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Why has University of Washington Defense Been So Good?
DerekJohnson
Administrator, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 59,922
DerekJohnson
Administrator, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 59,922
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O73VXlt8G8Q
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I don't remember this being an object of conversation until the last few years.
I wish I had some game tape. If it became more prevalent, I wonder if it was more to do with personnel. The D missed arguably its two best players in Tyron and Levi O. Tuli L. & Latu were also out for a lot of the season (plus Bowman missed a couple of games) so maybe they instructed the Cover 3 safety to play a little deeper most snaps.
In the Cactus Bowel vs OSU, Kwat played his deep safety between 10-13 yards back around 75% of the time. 14-16 yards the other 25%
In the Fried Oreo bowel vs Mississippi school for the poors, Kwat ran his deep safety 14-16 yards back around 35% of the time. 17-19 yards 60% and 10-13 yards 5%.
In the Peach Bowl vs Bamers, Kwat ran the safeties almost exclusively, around 85%, 13-16 yards back. I saw maybe a handful of possessions where he pushed them to 17-19 yards. I think this was due to a true freshman Hurts not being a great passer.
In the Tortilla bowl vs PSU Jimmy ran the deep safety almost exclusively, around 80%, 14-16 yards back. Once again maybe a handful of 17-19 yard starting points.
In the Shitty Rose Bowl Jimmy ran the safeties about half and half. 55% 17-19 yards and 45% 14-16 yards.
In the Vegas Bowel Jimmy ran 90% 17-19 yards. In fact Bryant basically planted his feet 19 yards exactly from the LOS.
In the Utah game from this year the times the camera would show the deep safety he was usually starting 17-19 yards back. Mostly though they didn't pan far enough out to see the deep man.
It appears (small sample size, I know) that the defense has gradually shifted to pushing the safeties back 17-19 yards over the years with it maxing out in the 2018 season and continuing to current days. I've only seen the safeties back 20 plus yards on film from this year though. Thats crazy deep to me. Probably an indictment of the kids we are trotting out right now? Who knows. I'd like Jimmy and the poor guy he hires that everyone will hate to be a bit more multiple in what they do in terms of down and distance. Why have your safety 19 yards deep on a third and three? Why run the umbrella at all vs Stanford, Cal, Utah or current day Colorado? The stubbornness to run the same stuff and lose to the same teams every year is a head scratcher.