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State of the Program: New Faces Doesn't Mean Regression
DoogCourics
Member Posts: 5,739
Their career passing leader is gone. Their career rushing leader is gone. So are the players who led the team last season in tackles, sacks, and interceptions. They lost nine defensive starters and had eight players selected in the NFL Draft.
Yet the Washington Huskies under coach Chris Petersen have reached the point where expectations aren’t dictated by how many starters return, or by which stars no longer are on the roster. There they are, in the top 20 of most way-too-early preseason rankings, again considered a primary contender for the Pac-12 championship after winning the title two of the past three seasons. Petersen sits atop basically every list of the league’s best coaches, that ranking no longer bolstered by his Boise State pedigree but by 32 victories in the past three seasons at Washington.
There have been a few pitfalls along the Huskies’ journey toward national relevance — namely, going 0-3 in major bowl games — and there surely are holes to fill and weaknesses to address before the 2019 season commences. But in spite of who it’s lost, the widespread assumption seems to be that Washington, at the least, will be good — with great perhaps on the horizon — as long as Petersen is on the sideline.
“This team is going to be a great challenge,” Petersen said. “It’s a fun group to coach because we have so many new guys, and certainly on defense. We do have guys that have played in big games and gotten meaningful reps, but we don’t have a lot of starters that have started for a lot of years.
“We think we have talent and we have good coaches, and that combination is always a great place to start. But then it’s all about getting these guys to take the next step — skill-wise, knowledge-wise, consistency-wise.”
Biggest on-field question
The Huskies had two defensive backs drafted in the second round, another drafted in the sixth, and lost first-team all-conference selections at defensive tackle and inside linebacker.
So, naturally, the biggest on-field question is this: Can the Huskies’ offense improve its downfield passing game?
Defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake and co-coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski have earned a certain level of trust, so despite considerable personnel losses, they are expected to field a unit that again should be among the league’s best. Spring practice seemed to support that notion. The Huskies are young but talented up front, and the defensive backs seem poised to pick up where their pro predecessors left off.
Greater concern surrounds the offense. Jake Browning passed for 3,192 yards and 8.2 yards per attempt as a senior last season, but his touchdown-to-interception ratio (16 to 10) was indicative of UW’s frequent struggles to finish drives with touchdowns. The Huskies’ red-zone touchdown percentage, 56.45, ranked 105th nationally. The S&P+ metric for per-play explosiveness (isoPPP+) had UW 84th nationally last season, reflecting lamentations by the coaching staff that the Huskies needed to gain yardage in bigger chunks.
Browning is gone — as is Myles Gaskin, the school’s career rushing leader — but hope abounds because of Jacob Eason, a former five-star recruit who started at Georgia as a freshman, injured his knee in the 2017 season opener and subsequently lost the job to Jake Fromm before transferring to Washington. At 6 feet 6 and 228 pounds and possessing elite arm strength, Eason, originally from Lake Stevens (Wash.) High, could add a new element to the Huskies’ passing game. But he first must beat out third-year sophomore Jake Haener, Browning’s backup last season (Eason sat out per NCAA transfer rules), with whom he competed throughout a spring that did not yield a clear-cut front-runner.
Whichever passer prevails — and Eason should be considered a comfortable favorite — will helm an offense that hopes to showcase the team’s receivers, with an emphasis this season on creating bigger plays. “Our coaches harp on that all the time — giving our receivers a chance, put the spotlight on them,” Eason said during the spring. “The more of that we do, the better.”
It’s not all on the quarterbacks. The Huskies also need better play from their receivers — they return every wideout who caught a pass last season — and for coordinator Bush Hamdan to continue maturing as a play-caller in his second season. Minutes after the Huskies’ 28-23 loss to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, Petersen said coaches would “study the hell out of the tape” and “pare things down so we’re more precise at what we’re doing.”
That same night, Hamdan said that in addition to “figuring out how to get guys more open,” coaches would examine “how to get more explosive and create bigger plays. I think at times, it’s felt like we have to be perfect on every play.”
Final assessment
It seems the Huskies have the talent necessary to win another conference title, and the schedule really couldn’t set up any better for them to make it happen. This still is a young team, though, and significant strides made by Oregon and Utah pose a threat to UW’s Pac-12 crown.
The hype surrounding Eason is understandable, but perhaps a bit unfair — it likely will take more than a new quarterback to fix what was wrong with the passing game last season — and replacing Gaskin’s production might be a taller task than some assume.
But this doesn’t feel like a rebuilding, step-back kind of season — the Huskies have recruited too well in recent years to expect much regression — and it won’t be a surprise if Petersen has Washington in the 10-win range yet again.
The WAM is fire and goes into way more Depth Chart on this topic.
Comments
How quickly do they forget!!!
He's the winningest qb in husky history. Major loss imo
U scared?
UW defense will struggle . Been sapying it for 6 months Let that reality sink in. We wont be able to rely on the defense to win games next year. Period! We'll have to rely on a qb duel to win for the 1st time in 3 years. Outscore opponents on offense.
Pray Spiker learned how to catch because he is the difference maker at WR. Bryant and Spiker the only big-play options. I said in January to expect at LEAST 1 loss in 1st 5 games....and those are the easiest