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DE-licious apples! CenturyLink Field, Seattle, Washington. Behind a stout defense and a productive offense, the Washington Huskies throttled the Washington State Cougars, 38-21, in the 104th playing of the Apple Cup.
Next season Washington plays all of its games at CenturyLink Field -- a noisy, formidable setting -- while its venerable stadium by the lake gets a face lift. The Huskies' oft-criticized defense held the Cougars to 38 yards rushing, registered 7 sacks, picked off a pass and recovered a fumble. And special teams blocked a punt for a touchdown, this for good measure. In its 7 wins this season, Washington has held its opponents to 49.6 yards rushing while yielding 342.7 yards through the air. On the season, UW has given up 283.75 yards-per-game passing (in all 12 games) and ranks 115th in FBS football in pass defense. In its 5 losses, UW has held the opposition to 201.2 passing yards per game. See Table 2 (Stop the run and win the game). Table 1. Defensive stats in wins and losses.
"I thought our kids were ready to play," WSU coach Paul Wulff said. "We came into a pretty tough environment and the crowd noise had an impact on us early in the game. They (the Huskies) settled down a bit and had more plays than we did." See Bob Condotta's article from the Seattle Times. It was an offensive show for UW, too. QB Keith Price completed 21 out of 29 passes for 291 yards and three touchdowns, which, with no interceptions on the day, makes for a passing-efficiency rating of 190.84. His 29 touchdown passes on the season are a school record, breaking Cody Picket's 28 TD passes in 2002. Price's PE rating on the season, 157.91, ranks 13th best in FBS football. (See Table 2). Chris Polk rushed 22 times for 100 yards and an average of 4.5 yards per carry. True freshman Kasen Williams (5 receptions, 74 yards, 2 touchdowns) -- last year's Washington state Class 4A high jump champion -- made a spectacular run following a pass reception, high-hurdling would-be tackler Nolan Washington. (See photo in the Seattle Times). The win marks Washington's second consecutive winning season, no matter what happens in its bowl game. --------------- What is the quickest way to turn the Washington football program into a top 25 team? For starters, the Huskies will begin to compete with the big boys, as in the top 25, when defensive coordinator Nick Holt begins to think "SEC front four" -- or, say, a Haloti Ngata -- when out on the recruiting trail and settles for nothing less. See the supporting data for this contention in Table 2 below. For Price's passing efficiency rating see Table 3. Table 2. Stop the run and win the game In its seven victories, Washington (7-5, 5-4 Pac-12) has held its seven opponents to an average of 49.57 yards per game on the ground, which would rank first in the FBS if those seven games were all Washington had played. In its five losses, UW has allowed 272.8 rushing yards per game. In all its twelve games, UW ranks 54th in the FBS in rushing defense (6th in the Pac-12), yielding 142.58 yards per game. This table seems to say stop the run and win the game.
Table 3. Keith Price's cumulative passing efficiency.
Richard Linde, aka Malamute can be reached at malamute@4malamute.com |
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Last week the Huskies lost 38-21; this week they
won by the same score. What a difference playing in the mostly friendly
digs of a CenturyLink Field makes for, this in front of 64,559 howling
fans. It made for DE-licious pickings and sackings, with an emphasis on
the DE, which stands for defense.