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Useless facts. Check their voracity at your own risk.
- The average child laughs 300 times per day.
- The average adult laughs 17 times per day.
- A pregnant goldfish is called a "twit."
- If you go blind in one eye, you only lose about 1/5 of your vision, but all of your depth perception.
- A Boeing 747's wingspan is longer than than the Wright Brothers' first flight.
- Tom Sawyer was the first novel written on a typewriter.
- If Texas was a country, it would have the fifth-largest GNP of any country in the world.
- There are approximately one million ants for each human.
- Half of the foods eaten throughout the world today were developed by farmers in the Andes Mountains.
- The "Golden Arches" of McDonald's fame are more recognized world-wide than the Christian cross.
- According to the Texas Department of Highways in Fort Worth, the world's population of cows burps 50 million tons of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere annually. A group of ten cows burps enough to heat a small house adequately and run its stove for a year.
- In the last 3,500 years, there have only been 230 accumulated years of peace throughout the civilized world.
- Over 60% of all marriages end in divorce.
- Over 400 Quarter Pounders can be made from a single cow.
- The average man's beard would grow to just short of 28 feet if never shaved.
- A fully-loaded super tanker traveling at cruising speed takes about 20 minutes to stop.
- Typically, men can read smaller print than women, but women can hear better.
Enough of that nonsense. To your questions!
DawgMotion:Now that the staff is settled and recruiting is back in high gear for 2017 and beyond, which staff members are responsible for which regions?
UWDP: This is a good question, and one to which I really don't know the answer. I really don't know how Chris Petersen allocates his staff in terms of recruiting, whether it's by position, region, best fit, etc. I'm sure there's someone out here that can answer it better than me, and I hope they do in the comments.
Flog Dawg:Do the Huskies try to pick up junior college transfer receiver for 2016?
UWDP: For 2016, I think that ship has sailed. There really aren't any left in the past year's recruiting cycle not already signed, sealed and delivered elsewhere.
If you mean 2017, it's a possibility, but I doubt the odds are very high. For anybody that doesn't already know, the pool of junior college athletes available to the University of Washington is pretty small, because the UW doesn't offer any type of physical education major, and once the elective credits are filled, no more PE classes apply when a JC student attempts to enroll at Washington. Many of the JC players that have transferred in to the UW in the recent past were full qualifiers out of high school, but without the desired offers to play football. They've attended a junior college to bolster their football attractiveness, not out of any academic need. For a JC player to be eligible to gain admittance to the UW, he has to be on a relatively serious academic track, which isn't always the case. Schools that accept PE credits from a junior college have a much larger pool of potential recruits.
I don't think Petersen is adverse to taking junior college athletes on principle, but the academic requirements can make the effort prohibitive. And all other things being equal, I think Petersen would rather get players straight out of high school, with more time to impact them as football players and as people.
deltron:I'm not nearly an expert, but it looks like that most Pac-12 defenses play a variation of Cover-4 or Cover 6 defense. How can the Husky offense better attack those coverages in the passing game? With the limited personal at wide receiver, is there better route combinations or maybe formations that would help? Thanks
UWDP: The two most common coverages are actually cover 2 and cover 3. For anyone that doesn't know, the number refers to the number of defenders that have deep coverage responsibility. In a non-blitz base cover 2 defense, that's typically the two safeties, and the cornerbacks have shallow coverage responsibilities on the outside, and three linebackers have the shallow zones in the middle. That means the "short" zones are divided into fifths, and the deep part of the field is divided in half. In a cover 3, it's usually the free safety and the two corners that have the deep coverage zones, with the strong safety and three linebackers having shallow zone coverage. That leaves four zones covering the short part of the field, and 3 men covering the deep zones.
The way the defense is aligned on the field suggests that against a cover 2, the "best" places to attack are the deeper zones, with fewer people. Against a cover 3, the best places to attack are the shallower zones, and the deep ball is tougher to get. On a very basic level, that's true. The far bigger truth is that the best place to attack any zone is either in front of or between the levels of the zone. That means the quick-hitting stuff that fans here rail against (think "bubble screen," and watch the fireworks start), and in the deep intermediate stuff between the underneath coverage and the last line of defense. Without playmakers that can catch short passes and turn them into big gains (and the requisite blocking to assist them), the short stuff can end up being a lot of short gains. Really, the deep intermediate is the most susceptible part of any pass defense. But those are the toughest throws in football to make, because they're the slowest-developing, they require the most precision in route running, and they require a quarterback with either a very strong arm or fantastic anticipation in throwing the ball prior to his receiver coming out of his route.
Against a cover 2, the best deep intermediate routes utilize the middle of the field, in the area behind the linebackers, and in front of and between the safeties. Against a cover 3, the best deep intermediate routes can be somewhat shallower due to fewer defenders in the front line of the zone, but the windows between the deep cover men are a bit smaller.
This is a pretty simplistic overview, and a more complete answer involving things like "pattern matching" and "Tampa 2" are required.
EastCoastHusky:Will will start signing the big time recruits we have been finishing second with as of late. Like we seemingly have with the david longs, Chris Warren, Javon mckinnlys and boss Tagaloas of the worls?
UWDP: Do you mean guys like Kentrell Love, Levi Owunzurike, Byron Murphy, Camilo Eifler, Sean McGrew, and Brandon Wellington? Or are you more referring to guys like Luke Wattenberg, Benning Potoa'e, Budda Baker, and Jake Browning?
I get the angst about missing out on big names, but every school out there - even the ones that regularly compete for that paper crown of "recruiting national champion," miss out on far more guys than they end up getting. And I'd love to have any and all of those guys on the roster right now. But I wouldn't get too caught up in the hype - only one of those guys has played a down of college football yet, and I'll take Myles Gaskin's 1,302 yards and 14 TD's over Chris Warren's 470 and 4.
The Huskies are already signing those guys. They aren't getting the memorable ones that build the drama up to their commitment so far. But that's as far as you can really go, and even that's in a sample size that's too small to do much knitting. I was skeptical of Petersen's ability to recruit at Washington, and I'm duly impressed thus far, both with his results and his trajectory given the state of things on the field.
Djfloreez:What do you all see as the celing and floor for JoJo Mathis? Dude has a motor!
UWDP: Jojo Mathis never really seemed to get comfortable at the UW in his first two seasons. At the end of 2014, I probably would've put the odds at 50/50 that he'd even be back for 2015, especially considering that he had a redshirt year available. But the guy really bought in to what the Chris Petersen regime was selling, and started to become a leader in 2015. I'm impressed.
Mathis is a great athlete, there's no doubt. I expect big things from him in 2016, in no small part because I think he's one of those guys that's really going to be affected by the fact that he's a senior, and his career hasn't probably been as prolific thus far as he'd expected. The key is going to be finding the right role; in 2015 he typically came off the field in the nickel package because he wasn't really an interior lineman, and he wasn't as versatile as the combination of Corey Littleton and Travis Feeney. Given his attributes as a football player, he seems like someone that could step in for Feeney at the Buck position, and really flourish as a pass rusher and playmaker. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if that's what happens.
With the right role, the ceiling for Mathis is All Pac 12, and a double-digit sack season. The floor is that he's a very solid starter at defensive end.
DawMotion:Have been lurking for years finally signed up have loved the thought provoking discourse that this website has offered. That being said, my question is this, The Huskies will beat Oregon in Autzen this year right? Why? Why not?
UWDP: Oregon was two different teams in 2015. Neither one had a very good defense in 2015.
With Vernon Adams, Oregon might've been the best team in the Pac 12. The Ducks certainly had the best win of any team in the conference, taking down a rolling Stanford Cardinal in Palo Alto. Without him, they were a rudderless ship, and the lack of even competent quarterback play exposed every single other weakness the Ducks had, on both sides of the ball. So really, answering your question is probably more about what Oregon does heading in to 2016 than what Washington does.
If the Ducks somehow, miraculously, catch lightning in a bottle for a second straight season with a graduate transfer quarterback looking to follow his dream of gaining a Master's degree and better himself academically in one of the fine graduate programs the University of Oregon offers that his previous institute of higher learning somehow did not, (in this case, non-profit management) and find a talent like Vernon Adams, the Ducks will probably win a home contest against the Huskies,
If Dakota Prukop is merely mortal, or finds that his love of academics supercedes his love of game, or that the rigors of his studies in pursuing his master's degree need to take precedence, then this game becomes imminently winnable. A virtual toss-up.
ElvislovesUW:Our WR core will improve in 2016 and demonstrate it in Spring practice and Fall practice. If you could add input to Coach Smith & Coach Hamdan, what would you suggest?
UWDP: I certainly hope you're correct, Elvis.
One thing I'd suggest is that the UW decides if it actually wants to be good at the short screen game. If it does, then I'd tell the entire group that playing time is going to be predicated on willingness and ability to block. To my eye, none of the guys on the roster has separated himself enough from the others with his hands or route-running to see the field on those bases alone. Even if the coaches decide they don't need to feature the horizontal passing game, I'd still beat into all of them the need to be physical. Even the biggest guys at the position are redirected too easily by contact at the line, and too frequently outmanned when the ball is in the air.
For the fans, I'd try to remember that these guys aren't actually hopeless; the two primary guys coming back are only going to be true juniors (one who has very little football experience), and the other leading returner is a true sophomore. None was really projected as an immediate impact player (as per recruiting rankings). A natural progression should mean a fair bit of improvement on its own.
JoeinWSea:Seriously?!
UWDP: Your multiple choice answers:
A. Yes
B. No
C. Sometimes
D. Never
E. None of the Above
F. All of the Above
Thanks for reading, all. Make sure to tune in as the Dawgs take on the Ducks at "Deep Woods: Off (with 40% DEET)" Arena.