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"Unbiased" Peach Bowl Preview ...
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This is where things get a little bit "complicated" to me ...Secfans said:
Yeah, nothing says you're a great conference like having a couple of teams who beat everyone, and the entire rest of the conference is trash. And those teams who beat everyone in conference couldn't beat anyone out of conference. Name your big OOC win this year, hell name a good team the PAC12 played competitively out of conference (Eastern Washington loss doesn't count). UCLA's OT loss to TAMU was the best win you had. But Rosen barely played the conf slate this year...
Your South champion got jail sexed by Michigan. Your South runner up lost 52-6 to us. Your best OOC win was Idaho, and your North runner up lost to EWU, Boise, and now Minnesota.
It's easy to say that Washington didn't schedule anybody in the non-conference. We schedule a P5 in Rutgers that fell on their face between the timing of the schedule and when the game took place. We had a home/home also scheduled with Colorado that had to be scrapped when Colorado came into the PAC ... that game got replaced by Portland St (that's Sarkisian scheduling for you). Then we played a Sun Belt team (Idaho) ... I don't think SEC teams will be critical of scheduling Fun Belt teams.
What about the rest of the conference?
USC got waxed by Alabama early ... they grew a lot as the year went on and the upgrade from Browne to Darnold was vast. Other non-conference games were Utah State and Notre Dame ... not USC's fault that Notre Dame sucked this year.
Stanford beat a fairly decent Kansas St team early, then won at Notre Dame, before finishing the year against Rice.
Utah beat BYU in a rivalry game ... also played I believe Fresno St and Southern Utah or whatever as a throw away game.
ASU beat Texas Tech ... Cal beat Texas and lost to San Diego St on the road.
The Cougs are the Cougs.
Oregon lost at Nebraska ... who at one point everybody wanted to crown ... that was one of the most poorly played games I had seen all year.
UCLA was a disaster ... also won at BYU. The TAMU game is actually interesting. UCLA really sucked ... and that wasn't just when Rosen left. But they played TAMU roughly even even though TAMU held the lead through most of the game.
So here's the thing with the Colorado vs Michigan game ... Colorado lost their starting QB in the 2nd half (while down 31-28 in the 3rd quarter) and that turned the game decidedly to Michigan afterwards as they won the remaining portion of the game 14-0 to win 45-28. Here's the thing, Colorado's offense sucks. I mean it really sucks. But up to the injury to Sefo, Colorado was right in that game. Not sure I'd say that they got jail sexed in that game ... that's a bit of a stretch. -
I've never claimed that Alabama runs the Stanford offense ...Secfans said:This is particularly interesting coming from someone who thinks we run Stanford's offense...Be honest, you haven't seen Bama play this year outside of the USC game.
In the lead up to this game and in preparation for the TSIO podcast, I focused primarily on the games where Alabama was tested the most on the year and the games that would have thoroughly had their attention ... Ole Miss and LSU. I also watched the Florida game until I got so sick and tired of watching Florida's QB miss WR's by 3-5 yards leading to easy turnovers and their defense be so completely undisciplined that it wasn't worth watching any longer.
Ole Miss was a mess defensively and allowed Alabama to basically dictate whatever they wanted to do on offense. What I found watching the Ole Miss game with respect to Alabama's defense (and definitely confirmed when watching the LSU game) is that Alabama's MO defensively against QBs that they respect on teams that can spread them out is to attack ... they have a strong tendency to bring their slot corner and/or at least 1 MLB in a blitz while they play a lot of man under and either shade their single safety over the top for help on anything deep or sitting at or around the sticks in a robber position. In fact, one thing that really stood out to me watching both tapes was how often (even on incompletions) Alabama is in a position where on a deep throw they are 1 on 1 with their CB against the WR in coverage without S help. In contrast, when watching Washington, you'll almost never see that pass thrown against the Washington D because there is almost always S help over the top.
In the LSU game, it showed how me how quickly Alabama could go conservative on offense to protect Hurts against a good defense that could create turnovers as so much of the offense for most of the game was either the middle run game or quick throws to the perimeter. LSU's defense got tired by being on the field so much and once Hurts got unleashed in the run game that really changed the dynamic as he was able to create the decided big play. Offensively, LSU was pretty much an easy stop for the Alabama defense because they were able to take away the run and force the piss poor QB to beat them with his arm. However, early in the game on a 3rd and long situation, LSU was able to complete a shot down the field against 1 on 1 coverage as Alabama again stayed true to their attacking tendencies and never wanting to give up anything by sitting on the 1st down marker and taking their chances with the deep throws.
I do expect that defensively Alabama will not change what it is that they do. They will continue to attack and sitting on the short and intermediate routes. Washington will be the most capable offense that they've played all year ... probably a step behind Clemson's offense when both are operating at their heights. I expect that Ross will face some form of bracket coverage with some form of additional attention focused in his direction. That will leave some opportunities for Washington to create 1 on 1 situations over the rest of the field and to potentially find openings in areas where Ross clears out an area and somebody comes in behind him.
Honestly, this entire game comes down to whether Washington's OL can protect and carve just enough holes in the run game to at least keep Alabama honest. If Washington can keep Alabama off balance just enough there will be some opportunities to get the score into the 20+ range that they need to get to to win the game. -
It's more the fact that I'm just a tad fed up with the general feeling coming out of SEC land that because Alabama killed USC and USC beat Washington that Washington has no business being in this game AND gives Alabama nothing to really worry about (not saying SECFans is one of those).AlCzervik said:@Tequilla has found his soulmate.
Without patting the TSIO Podcast on the back too much, it's one of the reasons I feel like we have a really good pod is because we have a really good pulse on this team and the conference as a whole. When we said going into the PAC Title Game that there wasn't a lot of concern about what Colorado would be able to do, we came to that conclusion based on watching the games in detail and knowing the strengths/weaknesses of what each team did.
Alabama is obviously a different beast. But they are far from invincible. The SEC as a whole really sucked this year. And so while the stat lines for Alabama look good (particularly defensively), there has been evidence that there are areas where you can get after their defense ... albeit there haven't been any examples of complete teams that have been able to play 4 quarters with Alabama on both sides of the ball. I don't know if Washington is one of those teams ... I do know that it's closer than any of Alabama's first 13 opponents. -
goodness gracious we need character limits on this forum
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great post tho with this one. Utah was really the only game that UW got completely gashed on the ground.Tequilla said:
Let's look at the good running teams that you point out ... not even sure that I agree with what you call good running teams (my guess is that you looked at total yards) when looking at conference games the teams that you singled out ranked as follows in terms of yards per carry in conference:Secfans said:
Actually, you allow 82% of opponent averages rushing the ball. Which is good, it's not elite. But outside of Stanford, who was down two linemen, the decent running teams you faced (Arizona, Utah, Oregon, Oregon St) all hit around their averages (or exceeded them).
Alabama will run for 200+ and exceed 5 YPC.
Again, the game isn't unwinnable for Washington, but you're arguing the wrong thing here. The match up against Alabama's run game isn't good for you. Your offensive skill players against basically anyone is.
Arizona: 4th at 5.52 yards per carry
Utah: 7th at 5.02 yards per carry
Oregon: 6th at 5.02 yards per carry
Oregon St: 3rd at 5.63 yards per carry
The top 5 was Washington, USC (conveniently left out that game), Oregon St, Arizona, and Stanford.
Arizona had a great day against the UW defense running the ball getting 308 yards on 43 carries (7.2 yards per carry). The balance of the run game came from Arizona's QB Brandon Dawkins who had 13 carries for 176 yards including a Dawkins 79 yard TD run off a read option play and 56 yard run off of a pass/scramble that set up another TD. While I realize that you can cherry pick stats all that you want, the reality is that 2 carries amounted to 135 of their 308 rushing yards. Take those 2 carries away and you're looking at 173 yards on 41 carries (4.2 yards per carry average). Obviously those 2 plays happened and between those 2 plays/TDs, another broken play long completion leading to another TD drive, and a sub-standard day for the offense in terms of its execution where they had the ball in plus-territory 5 different times where they came away with zero points, you get a game that in hindsight many look back and go "wow, I can't believe that Washington barely beat Arizona."
Utah's another example of where I think you have to go back and really look at how the game played out to understand in full. Utah did have 213 yards for the game on the ground, on 47 carries. At 4.5 yards per carry, that's a half yard behind what they averaged on the season. Washington made some adjustments at half to slow Joe Williams and really the game plan was designed to take advantage of making an inaccurate Troy Williams to have to make plays against Washington's secondary. Williams went 14 for 33 on the day for 163.
I've talked about Oregon in another post ... but the final score for the game was 70-21 and 35-7 at half with UW up 56-14 in the 3rd quarter. I'm not sure that I really care about the stats that came up at the end of the game.
As for Oregon St., again, this is another game with a lopsided score with a 41-17 final score and 31-0 at half, and 41-10 after the 3rd quarter. For the game, Oregon St had 30 carries for 177 yards ... which on the surface looks like a massive problem stopping the run. Oregon St's first TD in the 2nd half was a 75 yard TD run off of the jet sweep. So again, taking the outlier out of the picture you're looking at 29 carries for 102 yards ... I think that's fairly reasonable.
Part of the reason that you have to take Washington's stats to a certain degree with a grain of salt is that in any game where the score started getting out of hand, there was a lot of depth that got played starting as early as the 3rd quarter. It's one of the reasons why so many have pointed to Washington's "fast starts" and their 1st half scoring margin this year instead of looking at the 2nd half margin. If you look at the 2nd half margin, it's easy to look at the stats and come to the wrong conclusion by saying that UW isn't a 2nd half team.
I expect Bama to run the ball about as well as USC did on (us?)
effective, but far from dominant. UW's defensive front actually improved against the run as the season went along despite losing mathis and victor -
Actually, you allow 82% of opponent averages rushing the ball. Which is good, it's not elite. But outside of Stanford, who was down two linemen, the decent running teams you faced (Arizona, Utah, Oregon, Oregon St) all hit around their averages (or exceeded them).Secfans said:We will stop the run. yes, I understand that is a profound statement for you to comprehend but it's going to come down to QB play if you want to score points on offense.
Alabama will run for 200+ and exceed 5 YPC.
Again, the game isn't unwinnable for Washington, but you're arguing the wrong thing here. The match up against Alabama's run game isn't good for you. Your offensive skill players against basically anyone is.
And last year against Stanford? This team has the "ability" to play very large up front, it has since Shaq Thompson lined up at Safety -
The ultimate payoff for watching that entire video was the cohost named Husky predicting a 34-17 final score.
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SECfans won this thread rather easily, say 34-17?
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Baker as a junior is 5-10, 192. Thomas as a senior in 2009 was 5-10, 197.Secfans said:
Earl Thomas, the 5'10" 202 pound safety?Alexis said:
Earl Thomas says hi
This is particularly interesting coming from someone who thinks we run Stanford's offense...Be honest, you haven't seen Bama play this year outside of the USC game.Tequilla said:The last comments tell me 1) that you don't understand what we do defensively
It's a legit comparison and I think you're smart enough to understand that players put on weight going from college to the NFL.
Otherwise, stay. I'm enjoying our newfound Alabama friends. I'd enjoy them more if they looked like this:
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CFetters_Nacho_Lover said:
Baker as a junior is 5-10, 192. Thomas as a senior in 2009 was 5-10, 197.Secfans said:
Earl Thomas, the 5'10" 202 pound safety?Alexis said:
Earl Thomas says hi
This is particularly interesting coming from someone who thinks we run Stanford's offense...Be honest, you haven't seen Bama play this year outside of the USC game.Tequilla said:The last comments tell me 1) that you don't understand what we do defensively
It's a legit comparison and I think you're smart enough to understand that players put on weight going from college to the NFL.
Otherwise, stay. I'm enjoying our newfound Alabama friends. I'd enjoy them more if they looked like this:
You mean adults actually put on weight? What a fucking conceptCFetters_Nacho_Lover said:
Baker as a junior is 5-10, 192. Thomas as a senior in 2009 was 5-10, 197.Secfans said:
Earl Thomas, the 5'10" 202 pound safety?Alexis said:
Earl Thomas says hi
This is particularly interesting coming from someone who thinks we run Stanford's offense...Be honest, you haven't seen Bama play this year outside of the USC game.Tequilla said:The last comments tell me 1) that you don't understand what we do defensively
It's a legit comparison and I think you're smart enough to understand that players put on weight going from college to the NFL.
Otherwise, stay. I'm enjoying our newfound Alabama friends. I'd enjoy them more if they looked like this:
