Five Husky Takeaways: Arizona State

1. The offensive line is suddenly horrendous. Arizona State's defensive front is good, but not anywhere near what the Huskies made them look like. I don't think anybody expected the OL to be excellent this year, but it looked in the first few games like they were going to be around average to above-average and do enough things well that the offense could put up points. But now we're left with a pile of garbage at the front door of the offense for the umpteenth year in a row. It's starting to feel insulting on a personal level.

2. As a coach, you have to protect your players. Steve Sarkisian failed at this many times last week. He failed to protect them when he and his staff didn't put together a gameplan during the week that would give them a fighting chance. He failed to protect them when he made no adjustments to stem the bleeding and save them from further embarrassment. He failed to protect them when he allowed his already beat up starting quarterback to get pummeled play after play until he physically could not play any more. Sickening.

3. People love Justin Wilcox, but the luster on that shine is coming off pretty quickly. After much hullabaloo about how UW's offense going uptempo was going to help the defense perform against uptempo spread teams, here we are with yet another year where it seems like those offenses are just going to have their way with the D. Sure, the defense was put into bad situations but the offense's 78 or so three-and-punt drives, but they still weren't any good. Coverage by anyone other than Marcus Peters is a crapshoot (at best), pass rush is virtually nonexistent, mobile QBs get outside contain whenever they feel like it, and 4 or 5 yards is there for RBs most of the time.

4. I don't know how a team goes from having the #1 running back in the country to having a game where they're so bad running the ball they can't even run for no yards.

5. The season is not over yet. There's still a lot for the Huskies to play for, and a lot of winnable games on the schedule. But something has to give, and changes need to be made, because performances like Saturday's are unacceptable.