ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The equipment truck idled and the happy fans chatted in the distance as John Mateer embraced Kyle Thornton. No. 19 Washington State's quarterback and linebacker were at the center of this result, a 38-35 setback to New Mexico Saturday night, and in the parking lot about a half-hour after the final buzzer, they seemed to understand as much.

By this point in the night, after WSU's first loss in nearly two months, the temperatures had dropped to under 40 degrees. So under overhead lights that illuminated the scene, the two men didn't say much, not after the Cougars blew leads of 14 and seven. Mateer strode to center stage to answer questions about this setback.

"The stats will be good," said Mateer, who totaled five touchdowns, including a go-ahead connection with senior receiver Kyle Williams in the final minutes. "But my situational eyes and feet, they weren't good. They weren't as good as they needed to be. And that's why we're here."

Mateer was being a little harsh on himself. He racked up 375 yards through the air and 68 yards on the ground, and as has been the case all season, the Cougars would have been in a much tougher spot without his performance. He didn't practice at all the week leading up to the game because of an injury he sustained during last week's game, coach Jake Dickert said, but both agreed it didn't impact Mateer's outing.

The bigger problems with WSU's team at the moment, the issue behind the third-quarter and defensive woes that have followed them around on the road this season, are all about stagnation and stubbornness.

In the biggest moments, the Cougs have stuck to their guns for the sake of sticking to their guns, and it has cost them. WSU didn't use any of their three timeouts on New Mexico's game-winning drive, leaving the offense with just 21 seconds for a potential response, because of analytics. That's what Dickert said after the game, seemingly referencing a decision book by Championship Analytics that advised not spending timeouts in that situation.

"The book says inside the 10-yard line, you gotta save your time," Dickert said. "On the third-and-short, if I could go back and do it again, I'd probably rip a timeout right there, because they're going to get all their plays in, and we need to save time for ourselves on the back end. So that was probably the one thing I'd probably do differently."

It's hardly the only time Dickert and WSU have made a stubborn decision that produced disastrous results. Remember in the Cougars' loss to Boise State in September, when Dickert decided to go for it on fourth-and-1 deep in their own territory? After the Broncos stuffed the Cougs and turned the stop into a touchdown, using it as a springboard into what turned into a blowout win, Dickert offered an explanation of a similar nature.

"When it's inches to go, when it's fourth-and-1, the last 2 1/2 years, we've gone for it every time," Dickert said. "That's what we're gonna do. That's how we're gonna play."

Those explanations are much the same: They're all about sticking to a rule just to stick to a rule. They're big on analytics and small on feel. In both situations, considering the time and score, most coaches would have made a different decision. In the Boise State game, WSU could have punted and kept a close game close. In this New Mexico game, the Cougs could have used their timeouts and prevented the Lobos from killing so much clock.

But because Dickert and his coaching staff seem to prioritize rules over feel, they were burned in both spots. They lost both games. To their credit, there is something to be said about having conviction in your decision-making -- you don't rise in the coaching profession the way Dickert has by wavering and wobbling -- but he seems to lose his personal touch on the game in the most critical moments.

The weird part is that, at least after Saturday's game, Dickert seemed to know better. When he said "if I could go back and do it again," he's indicating he is thinking through these decisions, as he should. He's been around football long enough to have a pulse on what to do and when, and he's shown it as recently as this season -- collaborating with defensive coordinator Jeff Schmedding and deciding not to use a timeout before WSU's goal-line stop in the Apple Cup, and that thinking bore fruit for the Cougars.

So in the end, it would appear Dickert trusted the analytics book over his own head in Saturday's game. It registers as a strange admission, particularly when conventional wisdom would guide him toward calling timeouts on the Lobos' final, game-winning series. But if Championship Analytics did indeed call for Dickert to hold on to his timeouts, the service is earning the wrong kinds of headlines tonight.

"It's an insanely disappointing result," Dickert said.

The other reason it feels that way for the Cougars is because of their stagnation, on both sides of the ball. Think about this: Away from home this season, WSU has been outscored 41-10 in the third quarter. The Cougs have played with that fire on several occasions, most recently in close road wins over Fresno State and San Diego State, and it has finally singed them.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Much of it revolves around the Cougs' defense, which allowed the Lobos to run a variation of the same QB keeper with Devon Dampier all night, and he cashed in with 193 yards and three touchdowns on 28 carries. After running it to great success earlier in the game, Dampier ran QB keeper six times alone on UNM's final drive, which yielded 27 yards, including the one he needed to score the winning touchdown.

It screams a question: Why couldn't Schmedding and WSU stop it? The Cougs had a week to study Dampier, whose reputation as a running threat preceded him, and still they had no answers come gametime. Even when New Mexico opted to hand it off on sweeps for running back Eli Sanders, the Lobos often succeeded, getting 108 yards and one touchdown on 13 carries from Sanders.

"There wasn't enough adjustments," Dickert said. "They do a good job of cracking, making your quarter safeties come down and make the plays. But at some point, we gotta get more aggressive and try to just get the ball out of his hands and make someone else beat us, and we were never able to do that."

"From what it felt like, I thought the tackling was all right," WSU linebacker Kyle Thornton added. "I just think we have to communicate and execute the plan that we put in place. I think we had a good plan. We just gotta execute it."

Far be it from a newspaper writer to make football suggestions to football coaches, but on the surface, it looked like the Cougars could have made any number of adjustments as the game unfolded: Deploy a spy on Dampier to keep him contained. Send more pressure to plug the gaps on his QB keepers. Stack the box to discourage him from running it to begin with and turn him into a pocket passer. He has thrown 12 interceptions this season, tied for the most nationwide.

But the Cougs have been slow to make in-game adjustments all season, particularly when they're trailing, same as they have on offense. In the first half Saturday night, Mateer and the Cougars scored touchdowns on four of their five drives, using an effective blend of run and pass to move the ball at will. Mateer played his finest football of the season in that first half, thanks in part to WSU's willingness to -- and effectiveness at -- running the ball.

So the Cougs' playcalling to kick off the third quarter doesn't add up: Running back Wayshawn Parker churned out 12 yards on the ground. WSU followed that up with three passes, all incomplete, leading to a punt. On their next series, the Cougs managed seven plays: Two successful runs, an incomplete pass, one successful run, then a short run, pass for negative yards and an incomplete pass.

At some point, the Cougs' playcalling defies logic. When offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle sees his true freshman running back carve up a paltry New Mexico defense for an easy 12 yards, why does he immediately turn to the passing game? The Lobos won this game by sticking with what was working, the quarterback run game. In several spots this season, that concept has seemed lost on WSU's offensive minds.

"They kept throwing some weird stuff at us," Mateer said. "In the first half, they were blitzing a lot and playing some weird coverages. But that's when my feet and eyes need to stay disciplined, because in this offense, the progressions are built to help you do that."

"I thought they were more aggressive defensively in the second half. I thought they stayed with the well of a couple different personnel deals," Dickert said. "We've studied it. We've looked at it. We've had some momentum sometimes in the third quarter, and it just wasn't our night. So I don't wanna make it a microcosm of the whole season, but definitely, we got beat significantly in the third quarter, and then didn't finish it in the fourth."

Dickert is right that WSU has generated momentum in the third quarter this season. Just last week, the Cougs opened the third frame with a 75-yard touchdown rush from Parker. It hasn't been an issue all season -- but it has surfaced in the bigger spots, the road games, the moments when the Cougs' mettle has been tested most.

Let's be clear: All is not lost for WSU. At No. 18 in the College Football Playoff rankings coming into this game, the Cougs always faced long odds at sneaking into the field, even with an 11-1 record. That possibility is all but off the table now, but these guys can still polish off a promising season with a fun finish in a nice bowl game.

To do that, though, WSU must find a way to erase these stubbornness and stagnation problems. From the moment the calendar flipped to October, the Cougs have been the better team in all of their games. They had found ways to win without playing like it. Hang out around the wasp too carelessly, though, and it'll sting you.