Sunday, November 04, 2007

Not Exactly Artistic

It wasn't an artistic triumph, but if you looked at the film of yesterdays game, Washington dominated Stanford in about every single category on Saturday. The Husky offense is rounding into shape and should be able to be counted on to score at a serious enough clip to keep up in the Pac Ten over the next three years.

Washington's offense has been sub par ever since Pickett's senior year, and the coaches have done a great job rebuilding it over the last three years. Jake Locker of course is the major ingredient, but there was a lot of good blocking going on out there. Louis Rankin doesn't run for 249 yards without good blocking no matter who the opponent is.

The Huskies need to do a better job with turnovers which would have led to at least a couple of more touchdowns yesterday. Let's face it, when you have over 500 yards in total offense you should be scoring quite a bit more.

On defense the Huskies held the Cardinal to only nine points, and only 137 yards yards through the air. The depleted Cardinal did however pick up 116 on the ground which was way too many when you figure that they were down to their 5th string running back. So if you think the defense is fixed you guessed wrong, they still have a lot of work to do just to get to mediocre. The Huskies dodged the bullet because of Cardinal mistakes like fumbling at the one yard line, and being off with their kicking game. Those mistakes cost the Cardinal eleven points, and also a good chance to win this game.

A highlight for me was seeing Jordan Murchison out there playing for the first time in his career. I think the kid did a good job in his first outing and will contribute quite a bit if the coaches let him see action over the last four games.

Next week the Huskies travel to Oregon State, and they are going to have to do a much better job against the run to win that game. Yvenson Bernard sat out the USC game yesterday with a bruised shoulder, but he should be ready to go against Northwest rival Washington next Saturday.

Oregon State is a team this current Husky team should beat. The Beavers are banged up, and they have a QB who is having a terrible year throwing the ball to his own players. The Husky defense needs to be ready to take advantage of those miscues next week to pick up it's second victory in a row.

I have been saying all week that the Mantra is win the next five games. With Stanford out of the way the new Mantra is when the next four. all four of these games are winnable, even Cal who barely got by WSU last night at home. The Cougars probably would have beaten the Bears if James Tardy had been on the active roster this week. I like WSU right now, and I like Doba because his team is getting better over the course of the year and that indicates good coaching. Well coached teams get better, poorly coached teams do not, and banged up teams like Cal just find a way to hold on.

UW is pretty healthy going into the final four game stretch of the season, and that is why I am still optimistic that we can be bowling in December if they can perform at the level they are capable of. Like yesterday, it likely won't be artistic, but you can't diminish the importance of practicing all week as a winner for the first time since the second week of the season. Any way you slice it, yesterday was a big day for Washington.

5 comments:

hairofthedawg said...

I'm just celebrating the victory, with all of the qualifications mentioned. Not pretty, but we did what we had to do.

I wonder just how hard Murchison has had to work to get back in the lineup or was it just that there was no one else left? I hope the former and if so that bodes well for next year.

My biggest hope coming out of this game, I've given up hope for the defense, is that the OL learned that they can do it and how to do it. Please continue to apply those skills in the future OL!!

Go Seahawks! Fun game to watch so far...

John Berkowitz said...

It was, what it was, be beat a lesser opponent, but it wasn't a great breakthrough type of game. We need to play a lot better to beat OSU, Cal, WSU, and Hawaii.

Anonymous said...

johnB, my thoughts.
1. Perfect day, great weather, nice stadium, great sight lines, but like Nathan W says, a tad sterile. Guess they don't have enough ghosts yet in the new facility.
2. Husky crowd was great, continued our tradition of being louder than Stanford fans. Team came over after game and celebratad with us.
3. Lockers deep ball was off long. Even the non TD pass to a wide open Russo was high, might have contributed to not getting the call, but to me was still a TD.
4. Homer and O line coming along, we are actually moving people back the last few games.
5. Garcia had at least 7 low snaps again.
6. Other than once, Baer actually rushed at least 4 in passing situations, the one 3 man rush, Stanford converted and I was screaming. Never saw the 3 after that. And, we actually blitzed the LB at least twice. The Stanford receivers dropped a lot of balls in wide open situations however.
7. STs remain a work in progress. Consistent failures today are KO coverage. DeSean Jackson of Cal is licking his chops. Punt drop, chip shot missed FG, whatever.
8. Rankin ran hard, his dancing returned but works against a Stanford team devoid of talent. Hope that doesn't get him confidence to dance against Ore St.
9. A win is a win, even against Stanford. This is what this team needed.
10. We can beat OSU, put some heat on Canfield or esp his replacement if he can't go, contain a banged up Bernard. Keep the run/pass ratio we have been doing. Fix the KO return coverage. Time to man up on Ore St receivers, I think we can stay with them.

Anonymous said...

John;

Stanford's offense was terrible. How many Stanford dropped passes did you see?....
The next game will hinge on the condition of Jake Locker's shoulder.

John Berkowitz said...

I agree Stanford was terrible for the most part. They weren't the same team that beat USC, not enough depth left.

It will be interesting to see how Jake is doing today after that shoulder has been treated all day Sunday.

There was really no reason for him to be running the ball late in the 4th quarter, but it was fun to watch.

The Huskies were playing to win, not to not lose which is a change.