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Trumpeted trio defuse 'Cuse Huskies rally back from 10-point deficit Malamute, 11 September 2010 Led by its trumpeted trio of Jake Locker, Jermaine Kearse, and Chris Polk, the Washington Huskies rallied back from a 10-point deficit to coast to a 41-20 victory over the Syracuse Orange at Husky Stadium. Quarterback Locker, with a sterling performance, if not Heisman-esque, passed for 289 yards and 4 touchdowns, while completing 22 of 33 passes with no interceptions. Locker's passing efficiency on the game, 180.23, was the third highest of his career, exceeded only by games against Idaho (192.61) and California (216.23) last season. Locker's PE on the season is 150.17; he's completed 60% of his passes in two games, a nice bogey to reach. Locker's steady improvement in career passing efficiency is shown in Figure 1 below (taken over the 2009 and 2010 seasons). Figure 2 shows Locker's career passing efficiency before Steve Sarkisian's and Doug Nussmeir's arrival (taken over the 2007 and 2008 seasons.) The data shown in Figure 1 partly explain the fifth year senior's decision to finish out his career with the Dawgs and nix the pros at the end of the 2009 season. He's getting better with each game, improving steadily over his first two years at Washington, according to the numbers. Having a career day, junior wide receiver Kearse caught 9 passes for 179 yards and 3 touchdowns, with a long of 57 yards that came mostly on a run after catch. Running back Polk rushed for 117 yards on 20 carries and got off a 52-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter, to give the Huskies a 34-13 lead. The Huskies' defense held Syracuse to just 336 total yards, sacking quarterback Ryan Nassib once, while putting considerable pressure on him most of the day. As a result, Nassib finished with a mediocre passing efficiency (100.77) on the game. In his blog, Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times, the fastest typist in town, quotes defensive coordinator Nick Holt as saying, "I thought other than a couple missed tackles and the fourth quarter touchdown on second and long, I thought our guys did a nice job, I really did. They executed the game plan, did a nice job in coverage, played the run real well. I knew they were going to try to run the ball and for the most part I thought we were really really stingy." Figure 1. Locker's improvement in career passing efficiency over his last 14 games. (106.71 - 119.45). Call it the Sarkisian/Nussmeier effect.
Figure 2. Locker's career passing efficiency in his first 16 games (the 2007/2008 seasons (starting at 136.46 and ending at 104.68).
Richard Linde, aka Malamute can be reached at malamute@4malamute.com |
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