How we suddenly became average.

TierbsHsotBoobs said:

godawgst said:

Taking just a little bit of time and doing research is hard ...

1) We didn't have much of an edge rush last year either (unless you think PSALM was a huge loss) ... depending on the source that you look at we have 32 or 33 sacks so far this year in 11 games. On a per game basis, that's tied for 14th in the country (on 32 sacks) ... a strong game against the Cougs likely gets us to Top 10. As a point of reference, we had 39 sacks last year in 14 games. So yeah, we're right on the same pace as last year.

2) Injuries haven't helped ... but at the same time, pinning injuries on the opposition getting to 30 points isn't accurate. In both of our losses, the undercurrent of those losses resided in failures on the offense ... particularly true with Stanford. The Murphy injury hasn't helped the secondary out, but I'd say the bigger problem is that teams have identified that Myles Bryant is this year's PSALM and attack wherever he is on the field religiously. And when you look at the games that we've lost (or been close to), the common theme is that the defense has been on the field for 70+ plays ... I'd argue that there's a bigger theme here in that teams are starting to figure out what they can do successfully against our defense and there's a blueprint (albeit a difficult one) for how to beat us.

3) It's not about having a game plan to expose Browning ... it's having the athletes in the secondary to force him to have to make throws into tight windows (which he doesn't want to do) and therefore he holds the ball too long. Given that Babushka doesn't do a tremendous job in scheming in those situations it causes Browning to look terrible. Browning's got his own issues ... but the key to beating UW is not by necessarily outscoring us ... it's forcing Browning into pressing and keeping him off the field so that he feels an unneeded sense of urgency.

4) Babushka is the definition of a guy without a plan ... you have to have some kind of identity. My answer to anything in this regard is that you should aspire to have the kind of identity that is similar to Kevin McHale's post moves. By that I mean that you have a handful of go to moves (plays) that you are going to utilize ... but then when your opponent starts cheating to stop those moves you start using their aggressiveness against them by throwing a what you see isn't what you get into their life. This is Babushka's primary failure to me.

5) Because you need 5 (massive fail by you here) ... the kicking game has been a significant issue this year. When you compete at the highest levels, the smallest details really matter. Against ASU, we lost by 6 and missed 2 FGs in the red zone ... those have to be made. Against Stanford, kicking a chip shot FG on 4th and 1 (yes, I realize that many would still say go for it and that Gaskin likely didn't play tremendous situational football here) ... but you also have to know your opponent and momentum. Getting points there to go to a 2 score game put all the pressure on Stanford to respond ... get a stop and another TD heading into half completely changes the game and what Stanford would have been able to do going forward with their offense (i.e. ground and pound starts to vanish).

Great points on #3/#4. Until last week, Jake's grade for handling game pressure has been a F. At the start of the year, my thought was to shorten the game and put all the pressure on the opponents O to score w/ limited possessions. In retrospect that hurt us more than ASU or Stanford.

#4) I'm no Smith fan and am in the camp of he can move on. That being said, If you don't think Pete has a huge say in the weekly game plan your FS. He's got to get over the Boise State mentality of formations, motions, putting 150 plays on tape so the 1-2 P5 teams he played a year would have to spend hours practicing it. He's shown by his recruiting and player development that we can compete and win the North and Conference more years than not. We have an identity on D, not on O. If he doesn't change that philosophy, it won't matter who the OC is.

One final thought. Go listen to Rondeau's interview on Go Huskies where he talks about his time here (36 minutes long) and what made the 91 team so great. His comment was how "deep, talented and nasty" they were. Today nasty is called "attitude or swag". Last year Azeem was that guy, and Kevin K and Budda also had that. Sidney didn't say a word, but he just made every team forget about throwing to a third of the field. We don't have a guy on D or O (maybe Tre but he went out at ASU) to simply stand up and say to his side of the ball "this shit stops right now". I don't know if that is enough versus Stanford, but it would have been versus ASU.