Oregon defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti was furious Saturday night, but it had nothing to do with what his defense did or did not do in a 62-38 win over Washington State.
Instead, the long-time Oregon assistant unloaded on Cougars head coach Mike Leach for keeping WSU starting quarterback Connor Halliday in and throwing, even as the game was well out of reach.
Halliday set a new NCAA record by attempting 89 passes in a single game, breaking the previous mark of 83 set by Drew Brees when he was at Purdue in 1998. 28 of Halliday's attempts came in the fourth quarter, his last resulting in a touchdown pass with 11 seconds remaining.
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"That's total (expletive) that he threw the ball at the end of the game like he did," Aliotti told reporters afterwards. "And you can print that and you can send it to him, and he can comment, too. I think it's low class and it's (expletive) to throw the ball when the game is completely over against our kids that are basically our scout team."
Halliday completed 58 of his throws, tying an FBS record, for 557 yards and four touchdowns, but was also intercepted four times. Corner Terrance Mitchell returned one of those picks 51 yards for a touchdown.
"I am kind of stunned he would keep his quarterback and crew in there," Aliotti continued. "And still he threw the ball with 20 seconds left. But he did. They want stats, they got stats. But we got the most important stat and that's the 'W' and we are happy about that."
It was a given that Leach's abrasive personality and coaching style was going to rub someone in the Pac-12 the wrong way, but ruffling Oregon's feathers -- winners of 37 of their last 40 conference games -- is anything but advised.
Follow Dan Greenspan on Twitter @DanGreenspan.
