Mods, thanks for moving this off the Husky Bored.
Says it all. Notice blue-yellow logo below Paul.Baldy just said the SEC deserves 3 teams in playoff. 1-2 losses or not. Ha fucking ha
SEC already has a playoffIt’s called the season
...Alabama is very well coached and very fundamentally sound (that shows up big time compared to other SEC teams and the mistakes that they tend to make play after play). It will be important to use some of that against them by going against tendencies from time to time. To slow Alabama down defensively, you have to get them in a position where they are thinking versus reacting and getting them to question what it is that they are seeing. IF Washington can be successful in this, then you have yourself a ball game.Defensively, the 3 DTs for Washington (Gaines, Qualls, and Vea) are stout and will be a handful for the Alabama middle run game. As others have noted here, the secondary will be as good as any that Alabama has seen this year. Budda Baker is as good of a safety as there is in the country. The weakness to the defense is at the OLB positions. To slow Alabama's offense down, you have to make Hurts a passer. Kiffin tries to limit the exposure of Hurts by giving him a lot of quick throws and screens to get the ball out and into the hands of playmakers. We're very familiar with that with Kiffin and Sark being from the same tree. The quick WR screens will be hard pressed to work against Jones/King on the outside ... as good of a CB tandem as Alabama has seen all year and one of the best in the nation. Not only are they good in coverage, but they are excellent tacklers particularly in the quick WR screen game. The defense has gotten better since they moved Taylor Rapp in to play S and moved Budda more into a slot corner/rover type of role. IF and this is a big IF Washington can keep Hurts from beating them with his legs, then Washington should be able to limit Alabama's offense. You've noted in a few different areas looking at yardage totals as a measure of the UW defense and specifically cited certain games and yardage totals. One thing you have to understand about the PAC is that teams here like to push play totals upwards of 80-100 on a game by game basis. It's important to look at things from a yard per play basis when looking at the running and passing games. And I also think it's important to look at things from a conference only or P5 only standpoint versus your entire schedule because the entire schedule can be skewed by a few overmatched opponents. Washington in conference has given up 4 yards per carry in the run game. The games where UW has given up over 4 yards per carry are as follows:Arizona: 43 for 308 (7.2 yards per carry)Oregon: 43 for 230 (5.3 yards per carry)Oregon St: 30 for 177 (5.9 yards per carry)Utah: 47 for 213 (4.5 yards per carry)The Arizona game is unique and probably what they do is most similar to what Auburn runs in that the QB is a massive running threat. 176 of those yards came from Arizona's QB ... which is why I said that the biggest obstacle in this game for the UW defense is stopping Hurts in the run game. There's a lot of read option that Arizona runs and if there's a big weakness to the UW defense at times it is that it doesn't like to change what it does to start games. They will adjust at halftime if needed and against both Arizona and Utah the adjustments made really slowed down the opposition offense ... the only plays given up in the 2nd half to Arizona were really a couple of broken plays that hit big. Utah's run game dramatically slowed down in the 2nd half as we brought an extra body into the box and forced Utah to beat us with their passing game. The Oregon game was 70-21 ... I don't read a lot into that. And as for Oregon St, 75 of the 177 yards came on a jet sweep in the 2nd half of a blowout game ... although it was against the #1 defense ... a defense that came out very flat in the 2nd half. In the last 5 games (Cal, USC, ASU, Wazzu, and Colorado), the yards per rush have been 3.7, 3.1, 0.6, 2.7, and 2.8. I think even most SEC fans would admit that the QB play in the PAC is usually better than that in the SEC top to bottom in the conference. In conference games, Washington is allowing a completion percentage of 56.5%, 5.8 yards per attempt, and 10.3 yards per completion. In contrast, Alabama's numbers are 52.5% completion percentage against, 6.2 yards per attempt, and 11.9 yards per completion. If there's an area where you could look at the stats and question UW's secondary, it'd be in the completion percentage number as 6 times in 10 conference games have the opposition completed over 60% of their passes. But this also goes to show why completion percentage can be a very misleading stat because when you go back and watch the tape of UW, what you see from them is that they have no problem letting you check it down whether it be screens, rollouts, etc. What they do though extremely well is rally up and tackle those opportunities. Very rarely do you beat a team by making 15+ play drives going 80 yards ... somewhere along the line you're going to get a holding penalty or something to back you behind the sticks or you're going to try to push a pass, etc. that turns into a turnover ... which Washington has averaged over 2 turnovers per game the entire season (they've generated multiple turnovers in every game this season except for the 0 turnovers caused at Utah - hence why that game was relatively close). The defenses that are probably most similar to UW in the SEC are LSU and maybe Florida ... and the funny thing when you look at those games is that Hurts wasn't really an effective passer:LSU: 10 of 19 for 107 yardsFlorida: 11 of 20 for 138 yardsThe keys for this game from a UW perspective:1) Field Position: Limit turnovers and force Alabama to go a full field on a consistent basis2) Turnover Margin: +2 or better will give UW the chance to be in the game in the 4th quarter3) Bring the Alabama defense out of its comfort zone by emphasizing motion and shifts4) Contain Hurts in the running game and force him to win with his arm5) Special Teams: Must play at least even hereI definitely think that UW can stay within 2 TDs in this game. The computer models are saying that UW has about a 1 in 3 shot to win the game ... yet the money line in Vegas is UW +575 or thereabouts. That's a lot of value. The public perception is that Alabama is so elite that nobody is in their class ... my perception is that the SEC was a really bad league this year. Alabama is rightly the favorite ... they should be. But this will be a game.