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Ramblings
Mad_Son
Member Posts: 10,180
November 27, 1920 UW lost the grand opening of Husky Stadium to Dartmouth, 28-7. Fast forward 93 years and we are reopening Husky Stadium after a year of hard time in the Clink (I like to call it that). This time history would not repeat itself with the Huskies making a statement against Boise State Junior College 38-6. The Huskies came out with a revamped offense and another year of defense under Justin "Lip Licker" Wilcox and the changes and experience showed. While philosophically I can't help but think it is ridiculous and a doomed effort to try and change your offense at year 5 after you've been recruiting players to and teaching a specific scheme for so long, but hey - the results speak for themselves. Even if the Broncos aren't really the #19 team in the nation, they are a Chris Peterson team and they are a meaningful opponent. Putting up 38 on the Boise D shows that this offense is not a complete failure. Our current linemen seem much better suited for this scheme with greatly improved pass protection which even did a good job of keeping Keith Price off of his back. KP played very efficiently and made great decisions. Rather than IMPROVISE he threw the ball away when he should have. He did a great job of pocket passing and I wouldn't be surprised to see a few pundits make him their dark horse Heisman candidate. Mickens finally caught the ball and had an opportunity to showcase his SPEED! After seeing John Ross play a game I think the expectation of him adding four wins has to be upped to 4.25. Other than a freshman KOR move which he seemed to learn from he was the real deal all night long. Sankey is of course who we thought he was and racked up 160+ yards with 2 TDs. If we can feed Sankey and his RB crew the ball like we did tonight we might have a balanced, potent offense all season long. This all doesn't even take into account that we are missing our First Team All-American TE, ASJ. There is actually a lot of reason to think our offensive mastermind Head Offensive Coordinator has done something right.
Of course as Huskies nogaf about offense - the defense is what we show up to watch. This is the first time in 16 years that BSU has been held to zero TDs in a game. Those are the sort of defensive hallmarks that mean something. BSU's longest play was 18 yards and the offense was held to 4.1 yds/rush and 3.8 yds/pass attempt. Our secondary actually played really well and while young Marcus Peters was picked on by the meanies from BSU, he played physically and like the rest of our DBs minimized YAC. Across the board we tackled much better. I would go so far as to say it looked like we actually knew how to tackle. No one was surprised to see our LBs actually look good. Timu, Predator, and Fuimaono made plays all night long. It was nice to see Fuimaono actually deserve to be on the field, and not just be the tallest midget. Our defensive line was ultimately our biggest weakness last night and they had trouble getting push and stuffing the run. There was not a lot of pressure on the QB but if this unit can actually improve we would have a Husky caliber defense. Shelton is a big player but can't do it all on his own. Kokane/Kahlua/Joamora/Kakahi looks like he belongs in the NFL and made some plays even if he wasn't tormenting stache all night long. If St Tosh can get the DL to perform at a high level we could be, dare I say, a top 10 team. The other pieces are there.
Other than a failure to properly manage the clock at the end of the first half Sark didn't have any major gaffes. I think going for it early on was the right call. I am pretty sure there is a football outsiders article proving that is statistically the right call and I am happy with it. I was also pleased Sark actually committed to the run. We were maybe slightly pass-happy before we were killing the clock. I remember thinking to myself several times, "this is a play where we need to run... too bad Sark always passes now" but lo and behold Sark actually called a rush. We'll see if Sark can maintain this discipline as the season goes on. He seems to commit to the run late in the season every year so we might be able to expect some offensive success if we keep up this game one precedent.
Looking at our play there seem to be a lot of Pac-12 caliber players. Parker, Predator, ASJ have first team potential. Sankey, KW, JR3, Timu look liked second teamers maybe. Ducre, Fui, Shelton, Kakahi, Mickens could be honorable mention if things keep up. KP is a wild card in all this but if he maintains 2011/2013 form he will be an all-conference performer.
This was a huge win and unlike USC 2009, the magical Holiday Bowl, Stanford 2012 this was like the 42-10 Cal shellacking. We dominated them - not squeaked out a tough win. Our players all looked like they belonged on the field and weren't the underdogs. They had the swagger and felt in-control. Is this the ephemeral "signature" win? Only time will tell but for once it looks like it might be. I am not ready to annoint Sark and extend his contract - one game does not make a season or coaching tenure but I am ready to eat crow over my prediction of a close loss and my unstated expectations of an anemic offense with a middling defense. It is a start though and this really gives me optimism for the season. Seeing the team play this way really eliminates any excuse for not winning 10 games this year.
Evens & Ends
Mike "more for less" Riley came up short against EWU. OSU doesn't start playing until Halloween anyways so that is not unexpected. Mora and UCLA started off their season like they did against Rice the season before - a shaky -> dominating performance. USC looks vulnerable. Almost like they are coached by a Lame Kitten (lol!). Cal came up well short in their opener against NWern despite fake FG trickery. Clemson and UGA was an exciting game. That one Clemson WR whose name escapes me is a stud. Daeshon Hall had a sack for ATM. He is too thin and lanky to play DE anyways. Manziel was himself. I'd act like that too though if I was a Longhorn fan but was also the tamu starting qb. WSU played surprisingly well against Auburn. Next game (two weeks) we play on the road against Illinois at Soldier field.
Of course as Huskies nogaf about offense - the defense is what we show up to watch. This is the first time in 16 years that BSU has been held to zero TDs in a game. Those are the sort of defensive hallmarks that mean something. BSU's longest play was 18 yards and the offense was held to 4.1 yds/rush and 3.8 yds/pass attempt. Our secondary actually played really well and while young Marcus Peters was picked on by the meanies from BSU, he played physically and like the rest of our DBs minimized YAC. Across the board we tackled much better. I would go so far as to say it looked like we actually knew how to tackle. No one was surprised to see our LBs actually look good. Timu, Predator, and Fuimaono made plays all night long. It was nice to see Fuimaono actually deserve to be on the field, and not just be the tallest midget. Our defensive line was ultimately our biggest weakness last night and they had trouble getting push and stuffing the run. There was not a lot of pressure on the QB but if this unit can actually improve we would have a Husky caliber defense. Shelton is a big player but can't do it all on his own. Kokane/Kahlua/Joamora/Kakahi looks like he belongs in the NFL and made some plays even if he wasn't tormenting stache all night long. If St Tosh can get the DL to perform at a high level we could be, dare I say, a top 10 team. The other pieces are there.
Other than a failure to properly manage the clock at the end of the first half Sark didn't have any major gaffes. I think going for it early on was the right call. I am pretty sure there is a football outsiders article proving that is statistically the right call and I am happy with it. I was also pleased Sark actually committed to the run. We were maybe slightly pass-happy before we were killing the clock. I remember thinking to myself several times, "this is a play where we need to run... too bad Sark always passes now" but lo and behold Sark actually called a rush. We'll see if Sark can maintain this discipline as the season goes on. He seems to commit to the run late in the season every year so we might be able to expect some offensive success if we keep up this game one precedent.
Looking at our play there seem to be a lot of Pac-12 caliber players. Parker, Predator, ASJ have first team potential. Sankey, KW, JR3, Timu look liked second teamers maybe. Ducre, Fui, Shelton, Kakahi, Mickens could be honorable mention if things keep up. KP is a wild card in all this but if he maintains 2011/2013 form he will be an all-conference performer.
This was a huge win and unlike USC 2009, the magical Holiday Bowl, Stanford 2012 this was like the 42-10 Cal shellacking. We dominated them - not squeaked out a tough win. Our players all looked like they belonged on the field and weren't the underdogs. They had the swagger and felt in-control. Is this the ephemeral "signature" win? Only time will tell but for once it looks like it might be. I am not ready to annoint Sark and extend his contract - one game does not make a season or coaching tenure but I am ready to eat crow over my prediction of a close loss and my unstated expectations of an anemic offense with a middling defense. It is a start though and this really gives me optimism for the season. Seeing the team play this way really eliminates any excuse for not winning 10 games this year.
Evens & Ends
Mike "more for less" Riley came up short against EWU. OSU doesn't start playing until Halloween anyways so that is not unexpected. Mora and UCLA started off their season like they did against Rice the season before - a shaky -> dominating performance. USC looks vulnerable. Almost like they are coached by a Lame Kitten (lol!). Cal came up well short in their opener against NWern despite fake FG trickery. Clemson and UGA was an exciting game. That one Clemson WR whose name escapes me is a stud. Daeshon Hall had a sack for ATM. He is too thin and lanky to play DE anyways. Manziel was himself. I'd act like that too though if I was a Longhorn fan but was also the tamu starting qb. WSU played surprisingly well against Auburn. Next game (two weeks) we play on the road against Illinois at Soldier field.
Comments
Ramblings > Meanderings > 7-6
Have Race for DFI, CollegeDoog for Fearless Fridays, and Ramblings for "the day after" the game...
But what the fuck do I know? Sven has caught me with Lemon Party about 76 times over the last 5 years, so I might be stupid. Or, I just might like the Citrus?
Mods?