Injuries have been the story for the WSU football team.

In the Cougars’ 48-7 loss to the Arizona Wildcats, the team received another injury blow.

Freshman quarterback Jeff Tuel sprained his right knee in the second quarter when he was hit hard by Wildcat linebacker, Xavier Kelley. Head Coach Paul Wulff said that the injury does not look to be serious, and there was no tear in the knee. However, Wulff also said he does not know how long Tuel will be out for.

Tuel was 5-of-10 for 23 yards before he left the game.

The Cougars have also been plagued by slow starts, and the trend continued on Saturday. After only 13 seconds, the Cougars were down 7-0 when Arizona’s Travis Cobb took back the opening kickoff 95 yards for the opening score.

By the end of the first quarter, Arizona had built its lead to 24-0.

“They had long drives, and we couldn’t get off the field,” senior linebacker Andy Mattingly said. “They made plays. We didn’t.” The Wildcats finished with 471 yards, 294 of which came on the ground, compared to the Cougars’ 185 yards. WSU could only muster 59 yards on the ground.

“They’ve got good team speed and are solid in all phases,” Wulff said. “There’s a big difference right now between them and our guys. We’ve got to get these guys to grow up.” Arizona quarterback Nick Foles threw for 136 yards and a touchdown, before being taken out of the game in the second quarter. Backup Matt Scott threw for only 41 yards, but he was the team’s leading rusher with 91 yards on 10 rushes.

The ground game for Arizona proved to be the difference maker as they tore up the Cougar defense, averaging more than 5 yards per carry and finishing with three touchdowns.

After Tuel went down with his knee injury, redshirt sophomore quarterback Marshall Lobbestael went under center and went 7-11 for 103 yards and a touchdown.

“When you see one of your friends go down like that, it’s a crappy feeling,” Lobbestael said. “At the same time, you have to prepare yourself to be the No. 2 guy.” After the Wildcats pushed their lead to 48-0, Lobbestael was able to prevent the Cougars’ first shutout this season when he connected with sophomore receiver Jared Karstetter on a 64-yard touchdown strike with just more than six minutes left in the game.

Redshirt senior running back Dwight Tardy led the way for the Cougar running attack with 44 yards, on only four carries.

The Cougars are now 1-8, and 0-6 in Pac-10 play. Next up for WSU will be a showdown with UCLA on Saturday for Dad’s Weekend. The Bruins are 4-5 overall and 1-5 in conference play. The Bruins earned their first conference victory last Saturday when they defeated the Washington Huskies 24-23.

“We need a crowd,” Wulff said. “We need to get our kids jazzed up.”