Huskies stink up the joint

Call it the definition of an emotional let down by the staff and players.

That candy ass interview with Yogi and Sark made me want to throw up.

I amsure weill bounce back but everyone learned some important lessons this week….perhaps the biggest is it is tough to play a game a week after a physical game against a USC team that bruised you up…it is a big factor.

They didn’t fill any of the keys to the game. They let Gerhart run like crazy, gave up that TD return we were worried about and gave them momentum, didn’t put enough pressure on Luck to force mistakes, made silly mistakes on turnovers, and they couldn’t really get anything going. Not even one key they could succeed. But they will learn the mistakes and thats how they improve. They can’t let any of those things happen against Notre Dame next week. But we can’t win every game, thats life.

I am liking what I am seeing from Jermaine Kearse. He is making some great and clutch catches the last couple of weeks. He should get some more targets in my opinion. I wish Locker targeted James Johnson more often, he seems to making the plays they need. And Chris Polk continues to look pretty good.

I don’t think I would get that down on this loss tonight. Holt will be all over the defense this week and fix those mistakes, and Sark will continue to motivate them really well. I don’t agree with the lucky to reach 6 wins and bowl thought John, I mean come on, they just beat USC last week and almost beat LSU. Losses happen and they can be fixed for the next week. This loss could also go back to being bruised up after the USC game, not at 100%.

Earth to the Locker hand wringers…Jake ain’t ready for the NFL

This was a team loss…and it happens.

If we played like this against idaho we would have lost….we have to be realistic…this team is still capable of playing stinkers. What a trip…from the opening kick off we just didn’t put enough together to compete.

Last year and maybe this year the Huskies had the toughest schedule in the nation. We need to schedule three div II teams and be rested for conference play ala Stanford. Who makes up these schedules? We used to play San Jose, Idaho and a third gimmee but that has all changed as the team got worse.
One quarterback one running back an impossible schedule with no depth. Oregon lost their no. one running back but has two behind him just as good.
God help us next year if Stanford has a top ten recruiting class and another Gephart on the way supposedly better than the one who ran for 200 yards today.
How they find this many 4.0 students is quite intriguing. I hope they are not sinking to the USC level, another premier private university, with paid players with agents.
They (Stanford) will soon find out they are as unwelcome in the Rose Bowl as the Huskies found out after going three years in a row.
In LALAL land TV is king and you need not apply if you don’t have a LALA land zip code.

… we are probably too guilty of going too far to the extremes in terms of last week’s win and this week’s loss. However, I can’t help but to notice the following:

1. I can’t remember a game in which Jake was completley neutralized. He made mistakes and he made few plays

2. The O-line continues to struggle on the left side in particular.

3. I think it is time for us to start officially worrying about our D-Line. We’ve been poo-poo’ing the lack of pass rush and the ease of RBs to get past our first wave many times over the past three weeks. No quick fix here – it is just something we’ll have to overcome.

4. Its one game, but we have plenty of strong running teams left to play – especially Cal, OSU, and Oregon.

Up to this point they’ve impressed me in every game. This wasn’t one of them however. Looked confused tentative and really out of sync. The defense took a major step backwards in this game. Like JB said couldn’t tackle, couldn’t get off their blocks and were just flat out pushed around.

It has to be the worst game I have seen him play while at Washington.

What anyone who watches last night’s dissaster will see of our Husky defense, is that Coach Holt has no solution, as of yet, against trap blocking. Our DL and LB’s play too conservatively. All our foes have to do is widen their stances and spreads, and we play “position ball” – not blowing through gaps to try to stop the run in the backfield, nor seeing the trap coming, and then flowing to fill the resulting gap.

Gerhart did not look slow to me, he was just wisely patient as he let the trap blocks fall into place, and then used his great acceleration abilities to kick our butts all night long. My pals and I, three of which are former DL’s, see this as a problem that Coach Holt needs to address.

It did not help that Jake fell apart, but he is young an human after all, and we had way too much pressure put on the offense with our complete failure on the defensive side of the game. Other than the Stanford turnovers, we completely sucked on defense. Yep, must have been the presence of that Coach I will not name, ’cause it sure looked like he was back in charge in once again.

Is this game on Holt? Last weekend we were praising him for his efforts of putting together the perfect gameplan vs. USC.

I don’t like playing the role of “I told you so” guy. But I did mention on this blog that Stanford was the trap game. Furthermore nobody believed me nor backed me. Call me crazi…

But this loss isn’t on Nick Holt. We lost this game in every phase of the game. Special teams was lousy, serving up a TD on the opening kickoff. Offensively we are NOT scoring. With all that skill-position talent and we can’t score. We haven’t put up winnable offensive numbers since the Idaho game- this is a HUGE concern!

Meanwhile Stanford exposed a weakness that needs to get fixed by Coz. Our offensive line had issues handling the Furd’s 3 man D front. They stunted all damn night on us and it didn’t allow us to keep it 3rd down and managable. Instead we were continually looking at 3rd and long.

We lost this game on the L.O.S. fellas- point blank. Our D Line couldn’t get gap control and our LBs have to over compensate [see Gerhart’s total rushing yards]. Offensively we could not control the L.O.S. where we lost site of Stanford D line personnel in their 3-man front.

I thought the coaches were working on adjustments on the sidelines, they brought in different personnel but to no avail. Simply put- we played as if we were satisfied with the USC victory the week before. We thought a win on the Farm was in the bag. But what we didn’t see is the bag had a hole at the bottom.

Coz has got to figure out how to fix our O line vs. a stunting 3-man D front. If not, folks are going to see it and copy it vs. US. Defense is all about gap control and we just didn’t get it done.

1-1 in league now (like I said) and now we are climbing an uphill battle, because their are a lot of credible Pac 10ers still on our schedule. Stanford was a must win in my book and we didn’t get it done. PUT the G— Dam USC win in the stinkin’ closet from here on OUT!

Personnel wise, this is still much the same group that went 0-12. And despite the wholesale inebriation last week, remember that there were times in that game too that they looked much like the 2008 team. We weren’t really very good, but USC was worse (that day), as admitted by several coaches and players.

So now we come to the Doggone in Silicon, and guess what: it’s hard to win week after week relying upon raw emotion and effort. And when you do relax a bit, there results the nauseating sensation that TW is back on the sidelines.

Am I suggesting that we lower our expectations? Not at all. But maybe we need to put the kool-aid aside just long enough to be more realistic. By this I mean that instead of seeing everything in a rose tint, we go back to a more critical evaluation of our strengths and weaknesses. There are holes in this team, so let’s figure out how to fix them. The coaching staff is (I still believe) excellent, but not infallible; Sark and Holt will have to scrutinize themselves.

Understanding that we’re not yet near the top is essential to learning how to get there and then not get knocked off. It sucks to lose a game like this one, but now let’s figure out how to make the next steps on a not-so-short-as-we’d-hoped road back to greatness.

OK, I’ve got my helmet on.

Locker’s inability to hit open men in Stanford’s secondary derailed the Husky running game. Once Stanford saw that Locker was not there…they started loading up the box. Locker threw into coverage and got caught…Locker over threw receiver’s and caught got. Locker was hesitiant on throwing the ball all day. I can remember only once throwing the ball to our tight end. Holt’s defensive scheme to stop the run was HORRENDOUS. Holt should of watched the Oregon game…perfect example of “How to Stop the Run”. The age old saying of “better to be pissed off than pissed on”. Well the Huskies were pissed on. The Huskies didn’t just get puched in the face, they got sledged hammered to the head. Being 0-12 last year is “no excuse”.

We were all hoping for the quick fix but it is apparent this is going to take years to fix, four or five. Let’s keep up our support and watch for improvement as the season progresses. But we are so thin at every position the outlook is not good. We are one injury away from a TW finish to the season.

Harbaugh is in his 3rd year!!! Ohh

Nationwide they are getting the cream of the crop. Just looked at the Stanford recruit commitment list for next year. Twenty three commits ONLY TWO ARE FROM CALIFORNIA. WOW. And the next Gerhart, the younger, is not on the 2010 list.

Not even USC can approach that level. They have to poach players away from other schools, namely Arkansas the latest.

I was hoping our annual claim to the former lands of the Oregon Territory that lie north of the Columbia River would be more meaningful this year. WTF happened? The game wasn’t televised in my vicins…

When a few readers attack you after the loss.

Same thing happened over in the Dawgman chat room…some guy called me out for drill.

Apathy is gone…and that is a good thing…people care.

Point is when a 235 back gets into the secondary the point is moot….you are in damage control mode. I don’t care if you have Taylor Mays and Ronnie Lott back there…it is basically clean up time.

The majority of all games are won on the line of scrimmage…we were beaten on both sides of the ball on the line of scrimmage…that is the story of the game.

We were out coached…not calling out Locker. Stanford is one dimensional and they will get beat on the road… a max of 4 more wins at it’s best

Unlike Willingham Sark isn’t going to throw Jake to the wolves to see if it works. He needs a healthy Jake for all 12 games and just isn’t going to run him much.