Alar, Apples, Coffee and Homilies

Alar, apples, coffee and homilies
Malamute, 22 November 2006

Stop the presses. Stop whooping it up, fans. More work is needed for next season.

I hate to knock a win, since I am as jubilant about it as anyone. The point of the following critique is that Coach Willingham needs to sell some recruits on his Dawg house, to show us that he's a better closer than Jack Lemmon was in Glengarry Glen Ross. You know, "Coffee is for closers." On second thought, the coach probably drinks decaf.

Willingham needs to parlay his win in the Apple Cup into success in the recruiting wars, not that he doesn't know that or need my advice.

He needs to spray some Alar on the last Apple Cup and scare his recruiting coordinator; he needs to be realistic about our victory. He needs to give the media more Husky homilies and restrict their access to practices even more.

We need to put the Stanford game in perspective, to illustrate that the loss wasn't a one-time aberration due to waning emotion and enthusiasm. In fact, the last two games, against the Cougars and Cardinal, from an offensive standpoint, were quite similar minus the playmaking miracles.

Miracles? It's been 15 light years since UW blocked a punt for a touchdown. Cody Ellis's catch that went for a score was out of this world. After catching a short pass, Marcel Reece's touchdown run was faster than the speed of light, considering his overall mass. And Louis Rankin defied gravity going east and west on a play designed to fall into a black hole and disappear from the Universe (see Stephen Hawking). Minus just one of the singularities, the Dawgs lose and we're talking Stanford again.

Whoops. Another Ground Hog day, we’re talking Stanford again.

(The Dawgs had a chance to get one leg up on the Tree for Ty, so that he would be 1-0 against his former team as a UW coach.)

-- Without the big plays by Ellis, Reece and Rankin, Washington's offense totaled 170 yards on the game, similar to its performance against Stanford the week before in a 20-3 loss that accounted for 161 yards in total offense.

(Great defense beats great offense, and vice versa. T.J Troop)

-- Bonnell threw two interceptions; one was returned for a touchdown, the other resulted in a Cougars’ touchdown drive. The previous week, Stanford’s Bo McNally intercepted Johnny DuRocher and took it 49 yards to the house.

-- Sans Rankin's 77 yard run, the Huskies totaled 32 yards rushing on the game. Against Stanford, UW posted 39 yards rushing.

-- Without the five big plays that either scored a touchdown or led to one, the offense looked very much like it did against Stanford, that is, mostly inept.

For example Kenny James rushed for 20 yards on 9 carries. Without his long run, Rankin rushed 16 times for 41 yards.

Without Ellis and Reece's touchdown grabs, Carl Bonnell's pass efficiency for the game drops from 145.8 to 78.37. Against Stanford, Bonnell's rating was 51.18. On his play that scored a touchdown, Ellis caught a poorly thrown pass in spectacular fashion. On his touchdown play, Reece caught a short pass on a crossing route, showing blazing speed on the run after catch. In other words, Bonnell's pass efficiency (145.8) might have been another singularity, but then again, UW did win the game and Bonnell did throw the two touchdown passes.

Statisticians don't throw passes; they just toss numbers around.

-- Ignoring the long scoring plays, the longest sustained drive of the game netted two first downs and carried from the Washington 39-yard line to the Cougar 20. After that, UW went backwards and had to punt from the Cougar 38. Washington had six other drives resulting in punts, with the farthest drive carrying to the Cougar 48.

After reading this maybe the coach will drink some leaded coffee and close some deals on his leads.

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More adages:

-- Beginning the game with three grunts and a kick means ending the game with three passes and a pick.

--A quarterback can do many things, both good and bad, but one thing he cannot do, to see and play another day, is to give a game away.

-- Steve Kelly of the Seattle Times writes, “Like water dripping on a stone, the gruesome losses of October have worn down the Huskies.”

Really? This was certainly not the case with the OL. The offensive linemen only work 30 minutes a week, mostly resting on defensive linemen and, after a three and out, about two minutes of work, they get to sit down.

-- On suffering a letdown after a big game, Willingham tells his players, “You have to fight human nature.”

-- Addressing the old look-ahead problem, Willingham says, “You can’t play two games at one time.”

-- "What one person does should stand on its own legs," Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times quotes Willingham as saying..

-- A two-star player who studies hard, works hard, lifts weights and has a blue collar mentality is still an average player.

-- If you can’t recruit playmakers, you’ll end up with prayer-makers, like in Hail Mary.