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UW Defense Thoughts Thread
HeretoBeatmyChest
Member Posts: 4,295
The UW defense gave up roughly the same amount of ppg in 2013 as 2012 (when you adjust for Idaho St game) yet the yards per play was down quite a bit and UW was 20th nationally and tied for 3rd in the pac-12 with USC behind UO & Stanford.
Gone are Parker, Fuimaono, Ducre, Shamburger, Watson.
2013 recruits of note to fill the depth chart are Mathis (so), Farria (so), Qualls at DL, O'Brien, Constantine, Bierra, Victor at LB, Kelly, Walker (so), King (so) at DB. I thought the 2013 recruiting class on D was excellent. All of the guys except one or two were highly recruited. Great timing with Petersen on board to develop these guys. I don't know who of these guys will have the biggest impact this season but hopefully its the DB's. Kelly was the scout team defense award winner last year. Maybe Budda and one of the other true frosh DB's can surprise.
Overall this should easily be the best defense since 1997 and have way more depth than any other group since then. With guys like Kikaha, Shelton, Shaq and Peters there is a lot of potential star power. Does anyone think any of these guys can be in the convo for All-American?
Gone are Parker, Fuimaono, Ducre, Shamburger, Watson.
2013 recruits of note to fill the depth chart are Mathis (so), Farria (so), Qualls at DL, O'Brien, Constantine, Bierra, Victor at LB, Kelly, Walker (so), King (so) at DB. I thought the 2013 recruiting class on D was excellent. All of the guys except one or two were highly recruited. Great timing with Petersen on board to develop these guys. I don't know who of these guys will have the biggest impact this season but hopefully its the DB's. Kelly was the scout team defense award winner last year. Maybe Budda and one of the other true frosh DB's can surprise.
Overall this should easily be the best defense since 1997 and have way more depth than any other group since then. With guys like Kikaha, Shelton, Shaq and Peters there is a lot of potential star power. Does anyone think any of these guys can be in the convo for All-American?
Comments
This defense has a chance to be real good with a lot of depth in the front 7 for the first time in what seems like forever. I expect Josh Shirley to absolutely blow up this year. He seemed like a guy who was in Sark's doghouse for whatever reason, and was never really put in a position to succeed.
This year I think our strength will be our front 7 ...
The LB corps should be a top 2-3 in the conference group.
Peters is a nice building block in the secondary. But ultimately this defense will be judged by how much the young kids grow up in the back.
One positive in our favor? The early season schedule is very forgiving to a team breaking in a young secondary.
Beaver from what I've been reading is having a good spring and he was a highly sought after recruit who is entering his third year in the program. I look for him to have a big year for us.
If he has amazing ball skills then that is great, but he is going to have to make a lot of tackles on people much bigger than him on a consistent basis if he is playing a lot of snaps. I would bet Sven's 20 bucks his shoulder doesn't last the entire conference season and then is spending the off season getting it repaired next spring.
OTOH, he redshirted his first season. I have no idea if that was because of the depth chart or so he could bulk up, but he started two seasons and then left school after his sophomore year so you could argue the RS year was a waste, unless he significantly bulked up over that time in a way he couldn't have otherwise.
I wouldn't have liked the idea of Baker at safety 10 or 15 years ago, but as pass happy as the Pac12 is these days, and as finesse as most of the running attacks are outside of Stanford and Myles Jack, I think he could be a great fit at FS right out of the gate.
Also, I really want him to line up at RB for one game and score five touchdowns on the ground against USC before flipping off Sark on the sidelines. Is that asking too much?
Lets not compare an NFL safety to a college one either. NFL players overall are much bigger than college. I do think safety won't be our strongest position but I am not going to start worrying too much.
Feeney, King and Parker are 3 guys that I can think off of the top of my head recently that were forced into playing too soon and were injured.
I am not saying he needs to redshirt, but you would hope the underclassmen were playing at a high enough level to claim the starting positions. By all accounts Baker should see the field if he is as good as advertised.
Why are we spending so much time discussing Budda Baker? I'm hearing there's no chance he will waiver on his commitment to Oregon.