Coach Baird on Husky Football

Here they go again, back on the road searching for their first road victory since 2007, trying to beat an ASU team at their place, on a surface called grass, at 90 degrees and again as the underdogs. The Washington Huskies have a shot here but only if they clean up their act.
No turnovers, less penalties, and an improved kicking game are all critical to pull this off.  Then they have to hang on with their defense and hope the offense can move the ball against the conference’s best defense. Simple formula for victory, isn’t it?
It is hard to get anything out of statistics simply because of the quality of schedules are so different.  Washington has played the hardest schedule in the nation with their opponents having a combined 22-5 record (not including their UW game)while ASU has their three wins against Idaho State, currently defeated, Louisiana-Monroe, and the WSU Cougars.
Turnovers is factor number one because ASU leads the conference in turnover margin with a plus-9 on the season including 11 interceptions. Washington has likewise thrived on turnovers returning 3 or TD’s in each of their last 3 games. They have only lost 4 fumbles and 4 interceptions and sit at +3 on the year.  If the Huskies can win the turnover battle by 3 they will win the game. (In their last game vs. WSU, ASU threw 3 picks and lost 3 fumbles)
Dennis Erickson’s teams at WSU, Miami, and Oregon State have always played loose and have been notorious for penalties.  ASU is right in step leading the conference in penalties averaging 9 for over 80 yards per game.  If Washington can only commit 2-3 penalties on the night they will gain a whole lot of field position.  (especially eliminate any personal fouls.)
To start the second half against Arizona, the Huskies’ kicking game went south allowing a 50 yard kickoff return, dropping a punt inside their own 20, shanking the next punt, then dropping a kickoff. That can’t happen and ASU has an excellent punt returner so they need to cover really well.
The Husky defense should be solid against the run because it is so basic.  The Sun Devils will be mostly in gun with one back to the side of the quarterback.  They like to run the stretch sweep play to the opposite side of the back and will pull as many as two linemen including their center. They run the zone cutback play where the back reads for a hole and the linemen all double team zone block in the same direction. Then they will run bootleg off of each and quick throw to 3 and 4 wide receivers. They will mix in a reverse, screens and also the bubble quick screen that Washington had so much trouble with last weekend. Stop those 4 things and they win the game.
Their defense shows 4-3-4 but will play lots of man on the wide receivers and blitz or play zone up the middle.  Oregon State and Georgia had success with their balanced attack and Locker is a better quarterback than either of those two teams. He makes it hard for teams to blitz because he is so quick and if you miss him with the stunt he is out the gate and gone. He will need to have a big game and if he does Washington will get their first road win.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 7:04 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.