Coach Baird on Husky Football

For years Dennis Erickson’s teams have been known for their offenses and most of the time that meant a one-back attack that featured the zone and counter running plays and, of course, a wide-open passing attack with the quarterback under center.
This year Arizona State has gone to the shotgun spread but they continue to run the zone play in which the lone back literally picks his hole and the offensive line all block in the same direction using double teams against the defensive line.
That is not all that has changed this year because the Sun Devils are currently featuring a dominating defense. ASU leads the Pac-10 in just about every major defensive statistical category. They do so because they attack the quarterback with a variety of blitzes and play a lot of man-to-man in the secondary.
Last weekend ASU sacked the WSU Cougars 12 times, intercepted two passes and recovered two fumbles.  Along the way the held WSU to minus 57 yards rushing and 181 total yards on 66 plays.  Now considering the Cougars got 99 of that on one pass play that means WSU’s offense gained only 87 yards on 65 plays. Wow!
On Saturday in Tempe, the Sun Devils will, no doubt, challenge the Huskies offensive line and their ability to protect Jake Locker, who leads the conference in passing. Now, obviously Jake is a lot more mobile than most of the quarterbacks ASU has faced in their 3-2 start to the season.
ASU has arguable played the weakest schedule in the league to date, beating not only a youthful Cougar team but also hapless Idaho State, 50-3 (not to be mistaken for either Boise State or the University of Idaho, which at 5-1 has only lost to Washington). ASU also beat Louisiana-Monroe 38-14 so its three wins have come against teams that have won a total of two games. They have lost to Georgia and Oregon State but their defense has still been stellar.
Their defense has been suffocating against every team they have played, The Sun Devils lead the conference in turnovers with 11 interceptions and five fumbles. It will be the toughest defense Jake Locker has played so far and the Huskies’ protection schemes will surely be tested.
On the back end of its defense, ASU likes to play quarters — or a combination man/zone — with all defensive backs playing one-quarter of the field and then locking up with the man who threatens their zone the most.  The Devils have really good athletes in the secondary and are not afraid to go man-to- man with anyone’s receivers. It will be an added challenge for the Husky receivers to avoid jams and get enough separation to get open.
I can’t imagine that Locker will not take some shots downfield against this sort of defense. Look for screens and draws as another way of attacking this sort of pressure defense.
ASU is basically a 4-3-4 defense and often crowd the line of scrimmage with eight-nine players so the Huskies need account for all of them.
Additionally, playing at home will give the Sun Devil defenders the benefit of their crowd and their natural turf that Washington doesn’t even have a practice field of to work out on. It’s called grass and it doesn’t exist at Montlake.
When you have a match-up between a good offense and a good defense the game is most likely to be decided by either ASU’s offense or Washington’s defense. That and the kicking game, of course.  Last weekend’s collapse in the kicking game almost took the Huskies out of the game against Arizona.
The Huskies’ punter dropped a snap inside his own 10, then shanked the next punt. This after they gave up a 50-yard kick off return and then dropped a kickoff. They can ill afford not to be solid in the kicking game because ASU also has the best punter in the conference as well as an excellent return game.
Arizona State’s defense features a couple of pretty good linebackers.  Senior Mike Nixon has been joined by freshman sensation Vontaz Burfit, who at 6-3 and 240 pounds, is already being considered a pro prospect. He will be wearing number No. 7 and is really a great looking player. Washington will have it’s hands full when they are on offense beating this defense.
Protecting the football will be paramount again and if Washington can not turn the ball over they will most likely get its first road win in almost three years. Last weekend they only had one turnover and that was on a pass that went right through the hands of the Husky receiver before being intercepted. Then when they intercepted two themselves at the end of the game, they won. Turnovers decide football games and if Washington has none it will probably win.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 4:37 pm by cstark and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.