrived in Pullman, he brought a track record of molding prolific quarterbacks in his Air Raid offense. While at Texas Tech, Leach had two quarterbacks surpass 12,000 career passing yards in Graham Harrell (15,793) and Kliff Kingsbury (12,429).
“I think he really took off in the middle of last season,” Leach said. “I think most of his success and effectiveness as a leader happens off the field, which you don’t have an opportunity to see.”
For a sizable stretch against Rutgers, Halliday showed how his stats can add up so quickly.
Though the first four Cougar drives resulted in two turnovers, a punt and a field goal, four of the next five drives produced touchdowns. The only one that did not covered 57 yards in 23 seconds, setting up a 50-yard field goal attempt on the final play of the first half.
Part of the early dysfunction could be blamed on WSU’s youth, including three of five offensive linemen making their first collegiate starts.
“I think everyone calmed down a bit,” Halliday said. “We had a lot of guys playing their first couple snaps of college football. I think everybody was trying to do a little too much. Once we relaxed into the flow of the game, everything took off.”
At one point, Halliday completed 16 of 17 passes.
“I had no idea I did that,” Halliday said. “The only thing going through my mind is getting a suggestion from Leach, looking at the defense, what I should call, and reading the play. I’m thinking here or there where I can take a shot, which cornerback is jumping a little bit.”
What helps Halliday’s accuracy is being able to throw shorter passes and relying on receivers to gain yards after the catch.
“The guys are just a lot better with the ball in their hands,” Halliday said. “Vince (Mayle) was unbelievable after the catch. Isiah (Myers) was too. … It’s exciting to throw a 5-yard slant and it ends up going to 30 yards.”
Mayle returned the accolades to Halliday.
“He was nice and calm,” Mayle said. “It was probably one of the best Connor that I’ve seen. That was a nice Connor to play with.”
Deservedly or not, quarterbacks often bear blame for a loss.
Halliday might not have cemented his legacy with a game-winning drive on Thursday. But he will go down as one of the most productive quarterbacks in school history.
He also helped WSU put the Paul Wulff era, in which the Cougars went 9-40 from 2008-11, in the rearview mirror.
Who would take issue with that?
