|
Articles
|
Virtual equals real this Friday Richard Linde, 27 August 2007
The Pac-10 media brigade -- a gaggle of beat writers, columnists and self-anointed experts -- say the Huskies will finish no better than ninth in the conference. A lot of people are predicting a three-or-four win season for the Dawgs. They point to one of the toughest schedules in the country and an improved Pac-10 conference, where underneath it all are statistics buried from last season, which fit inside a three-year pattern of ineptness, wherein the Huskies have posted 8 wins and 26 loses. Considering the pattern of statistics over the last three years and the schedule, there appears to be little hope for the Huskies in bettering the various forecasts (see Table 1 below) If that weren’t enough, questions concerning the offensive line, the defensive backfield, the tight ends and the kicking game are still pending. The other salient question concerns redshirt freshman quarterback Jake Locker. Will he live up to his advanced billing as the Huskies’ savior? For a quarterback, Locker is an impressive physical specimen (6-foot-3, 223, 4.6), looking more like a linebacker than a quarterback. Going into this season, he is the most hyped-up player to come into the program since Hugh McElhenny in 1949. As a Husky and later as a pro, Hurrying Hugh lived up to his advanced billing. But will Montlake Jake live up to his? I’ve seen Locker in action twice now, at the spring game and at the practice that took place last Tuesday evening. Each time I’ve seen Locker, backup quarterback Carl Bonnell, who is a fifth year senior, has looked the better of the two, appearing more comfortable with the offense and more accurate with his passes. For example, in an eleven-on-eleven drill last Tuesday evening, Locker had three balls tipped by the defensive front seven, one for an interception. He threw one long pass that traveled about 50 yards in the air, which looked more like a punt than a pass, the ball refusing to turn over. He’s fast – but doesn’t appear as fast as last year’s quarterback Isaiah Stanback. Other than the spring game and a couple of scrimmages, the beat writers haven’t seen much of him either. They are restricted to viewing the first 25 minutes of practice, when most of the time the players are warming up with calisthenics. Then they ask the coaches questions after practice is over and report on the practice the next day. All we really know about Locker is what the coaches and players are saying about him. They say he is one of the fastest players on the team and a gifted athlete; they say he is a natural leader that commands the respect of the older players. They say he is a hard worker whose conditioning is a role model for other players. They say he embraces the values that Coach Willingham tries to instill in his players, these values involving good character, exemplary citizenship and hard work on the field and in the classroom. And then there is Dennis Erickson, coach of Arizona State, who says Locker is as a good a quarterback coming out of high school as he has ever seen. Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times quotes Erickson as saying, "You get a guy (Locker) of his talent, that turns programs around pretty damn fast…The biggest thing they ever did was get him. He can turn that program around." PrepStar said that Locker, coming out of high school, was the fifth best quarterback in the nation and the best quarterback in the west. All of this is a lot of hype involving a player who hasn’t played in an official game for the Huskies. Is all the hoopla involving Locker being exaggerated? Is he just an above average quarterback burdened by an undue amount of notoriety and publicity? Is he a poster boy for a marketing ploy? College football is a big-money enterprise nowadays that, in the main, financially supports the athletic department and its many endeavors. Maybe all the fanfare involving Locker, aided by the lack of information coming from closed practices, is a way of selling more tickets and creating TV exposure. Money is a driving force in NCAA football, especially at the Division I-A level. Creating a mystery man of Hugh McElhenny proportions may be a way of increasing the fans’ interest in a football program appearing moribund and needing an infusion of money for a stadium renovation. I'd feel better about Locker if he came out of Long Beach Poly High rather than Ferndale high school, which is near the Canadian border. It's not clear that Ferndale is a five-star nebula like Poly. Certainly the media have a financial interest in keeping the virtual Locker legend alive for as long as they can. Add them to the marketing strategy. But then again Locker's hype may be mostly sincere and genuine, with raising money being a secondary issue. Will we know more about Locker after Friday night when virtual turns to real? Ironically, if the Huskies can run the ball effectively against Syracuse, we may not know much more about Locker’s potential after the game than we do right now. Ideally, the inexperienced Locker, being kept under wraps, just hands the ball off to his running backs and keeps the defense honest with play action passes. However, if Washington’s offense sputters and UW falls behind in the game, look for offensive coordinator Tim Lappano to give the green light to Locker, much like he did to Isaiah Stanback in last year’s UCLA game. Stanback saved the day for Washington, after it fell behind in the first half, by taking charge and winning the game with his running and passing in the second half. From what knowledgeable people are saying, Locker is ideally suited for running a spread option attack, being a stronger and faster version of Marques Tuiasosopo, who led the option-oriented Huskies to a win in the 2001 Rose Bowl against Purdue. Indeed, if Jake is an updated, enhanced version of Tui, look for him and the spread option to turn the UW football program around -- reversing its many shortcomings -- as Dennis Erickson predicts. Having McElhenny around eased the path for AD Harvey Cassill and his expansion of Husky Stadium in 1950. Locker could be the key to opening the deep pockets needed for the stadium's future expansion, remodeling and repairs. Table 1. EGAD. The following statistics from the last three seasons represent Washington's rank among the 119 teams that comprise NCAA Division I-A football. Of the 14 statistics, statistics involving turnover margin and pass defense are the most abominable from 2006. Note that Washington finished seventeenth in the nation -- first in the conference -- in pass defense in its 2004 season when it finished 1-10. Three quarters of its defensive backfield then (CB Sam Cunningham, CB Derrick Johnson, SS C.J. Wallace and FS Dashon Goldson) are in the professional ranks now.
Malamute can be reached at malamute@4malamute.com |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This
next Friday night the virtual Washington Huskies we’ve been hearing
and reading about turn into a real football team when they go up
against Syracuse in the Carrier Dome. Hopefully, some questions will
be answered.