After WSU lost to the University of Washington in the 2011 Apple Cup, Marshall Lobbestael remembered the negative feelings.
“Losing sucks, losing to the Huskies sucks worse and losing your last game to the Huskies is probably the suckiest feeling you can ever have,” Lobbestael said.
The loss still stings to this day, but Lobbestael hasn’t had too much time to reflect on the game or his past four years here with WSU’s pro-day scheduled to take place March 9th.
“I didn’t want to do it and regret it later,” Lobbestael said. “It’s fun because it’s stress-free for me. I know what I can do, and I know whatever happens after pro-day, I’ll be ok with it because I worked hard.”
Lobbestael has been hard at work, prepping for pro-day, but has been having to balance both school and workouts.
“The hardest thing is seeing guys done with school and have opportunities to go train and soley focus on pro-day,” Lobbestael said. “My schedule works out really well. I’m able to wake up, work out, go to class, eat lunch and work out again in the afternoon and then throw in the afternoon after that.”
The fifth year senior sometimes doesn’t have any time to just sit back and reflect on his time here at WSU. Yet, when he was able to relax and talk about it, the fan favorite known as, “The Lobster” remembered the highs and lows of his career.
“They (WSU) were the first school that started to talk to me, and gave me an offer two weeks after I visited,” Lobbestael said. “It all happened pretty fast, after a month or two of talking to me, I committed.”
Once Lobbestael got to WSU, it was a smooth transition.
Lobbestael was redshirted his freshman year, and was told to go at his own pace to learn the offense.
“Coming in, coach Rosenbach, told me the situation, and said I was going to redshirt and he wanted that first year to be a learning experience for me,” Lobbestael said. “He told me to be in the weight room and gain some weight, so that’s what I tried to focus on.”
It wasn’t until his redshirt freshman year that Lobbestael faced adversity.
In 2007, against Oregon State, Lobbestael suffered a season-ending ACL and MCL injury.
“I have never been hurt before like that,” Lobbestael said. “The most serious injury before that was a high ankle sprain.”
Lobbestael was ahead of schedule and tried to come back for spring ball in 2009. Lobbestael ended up re-injuring himself and needed a second injury during the summer.
“I had to learn from that experience, and just took it slower and was smarter,” Lobbestael said. “I’m not rehabbing my knee now, but after all that work I put in now, my knee feels great.”
After a sub-par season where Lobbestael threw for 655 yards, three touchdowns and eight interceptions in eight games, and sitting out nearly his entire redshirt junior season, Lobbestael felt he didn’t have the necessary amount of experience that a fifth-year senior should have entering the 2011 season.
None of that stopped Lobbestael’s confidence though when Tuel went down with an injury against Idaho State in the season opener. The injury was personally hard for Lobbestael to take, but had to accept it regardless.
“It was tough for me, just being so close with that position group, being so close with those guys, and having one of your guys be injured,” Lobbestael said. “I know how that feels, it sucks, and for that to happen to him in the first game, I was feeling for him big time, but I had a job to do.”
From then on, it was almost a movie-like script for the next four weeks.
Lobbestael shocked Coug fans everywhere with his statistically impressive performances week after week. In a four game stretch, before Tuel returned from injury against Stanford, Lobbestael threw for a combined 1,340 yards, 13 touchdowns and only 4 interceptions.
Lobbestael’s success and stats were recognized nationally when he was awarded the Manning Award Player of the Week after a dramatic win against Colorado on the road.
Lobbestael humbly attributed his success during the stretch to his teammates and the rest of the offense.
“It was just the level of execution as on offense, and I just happen to fit into that,” Lobbestael said. “At the same time the offense was coming along, individually I was coming along too. I had four years to mentally go through up and downs and finally could really get used to having fun and playing college football.”
For the rest of the year it was a quarterback carousel between Tuel, Lobbestael and freshman Connor Halliday.
Normally, so much turmoil and turnover at a position would rattle players, but Lobbestael said that was never the feeling between the close-knit quarterback group.
“The amount of unity and chemistry we had helped out a lot,” Lobbestael said. “It was extremely special this year just because of the guys were so close and that normally doesn’t happen a lot since you are all competing for the same job.”
That closeness Lobbestael experienced with his quarterback group, and the friendships he made during his four years here, will ultimately be what Lobbestael takes from his WSU career.
“I met so many good people here, I’ll always have a place in my heart for them and for WSU,” Lobbestael said. “I met my long-time girlfriend here, and almost all my best friends met at WSU. We have memories that 10-20 years from now when we come back to Pullman to watch a game, we’ll have hours of conversation.”
