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Can I get a "Hell Yeah, Dawg"?
via i.qkme.me
As many of you know, I was in Seattle this weekend to personally take in the new Husky Stadium as well as the Bronco Bustin' that our Dawgs put on Boise State. It was a great time and I'd like to thank Kirk, Tige, Brad and a few others who wish to remain anonymous for meeting up with me out there. And, to Lear Pilot, we will meet again. Also, big thanks to Anthony for holding down the fort during the weekend.
Now, let's get to some Dots.
- Want to know what football perfection looks like? Courtesy of Scott Eklund.
Stunning photo by Scott Eklund of Redbox Pictures from tonight's win over Boise State. #RetakeMontlake #Dawgs pic.twitter.com/iuMh9sBDz1
— UW Football (@UW_Football) September 1, 2013 - There was a lot of buzz around the various video board features that complemented the #RetakeMontlake theme in the stadium Saturday night. The official video is called "We Return" and is embedded below for your viewing pleasure:
- Lots of national pundits are chiming in on the overall impressiveness of the Huskies Saturday night victory. By now, you've heard all the stats related to how Boise State has never lost worse under Peterson no matter which metric, be it offensive or defensive, during his tenure. KC Joyner, one of ESPN's advanced stats gurus, broke down the entire game on film and noted that this game was more about Washington's execution than BSU's lack thereof. In fact, he notes the UW's passing game was actually more impressive in the vertical game than in the short-pass game (where we threw 10 screens for a total of 93 yards), which is a sign that UW may well meet the statistical threshold for offensive potency that often is associated with conference championship levels. This is kind of a heavy stats read, but the bottom line is that Joyner feels that UW's offensive performance is "for real" and portends a run at the Pac 12 championship.
- Kevin Gemmell highlights UW's dominating performance in his "What We Learned" column and then checks in with a video "One Good Thing" for UW. Must have been hard to pick only one.
- Also from ESPN, columnist Mark Schlaback has a smattering of UW anecdotes in his weekend wrap-up including accolades for both Husky Stadium and Bishop Sankey. Interesting to note that he left Keith Price out of his top 5 for QB performances in week 1.
- SI's Martin Rickman was impressed with UW's big win over Boise State and reminded everyone, in particular the Coug and Duck fans who believe that Boise State came into the game as a far lesser opponent than they normally are, that SI.com columnists had picked BSU as a "BCS Buster" in 2013.
- Stewart Mandel calls UW's win over Boise State a "statement game".
- Jeremy Fowler of CBS was also impressed with the Huskies and with how much fun Steve Sarkisian reported to be having calling the plays in the new UW attack.
- NFL.com did a recap of the college football weekend and highlights the big win for UW in the new Husky Stadium (this is a great recap of all the various storylines of the weekend).
- UW leads off Ivan Maisel's popular "Three Point Stance" column.
- NBC Sports Talk says that UW's victory "defends the honor of the Pac 12". Not sure what that means, but I do know that us Huskies are a generous and magnanimous crowd.
- The UW Daily describes UW's performance on Saturday as "dazzling" and indicative of the team's true potential.
- Dave Boling draws the link between UW's shiny new digs and their shiny new offensive attack.
- Jerry Brewer plays on a similar theme in his column as he notes how the congruence of positive factors seem to be coming together all at the right time for UW.
- There was another side to this game and it was covered extensively back in Boise. First, Bronco Beat writer, BJ Rains, covers all the particulars in Chris Peterson's biggest beat down as a head football coach.
- Boise columnist Brian Murphy referred to the "vanilla playbook" in Boise State's surprising no-huddle offense as an area that needs desperate attention if BSU is to get right.
Extra Dots
Since this was the first game of the season and the first ever in the new Husky Stadium, I thought I'd leave some of my own impressions of the overall experience in the form of extra Dots.
- The new stadium shined in several ways. The on-the-field experience was perfection and the various nods to Husky history - including the Ring of Honor (what a great surprise that was) to the various "great moments" stations throughout the stadium were well-appreciated. However, there were definitely some bugs to work out. There were several glitches with the video boards which resulted in no updated CFB scores or game stats getting posted. The people-flow through the stadium and at the concession stands were also poorly planned. Oh, and running out of food early in the third quarter is a missed opportunity. Definitely some bugs that can be worked out before Idaho State. Still, I appreciated that hard-working staff (all of whom were also doing this for the "first-time" and the abundance of patience shown by the fans.
- I thought RT Ben Riva's flat out domination of Boise State's best defender, Demarcus Lawrence, along with Micah Hatchie's strong overall effort at LT, were the most surprising aspects of the offensive performance and portend good things for the rest of the season.
- Lots of questions surrounded the defensive secondary coming into this one. Consider them all asked and answered. Boise State was expected to have a huge advantage with their depth at WR. However, Marcus Peters was clearly the best player in the UW Secondary vs BSU Passing Game matchup and Greg Ducre more then held his own by sticking to each of his assignments. This was a huge test successfully passed for the Huskies.
- One set of questions not answered quite as well was how UW would fare against teams with bigger lines and backs who want to run up the gut. While Danny Shelton was effective in holding his gaps, Boise State definitely was able to leverage its size advantages with Jay Ajayi and Aaron Baltazar to get a lot of plays "falling forward". This does raise the question as to how stout we can be against bigger backs and power rushing teams in the P12.
- The special teams - especially coverage units - were lights out. I thought Dwayne Washington shined even brighter on special teams then he did as a backup to Bishop Sankey.
- Deontae Cooper's first carry took everyone by surprise such that we weren't able to cheer him / honor him as extensively as he deserved. Penalty flag aside, I suspect that Deontae was just fine with being able to get through that moment without excessive (and embarrassing) fanfare. Still, I was thrilled for the young man and I got chills when the "Coop" calls came out of the stands.
- Last dot for Keith Price. The thing that made KP so special in 2011 was his ability to keep plays alive and then keep his eyes downfield long enough to make something happen. Those improvisational traits evaporated last year as breakdowns always led to him throwing the ball away or putting it on the ground. On Saturday night, he was all about keeping plays alive. Even when he got "happy feet" on some plays early in the game, the worst you could say is that he didn't keep with the routes long enough before improvising. Still, he did keep his eyes downfield and he was looking to make plays happen. That is the secret ingredient that was missing in 2012. The TD pass to Perkins on the broken play was vintage Keith Price and one of the best highlights of his record-setting career at UW.