Grading the Game
by John Berkowitz on Oct 24, 2009 10:57 PM PDT
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PrintWashington didn't play well tonight and it was by far the worst game of the Sark era. This is a team that is capable of beating and losing to anyone. As the season goes on they now look more capable of losing rather than winning. The Huskies have played eight games in a row and the bye week probably came a week to late to save this one.
Fans need to put this game in perspective. This is a very good Oregon team that is very capable of beating USC next week in Autzen. They had a week off and the rest helped more than it hurt. Oregon came into this game a lot fresher than Washington. That freshness was one of the deciding factors in the game.
Washington has four games left this season and I am pretty sure that they can beat UCLA and WSU. OSU in Corvallis may be asking a little too much but the bye week may be just the tonic this team needs right now in preparing for their next opponent. Hopefully the finale against Cal will be for bowl eligibility.
Quarterback
If you glance at the stats you might think that Jake had a serviceable game. The interceptions were killers and the decision making just wasn't there today. Jake was off target today. He was throwing too high again. One thing that was really interesting was his hesitancy to run. He could have scored a TD in the first half from close range but just ended up throwing it away. On a two point conversion it seemed he got confused, hesitated, and was snowed under by the rush. This wasn't vintage Jake and you have to wonder if he was injured in some way early in the game. He certainly played like it. He only ran three times for nine yards today. Give credit to the Oregon defense for sealing off the ends and applying pressure all day but Jake wasn't himself.
Grade C minus
Running Backs
Chris Polk picked up 100 yards against an Oregon defense which has been stifling against the run so far this season. Chris continues to show he can pick up tough yards by carrying players with him but he also showed some flash breaking a long one. What Washington isn't doing very well right now is running the ball inside the ten yard line. You have to wonder why Sark isn't using Paul Homer tha tmuch in goal line situations. Why go with one back when you can hand the ball to Homer or have him lead for Polk? Bronson played more today but you have to question his presence at the goal line where he was stuffed twice. Johri Fogerson is starting to dissapear.
Grade B
Wide Receiver
Devon Aguilar continues to have good perfomances every week. Jermaine Kearse continues to make clutch plays. James Johnson is still steady but he is making some frosh mistakes like not running his routes past the first down marker. Kavario had three catches for short gains. Uw didn't stretch the field today and you have to wonder why they didn't challenge the patchwork Oregon secondary deep.
Grade B
Offensive Line
Jake was sacked 4 times and rushed for a negative 16 yards. Not your average type of Jake Locker day was it? The offensive line had a lot to do with it even though the Huskies put up some decent numbers at times in between the 20's. Oregon's speed was way too much for these guys to handle.
Grade D
Defensive Line
These guys played pretty well in the first half but fell apart in the third quarter and that was really the big difference in the game. The Ducks rushed for 259 yards and it was pretty obvious that Ta'amu was running on fumes after playing pretty well in the first half. Fatiugue seemed to be a big factor. Oregon throws a lot of things at you and wears you down. In the second half Oregon could do pretty much whatever they wanted. The holes in the middle looked like Moses parting the Red Sea at times.
Grade C
Linebackers
These guys spent a lot of the night out of position and getting blocked. The speed of Oregon neutralized one of Washington's strength's. Take a look at the TE numbers for Oregon. These guys were responsible for that. They didn't fill in very well against the run either. EJ broke his thumb today. No telling how many fractures he is currently playing with right now.
Grade C minus
Defensive Backs
I thought Nate Fellner looked pretty good out there in his debut as a starter. Number 29 was around the ball all night. He still made mistakes and was overhwlemed by blockers at times. Asking three freshmen and a banged up Nate Williams to take on a team like Oregon is a pretty tall order. Lots of potential back here but the lack of depth and experience is hurting them.
Grade C plus
Special Teams
A blocked punt in the second quarter was converted into seven points by Oregon. A two point conversion on a fake by Nate Costa. A big first down on another fake FG by Costa that led to a TD. The Huskies aren't returning the ball well and they are also picking up too many holding calls which negate the better returns they do have.
Grade F
Coaching
Sark's decision to go for it again on a fourth down at the goal line will be questioned again this week. Last week he was outcoached in the last two minutes and this week Chip Kelly outcoached him and his staff most of the game. special teams were a disaster. Every week it seems to get worse. The play calling makes you scratch your head. It doesn't seem like he is using Locker in a way that suits his talents the best. The Huskies gave up a season high 43 points and over 250 yards on the ground. The third quarter was a disaster. Washington came out flat to start the second half and you have to point your fingers at the coaches because it is becoming a trend.
Grade D
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At Least...........
We can be dissapointed. Last year I was purely and fully disgusted. This is much better.
Special teams are indeed killing us, and I put most all of that responsibility on our coaches. Take the punting lineups for example: To put three in the backfield is a de-evolultion as far as I can see, and them we load them up in our rigth, so the Ducks just load the d-line up on our left. And the really wierd thing is that we do not adjust, not even once.
So then Mahan gets one blocked, and spends the rest of the game kicking rugby style, running to his right to get a kick off. All the Ducks had to do after the blocked punt was stack up one extra player on their right to disrupt our puting game. And we NEVER adjusted.
This is just an example of one of the symptoms that comes from being realtively less experienced. It comes off looking stupid. But our guys are not dumb, just young. And gettting their asses handed to them from time-to-time is part of what they need.
Dissapointed versus Disgusted
The deciding factor in special teams play is overall depth, talent, and speed. I would also like to add another factor to this one and that was overall team freshness. Washington wasn’t fresh going into this one in any respect. the toll of playing eight games in a row against the countries toughest schedule had taken a toll.
Kick vs Return
For the return game, I agree with needing more athletisism. A bye week is also much needed, and it was a huge benefit for the Ducks to have just had one. But on our punting I will stand firm with what we saw go down yesterday, and have been worried about all season. Are we focused and determined to work ’till we get things right, or too stuborn to adjust to not yet having what it takes to do things the way they did at ’SC?
Your return game appeared to be pretty dangerous.
Your kick coverage also was probably the best we’d seen this year. Generally we have at least one long, long return every game — what with Barner and James deep. You guys stiffed those lanes very well.
Addicted To Quack [dot] com; Six-hundred and ninety-four yards of total offense.
Stuffed. Damn auto-correct.
Addicted To Quack [dot] com; Six-hundred and ninety-four yards of total offense.
Yep...the coverage has been pretty good.
The return game shows sparks occasionally but has been inconsistent.
by John Berkowitz on Oct 25, 2009 10:37 AM PDT up reply actions
Good analysis – I pretty much agree with the grading. Mesoli is a much better college QB than Jake – not sure if Jake is in the TOP 3 in the PAC-10 as far as being college QB. Other QBs in PAC-10 seem to fit their systems better and producing better results. Doesn’t seem that Jake is being fully utilized (running).
I think you were right on we looked fatigued and beat up – hopefully the bye week will rejuvenate the team and coaches.
Thoughts:
1) As I have stated on many occasions this team has come a long way in the 10 months that Ivan Lewis has been the S&C coach but the HUGE deficiency we’ve had over the years in this department can’t be totally corrected in one year. Our lines ability to – OL/ stay on blocks & DL / get off blocks is still severly lacking. I don’t see this as a technique issue but more of a functional stength issue. Hopefully next year will yeild massive improvements.
2) I now agree with Gekko – Locker seems to have regressed and is not setting his feet when he throws. His machanics have deverted back to bad.
3) A bit disapponted with Sarks offense. At the beginning of the year it seemed we had some different sets that we threw at LSU. Now it seems our playbook has drastically shrunk to a small hand full of plays and sets. Not sure why it has happened but it seems to me we have become alot more pradictable.
4) Also, on the offense it doesn’t seem like we are using our best weapons much. To me I would think throwing the ball long (30+ yards) to Kearse should happen a minimum of 5 times a game. All he does is make great play after great play when we do it. Oregons weakness was the back half of that D and we did very little to exploit it.
5) Staying with the offense: Where is Middleton?? We have arguably the best catching TE in the conference and all we can seem to do is throw screen passes behind the line of scrimmage to him….really? He’s another one that should get a minimum of 5 – 20+ yard throws a game. He is a complete mismatch on anyone the other team has especially if tha ball is thrown a bit high. Heck, I’d love to seee Sark split him out wide and make one of the other teams 5’10 DB’s try to guard him on a go route. All Jake has to do is throw up a “jump ball” and it would be pretty much unstopable.
6) Bottom line for the offense = Sark is going to have to realize he doesn’t have a huge talent advantage so he is going to have to think ouside the traditional pro style box a little to keep the other teams off balance – if he doen’t we become pretty vanilla and our whole offense then rests on Jakes arm = Not good.
7) Defense: I was hoping to see something a little different yesterday with Nick Holt at the helm. Our kids played hard but other then that it looked pretty similar to games past. Our over aggresive D consistantly ran themselves out of plays while chasing oregons fakes. Assingment football is at a premium when you play against that type of offense and again we look VERY undisciplined.
8) hopefully some well needed rest will re-energize this team for the last 4 games
Sno
1) It is a talent and depth issue. You can only get so far tuning up the same rickety four banger. It is never going to beat the Jaguar’s.
2) He certainly has regressed but what is a mystery is the lacke of running. That doesn’t make a lot of sense when that is one of teams best weapons.
3) Not exactly earth shattering is it. Lack of execution of course makes it look less creative than it really is because when you don’t get the yards you need on first down it fails to set up what they really want to do.
4) I would like to see the FB mor einvolved in short yardage situations. The one back isn’t cutting it down there.
5) Middleton is getting hung while blocking at the line of scrimmage. It is hard to give up the extra blocker long enough to get him down field.
6) I haven’t seen a trick play all year.
7) I think a lot of it has to do with not being able to situationally substitute against teams like Oregon.
8) I think the rest is going to be huge for this team.
by John Berkowitz on Oct 25, 2009 1:51 PM PDT up reply actions
John
I agree that we have depth issues but not so much on talent. The guys we had playing the D line yesterday could have played at most PAC-10 schools. Most were 4****. In my eyes developement has been a Faaaaaaaaar bigger issue.
Well
They didn’t develop under Ty for sure…we need more of them…fatigue in the third quarter was a big factor. Overall I am satisfied in the direction. Ta’mu is going to be pretty darn good next year.
by John Berkowitz on Oct 25, 2009 4:48 PM PDT up reply actions
Defensive Front
I see some of the same old issues that we’ve had over the last 4 or 5 years. No pressure up front, until that changes our defense is not going to be good. Add in a inexperienced defensive backfield where seemingly every other week there’s a new guy in there, we haven’t been able to get consistency. The LBs are solid but they need help from the other two parts. GO DAWGS!! Get well and BEAT Ucla!
Washington Husky Football-Undefeated 1991 National Champions 12-0!
Chris Robinson/Wil Shamburger
Are either of those guys beginning to practice? Or are they still rehabbing their injuries?
Washington Husky Football-Undefeated 1991 National Champions 12-0!
Locker seems to have regressed and is not setting his feet when he throws. His machanics have deverted back to bad
Millen, on the Husky Honks postgame, put this on the OL being constantly pushed back into Jake’s face.
Ya...but...
That isn’t all of it…they aren’t using his feet…they aren’t rolling him out. WTF…you have the fatest kid in the Pac 10 and you are not utilizing that with motion?
by John Berkowitz on Oct 25, 2009 4:50 PM PDT up reply actions
I agree. It looked like he was afraid to run every time he had the opportunity. And certainly there were no plays designed to take advantage of his running ability. That’s what’s so frustrating about Oregon’s success, they’ve utilized running quarterbacks for years.
My point was that Hugh Millen thought that a lot of Jake’s problems with throwing mechanics yesterday had to do with the constant pressure he was facing. I thought he was pressured more yesterday than in any previous game. And I agree that depth plays a large part of that in the 8th game of the season.
Or Running Ability
Do you want to win football games or do you want to chain Locker into the pocket to make him an NFL passer? Why can’t we do both? Locker does great things on the run, he has vastly improved in his passing and with his pocket movement but even in the NFL they’ll roll a guy to the left and right to set up protection. You have to respect his running threat and that would open up the field.
Washington Husky Football-Undefeated 1991 National Champions 12-0!
Jake
Why does jake have so much trouble throwing into the flat? He will need to get better at that if he wants to be a NFL qb
BS
That doesn’t explain those ridiculous jump passes or that pick in the end zone. He can simultaneously be a great plamaker, our best player AND a developing QB. Let’s quit making excuses for him.
Damn, my eyeball tastes good.
by Gekko Mojo on Oct 25, 2009 9:32 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions
How about we quit blaming Jake
for everything. He can only play one position at a time, although I’ve heard a rumor he can walk on water.
"Legends are made on the shores of Lake Washington"
"BOW DOWN TO WASHINGTON"
I agree Gekko!
Jake’s in his 3rd season as a starter and 4th in the program. Now I realize he’s been thru 2 coaching staffs and 2 different offensive designs. Yet this kids is very bright and intelligent. Somewhere … sometime he’s got to figure stuff out. Taking costly sacks instead of throwing the ball out of bounds needs to be addressed and understood. Our offense is getting burried early and we are finding ourselves more and more in 3rd down and long. Early in the season we saw ourselves more in 3rd down and managable situations. That’s not the trend these days and it’s putting us in an offensive funk.
Note to Lear: We aren’t blaming Jake for everything. But we do see patterns of his game that needs to be corrected and fixed. Jake is hitting receivers down field and making good reads. But he does need some more work on the out routes, and learnging and figuring out when a play has been exhausted. That’s it … nothing too trivial.
All I saw was purple
Jake
Good, then we can all agree that he is the least of our concerns. Everybody keeps harping on Jake should do this, Jake should do that, yet he is doing far better than everybody else on the team. I’m tired of all the crap people are saying about Jake. Let’s tell it like it is, Jake is doing everything possible with a very crappy supporting cast.
"Legends are made on the shores of Lake Washington"
"BOW DOWN TO WASHINGTON"
Jake had to be hurt. I think it happened in the first quarter rushing for a first down near the goal line. I think it was a quad bruise. It definitely hurt us the rest of the day as he was unable to punch it in or beat people around the corner near the goal line on numerous occasions.
Our special teams was terrible though. No excuse for allowing that blocked punt or fake field goal. Too many freshman playing out there at the moment. Not enough football IQ out there for sure.
Agree on Jake
There is more to it than meets the eye.
by John Berkowitz on Oct 25, 2009 1:53 PM PDT up reply actions
We Have To Protect...
…the frikken QB! If your protection isn’t there you’re done!
Washington Husky Football-Undefeated 1991 National Champions 12-0!
We didn't have it blocked
Oregon had called for punt block. They overloaded us on the left side and had more rushers then we could get blocked.
Somebody should’ve spotted it and called Time out. You can’t continue the play in that situation. If you see an overload on a punt attempt to one side and don’t have the bodies to get it blocked, calling time out would’ve remedied it.
All I saw was purple
I had a bad feeling on that play. Butler had stepped up and very visibly made some blocking assignment calls at the LOS, and just a couple seconds before the snap the Ducks shifted their personnel to overload the left side of the line. That obviously confused our blockers who didn’t adjust, and we saw the sickening result.
This one was very disappointing, because I really expected more, after LSU, USC and ND. Last year I didn’t epect anymore than not getting hurt. We have digressed. Oregon is good, ok. But so is LSU, USC and ND. As the season rolls on, our depth is showing up. Oregon outcoached us, big time, a result of a low-talent pool left by tywilly. We are now seeing the result of that coaching-joke we had been stuck with for 4 years. It will take more than this and next year to correct all the damage he did. With good recruiting the team will be deeper, faster and better in 2011. But this is a long term building process as we all see now.
Having said that, the coaching this year has been digressing right along with the players. Does one feed the other? Maybe, but those goal line calls, the lack of deep passing calls, few roll-outs with Jake being able to run are just impossible to understand. The entire thing is crumbling right before my purple eyes. I still think we will beat WSu, and possibly UCLA (they are a lot like UW right now) but I don’t see us winning at oregon state or against Cal.
So, let’s get going on renovating the play calling, throw some new stuff at teams, get Jake more involved running and let’s get some OL and DL recruits and more speed!
Go Dawgs! Beat oregon in 2010!
Oregon is probably the best squad we have played this season
I know we all hate to hear that but the Ducks are really good and I think they beat USC this coming weekend.
by John Berkowitz on Oct 25, 2009 1:52 PM PDT up reply actions
I would be interested in knowing %s on 1st down
play calling. I would bet 70% or more Sark calls for hand off to Polk between the tackles. Rarely have I seen it go for more than 2-3 yards. When we first started the season, I was pumped with the play calling, now it has become much more predictable. 1 fullback carry this year so far for a total of 2 yards (and a 1st down conversion).
To be fair, the playcalling has to be considered as a whole, as certain things set up subsequent plays. The frequency of 1st down handoffs helps set up play-action passes which have in general been pretty effective for us.
I do like the fact we establish a running game.
this is a play action based offense and if you don’t so that it won’t work….still it isn’t diversified enough to showcase Jake’s strength’s….he need to roll out more, throw on the run or tuck it in and take it.
by John Berkowitz on Oct 25, 2009 4:52 PM PDT up reply actions
We're not...
…getting enough out of it. Our passing game would open up more if the running attack was more of a threat. I like the quick hitting misdirection handoffs. We didn’t seem to do any of that last Saturday.
Washington Husky Football-Undefeated 1991 National Champions 12-0!
Turnovers
That killed us. The blocked punt was the beginning and you could see the balloon deflating after that. We got a great start though the redzone issue on the first drive haunted us all day. You can’t get down there and get nothing and more specifically with the horsepower the ducks have on offense you have to score TDs. Not being able to effectively run the ball is one of our biggest problems on offense. It’s better than it was compared to last year (WAY better) but it needs to be more consistent and break more long runs.
Washington Husky Football-Undefeated 1991 National Champions 12-0!
They don’t have the depth and overall talent to overcome it.
by John Berkowitz on Oct 26, 2009 9:12 AM PDT up reply actions
True John...
…but I’d rather see them clean it up and not make those mistakes. DJ’s teams rarley beat themselves. It seems in this decade we have beat ourselves more then we’ve simply been beaten by a beter opponet. Very sloppy play has become the norm.
True Sno
ND and ASU were game we beat ourselves in….very unfortunate.
by John Berkowitz on Oct 26, 2009 6:23 PM PDT up reply actions
Crazi Thoughts
What the hell happened? Fellas we started this game off on the right foot. In fact up until the zeros blocked the punt and scored on it, we were out playing them. Offense was clicking and the defense had stuff stopped.
I think we lost our freakin’ heads out there once the blocked punt went for an easy score. After that not much worked offensively or defensively.
I have to give both our D line and LBing unit a D for the game. D line did not get gap control again. Linebackers got caught reading flow vs. the Oregon spread and that is a huge NO-NO. Both times QB Jeromy Massoli (sp?) socred on those TD runs, our LBs followed the fake handoff to the Oregon RB going away. We got sucked in reading flow and Masolli went in untouched both times. You CAN’T read “flow” vs. the Oregon spread. You’ve got to stay home and get gap control- we didn’t do that and it put us in a big hole moments after the punt block TD.
Offensively we’ve got to put points on the board! We can’t gamble away a chance to score. If we can get a FG then so freakin’ be it. That INT in the endzone killed a lot of momentum and burried our offense in frustration. Put the dam 3 points up and take the “we’ll get it next time” approach. Not converting points is flat out killing US! We’ve got a great FG kicker- use him when we stall. Totally Unbelievable!
I’m seeing a lot of young coaching mistakes from Sark and Holt. Love both of them, but we can’t gamble away points nor field position. I realize we are banged up and don’t have some of our guys available. But don’t gamble things away. We’ve got a defense that has played big at times, which has made opportunistic stops. We’ve got a healthy Jake Locker, that can make something happen on any given play. I think we are “overthinking the room” a little. Just play, keep stuff simple, make plays, and dammit put points on the board. We stand no chance of winning another game if we continue coming away empty when in scoring distance.
Totally frustrated…
All I saw was purple
Good to see that you’re starting to see some of the same things the rest of us have been seeing this season. I’m generally optimistic on Sark and think he’s been very good for the program, but I’m also seeing some rough growing pains that have me a little concerned. He’s going to need to do some serious evaluation of his staff at the end of the year and be willing to make some tough calls if they are warranted. He’s said the right things about practicing special teams and placing importance on that part of the game. Well, it’s not coming through on the field – he needs to figure out if it’s simply talent, or if there are coaching upgrades that can be made.
He has to look at his own playcalling and time management and re-think things. I think he’s placing too much emphasis on hoarding his time outs. There have been multiple occasions in the last few weeks where we could’ve used a time out to get the right personnel out on the field before the next play is snapped, or to provide clear instructions to our players at critical junctures.
I will disagree on the decision to go for it on 4th down – I don’t think that was a bad decision by itself. But he clearly didn’t do a good job of communicating to Jake what the priorities were there. Again, use a time out and spell it out for Jake – tell him that his options are throw it if his receiver is clearly open, run it if it’s there, or throw it away. Do not make a risky throw that has a chance to be picked.
The other problem was the playcalling on that series. Our most effective play to gain 3-5 yards is the shotgun spread QB draw. When we spread 5 receivers wide, that forces the defense to have 5 defenders outside the tackle box that are essentially taken out of the play, and leaves our 5 blockers to create a running lane for Jake against 6 defenders. Our odds are excellent in those situations of converting. Instead, we run every play out of the I-formation, never once spreading out Oregon’s defense.
Even though we’d played well on defense up to that point, I think Sark knew that we weren’t going to be in a low-scoring game, and kicking FG’s in the red zone was not going to beat the Ducks. I have no problems going for it in that situation – I just question the playcalling leading up to that point and the poor decision by Jake (which can be partially blamed on coaching).
Our defense stopped looking so good when Oregon starting running the ball more and Masoli started becoming a running threat. Their offense is hard to stop when it’s running on all cylinders, and that requires that the QB be a viable threat in the option game. Our defense wasn’t disciplined enough to play assignment football, nor are we athletic enough to win one on one battles in space. Holt and Carrol had a lot of success defending Oregon’s offense at USC, but they had vastly superior athletes compared to what Holt has to work with at the UW right now.
Our best bet was to be able to strip the ball and generate some fumbles and confuse Masoli enough to pick him off once or twice. There were some fumbles, but we couldn’t recover any, and we weren’t able to trick Masoli into making a big passing mistake.
But the special teams breakdowns were the backbreakers – to give Oregon 6 easy points on the blocked punt, and to compound it by not taking a timeout to get our proper defense in there against their 2-point fake was huge, as was our inability to sniff out and defend their fake FG.
We were still in it to start the 3rd quarter, but going 3 and out and then let them score in 3 plays, followed later in the quarter by letting them convert a 3rd and 16 were the nails in the coffin.
Easily the sloppiest performance of the season, and plenty of blame to go around.
Sark needs to take maximum advantage of the bye week to re-evaluate what he’s doing right and wrong.
Kick the FG
I agree that we needed to put a lot of points up on the board to beat Oregon. But getting off a successful FG would generate a lot of offensive momentum and confidence. But when you come away with nothing- it destroys the psyche. Bottom line, we’ve got to put points on the board anytime we can. Your not going to win many games if you continue to get down there and come away with nothing. I’ll take 3 field goals over 1 TD every saturday- you do the math.
All I saw was purple
We needed to take risks to beat Oregon. Going safe and taking the FG wasn’t going to get it done.
As far as momentum, yes, it would’ve been some positive momentum. But it still would’ve left us trailing, as it was 8-3 at the time. There’s a subtle but significant difference between 6-8 vs. 10-8. In the former, it’s just a 2-point deficit, but it’s still a deficit. In the latter, it’s just a 2-point lead, but it’s a lead. It’s an important difference in the mentality of the players on the field. If you kick the FG, Oregon is feeling like they dodged a bullet. If you score the TD, Oregon is starting to begin to doubt themselves, and think that Washington can actually stay with them and maybe beat them.
Against a team like UCLA or ASU I definitely kick the FG in that situation, because I have a lot more confidence that we can score later to take the lead. But against a superior team like Oregon, you have to take some chances. As I said, the bigger problem was not making it clear to Jake on that 4th down that an interception was not an option – throw to a wide open guy, run the ball or throw the ball away, but don’t take a chance with a pass. And the worst problem was the play calling that led up to a 4th down play in the first place.
Now that we know Jake was suffering a quad bruise I can understand more why Sark was reluctant to run Jake much, but I still think he needed to take a shot in the shotgun spread of running the QB draw, even with a less than 100% Jake.
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