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Big Takeaway from Postgame Interviews
DoogCourics
Member Posts: 5,739
Eason on the field after the win:
“It was huge. There is always confidence in the game of football, and I think today will be a big one for us.”
“I think it was a good game to get under our belt, in terms of we started slow and we really had to get into that locker room and check ourselves. I think the guys responded to that really well. Guys made big time plays today, and now they know that. And I think we can operate at a higher level when we make those plays.”
On what "check ourselves" in the locker room meant:
“A lot of talk, guys communicating with each other. Just rallying. You know, I kind of spoke up a little bit today. I’m not one of the guys to talk a lot, but today I thought it was necessary, and we came out in the second half and played great football.”
It's about fucking time the team nutted the fuck up and showed some goddamn emotion.
Then the 2nd half starts, and what happens? Nacua starts. Eason starts hitting him for 30 yard chunk plays. McGrew starts chewing up yards without going down on first contact. The entire field opens up. The defense gets rest and makes big plays when they get back on the field. And the offense fucking owns the 2nd half.
38 SECOND HALF POINTS! And each took only a few minutes to chew up yards and score.
The defense wasn't perfect, and needs more work. The first half was rough, but it was the same as the Stanford Game: The offense was going 3 and out and the defense was getting burned out. But Jimmy changed up the personnel and packages (Asa Turner anyone?) and held a previously explosive offense and Khalil Tate in check:
The doog inside of me is on life support, and may be snuffed out in an ass raping against Oregon, but the fire inside is still flickering. The 2nd half gave me some hope.
“It was huge. There is always confidence in the game of football, and I think today will be a big one for us.”
“I think it was a good game to get under our belt, in terms of we started slow and we really had to get into that locker room and check ourselves. I think the guys responded to that really well. Guys made big time plays today, and now they know that. And I think we can operate at a higher level when we make those plays.”
On what "check ourselves" in the locker room meant:
“A lot of talk, guys communicating with each other. Just rallying. You know, I kind of spoke up a little bit today. I’m not one of the guys to talk a lot, but today I thought it was necessary, and we came out in the second half and played great football.”
It's about fucking time the team nutted the fuck up and showed some goddamn emotion.
Then the 2nd half starts, and what happens? Nacua starts. Eason starts hitting him for 30 yard chunk plays. McGrew starts chewing up yards without going down on first contact. The entire field opens up. The defense gets rest and makes big plays when they get back on the field. And the offense fucking owns the 2nd half.
38 SECOND HALF POINTS! And each took only a few minutes to chew up yards and score.
The defense wasn't perfect, and needs more work. The first half was rough, but it was the same as the Stanford Game: The offense was going 3 and out and the defense was getting burned out. But Jimmy changed up the personnel and packages (Asa Turner anyone?) and held a previously explosive offense and Khalil Tate in check:
The doog inside of me is on life support, and may be snuffed out in an ass raping against Oregon, but the fire inside is still flickering. The 2nd half gave me some hope.
Comments
Oregon should RPO us to death but their WRs suck too. I don't see how our players will get open at all vs them though. Any team with half decent corners can just man press our shitty WRs and blitz Eason to force him off his spot.
All in all we still suck, but there are a lot shitty offensive minds out there. And play puka more please.
My inner doog is still fighting for life. But yes, as you pointed out, it will likely die next week against the ducks.
But tonight, the candle still flickers.
I like to think that Bush identified as a man for 20 minutes and told Pete let me call the plays or I'm out of here right now. The way things are going I'm getting fired anyways.
A team that had no direction, no energy, and no fucking clue on offense that only scored 13 points at halftime, came out in the second half and scored 5 touchdowns, 3 field goals, and only 1 punt.
Shit changed. And it was visible.
Also, for all the shit talking on the defense, they had their moments.
1st Half Arizona Drive Chart:
23 yards, Punt
6 yards, Punt
12 yards, Punt
-5 yards, Punt
8 yards, Punt
-15 yards, Fumble and UW TD
75 yards, TD
68 yards, TD
2nd Half Arizona Drive Chart:
20 yards, Punt
16 yards, Fumble
62 yards, FG
3 yards, Punt
0 yards, Interception
79 yards, TD
0 yards, Punt
15 drives: 11 that were complete shit and included 3 turnovers, 4 long scoring drives.
With a competent offense, that will win games.
But not without a competent offense.
The holes at ILB are crippling and the young players need to continue to get better. Asa looked great. Myles is a superstar. Lake and Kwat know what they're doing.
I get that optimism after plungers wins, but nothing has really changed.
I still think we win at least one of the next two vs Oregon and Utah. Nobody else is so good that I think we have little chance of beating them. I just don’t trust us to consistently play well.
You cannot be a championship defense without linebackers no matter what you scheme or what you adjust. You just fucking can't.
Poor to average teams you can bamboozle and out-talent despite our fucktarded system.
Decent teams will see right through that shit and make you adjust more than they adjust to you. They will run it down our throats and laugh and laugh.
This is a team game.
DL gets more pressure than years past but the big, young Samoans are a year away at DT.
Not today Satan!
The Washington offense (bleeping) did it.
Finally, emphatically, repeatedly.
But before the Huskies erupted for five second-half touchdowns in a 51-27 win over Arizona on Saturday night, they stumbled out of the blocks for the second consecutive week. Specifically, they produced a total of six first half points and punted three times. They were turned back on fourth-and-2 from the Arizona 27-yard line. Junior quarterback Jacob Eason completed 7 of 12 passes for 65 mostly insignificant yards. Running back Salvon Ahmed averaged 2.2 yards per carry and failed to reach the end zone.
When the first half ended, Arizona defensive tackle Finton Connolly literally skipped off of the field, waving both arms to the energized audience inside Arizona Stadium as he left. The Huskies, meanwhile, trotted into the locker room with a 17-13 deficit and six consecutive quarters-worth of bubbling frustrations.
So, what exactly does that look (and sound) like?
“Not good,” UW head coach Chris Petersen said. “There wasn’t a lot being said, but everybody knew it wasn’t good. So credit to the kids. There wasn’t a lot said. There wasn’t a lot to say. They just knew it wasn’t good enough.”
Jacob Eason knew. The 6-foot-6, 227-pound junior had also struggled the week before, completing 16 of 36 passes in a deflating 23-13 loss at Stanford. He knew he was better than that. He knew his offense could move the ball. And he knew, without injured senior center Nick Harris, someone else had to say so.
“We didn’t play well in the first half, and when we went to the locker room things were said, and we were looking at each other,” Eason said. “We know how we can play football. Some guys stepped up and we played our brand of football in the second half, and it showed. We know what we can do.”
So here’s what they did. The Huskies scored five touchdowns and a field goal in seven second half drives. Eason threw for a pair of touchdowns, finding walk-on tight end Jake Westover for a three-yard touchdown off play-action before looping a 22-yard rainbow to Aaron Fuller for another score.
“Oh, it felt great,” Eason said of the touchdown to Fuller. “We had that play in all week, and we were waiting all game for them to give us that look. They gave it to us, and it feels good as a quarterback, and I’m sure it feels good as a play-caller on offense to execute on that play, when you get that one opportunity.”
For the first time in a while, Washington took advantage of its opportunities in the second half on Saturday. Eason completed 15 of 22 passes for 243 yards and two touchdowns. Junior running back Sean McGrew ran for 106 yards and 8.2 yards per carry. Ahmed added 95 rushing yards and three second half scores.
So, what changed — besides the score?
“It was just execution. I really feel that,” said second-year offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan. “We knew we wanted to run the ball in this game. We thought we could control it up front, and I think we challenged ourselves in that second half to get back to execution.”
Added Eason: “We weren’t concerned with the score. In the second half, it was just a one-play mentality. On to the next. On to the next. Those guys (up front) did a hell of a job.”
Oh, and those guys up front looked a little different for UW. In Harris’ place, redshirt freshman and Tucson native Matteo Mele made his first career start at center. And when right guard Jaxson Kirkland went down in the first half, Henry Bainivalu took his place for the remainder of the game.
Eason also looked a whole lot different from the guy that backpedaled frantically from the Stanford Cardinal the week before.
But it wasn’t just the look. He sounded different, too.
“That’s something I took upon myself today, to try to step up in taking that role (of being more vocal),” Eason said. “You can notice it when Nick (Harris) is gone. So I tried to be more vocal today, and I’m going to try to continue that through the rest of the season. I think the guys respond well to it.
“That’s part of being a quarterback. That’s part of my game I need to work on, and I thought today I stepped out of my lane and did that and the guys responded well and played hard. I’m super proud of how they played.”
More specifically, he’s super proud of how they played in the second half.
But the UW defense was more consistent. Senior linebacker Brandon Wellington scored his second touchdown of the season in the second quarter, when he scooped up a Khalil Tate fumble and barreled into the end zone for a score. The Huskies sacked Tate four times, and Arizona’s explosive dual-threat quarterback managed to complete just 13 of 25 passes for 184 yards and a touchdown, while running for -28 yards. Outside linebacker Ryan Bowman even added a diving fourth quarter interception, as an emphatic exclamation point.
Still, everybody knows you need to score points to win. And for six consecutive quarters, the Washington offense sputtered.
But when Eason said a little, the Huskies showed a lot.
“We’ve been waiting for that for a while,” Eason said of the 38-point second half explosion. “I think there was a change in halftime in that locker room. We know what we can do. We’ve just got to go out there and (bleeping) do it.”