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Huskies need math lesson Hey, Huskies, what's 1/2 and 1/2? By: Richard Linde, 16 October. 2003 Fans have offered a number of reasons for the Huskies’ poor start this season.
Fans have heaped blame on QB Cody Pickett for turnovers, have squawked about poor blocking—about some veronicas here and there—and have excoriated its young wide receivers, the UW novilleros, who allegedly quaver at the sight of full-grown bulls. And last, but not least, fans blame athletic director Barbara Hedges for the poor start. I have no idea why? She doesn't administer the battles, drill the troops or count cadence at boot camp. The real problem with the Dawgs is that they show up for just half a game. The Huskies have yet to combine two halves of well-played football together, putting them back to back, one after the other. Two die makes a pair of dice, two pant legs makes a pair of pants, and two halves makes one football game. In its six games, a 3-3 season thus far, the Dawgs have slept in one half of each game, while playing robustly in the other halves. They've played 3 complete games when they should have played six; the Huskies figure that 6 times 1/2 equals 6. So much for math classes taught on the upper campus at the UW. In the six halves of the six games the Huskies have played well in, they've outscored their opponents, 102-41. In the other six halves, they've been outscored, 105-51. Combing all 12 halves (the goods with the goods and the bads with the bads), the Dawgs win the game 153 to 146, as if they were a Loyola Marymount basketball team playing under Paul Westhead. Good enough? Nope. In its three losses (OSU, UCLA, Nevada), the UW has outplayed the winning team in one half of each game. (See Table 1 below). In its three wins (Indiana, Idaho, Stanford), the UW started slowly in the first half of each game, only to come roaring back in the second half and hold its opponent scoreless in the fourth quarter.
Ironically, in its last two games—both losses—the UW has played
a winning game if you couple the first halves of those games, and call it one game.
Pickett, a binary poster boy for the West Coast
Offense, tattooed his receiver's sternums with the cross of the football so many
times, that they'll need laser surgery to burn them off. That was in the first
half, mind you; in the second half, he tattooed the wrong guys with the cross,
the benefactors being Jarrad Page (interception return for TD) and Rodney Leisle
(subsequent drive leading to a field goal).
In its other real loss, the one at Columbus, the UW outscored Ohio State 9-7 in the last half, and, in both halves of that game, the Huskies played error free ball, without a turnover. The solution to the Huskies’ dilemma is quite simple, as simple as adding 1/2 and 1/2, which makes one complete game. Multiply that by 6 and the Dawgs are 6-0 at this juncture. Table 1. Best halves of each game.
Richard Linde (a.k.a., Malamute) can be reached at malamute@4malamute.com |
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Naturally,
they blame the coaches: former coach Rick Neuheisel, for allegedly recruiting
poorly during his four years at Washington, and Coach Keith Gilbertson, for
simply being inept. However, all of Neuheisel’s classes were rated in the top
20 by various recruiting services, and, this season, the Huskies were one of the
pre-season favorites to win the conference championship. The 55-year old
Gilbertson (51-38) has too much coaching experience to be considered inept.