Washington 2018 Preview Game 5

This game and the Wisconsin games scare me the most. Like I'm thinking both games wind up 51-3 for UW.

to me the Wisc game will be the toughest. We are much more familiar with WA so there's that. Next, WA will probably already have a loss (@ Auburn -yes its neutral but in GA). They play two PAC games (ASU and Utah) before us, if they lose either of those games they could be down when we show up there. And if they have a loss, they have UCLA the week after us so they could get caught flat (trap game?). I think it is possible as their season would hinge on that UCLA game if they lose to either ASU or Utah. We'll see :).

Fingers are crossed.

Washington seems more likely to run up the score than Wisconsin. Though both probably will.

This is going to be coach peterson's best team since he went to washington. They could very easily go undefeated this year and be in the playoff. This game is going to be a loss, how bad of a loss remains to be seen.

What time will the game be? I see TBA. Could we get a good channel like ESPN?

Not to look past McNeese St or anything but I believe the Washington game will be the toughest we'll face this season. Not only because they are a good, ranked P5 team. Not only because they have one of the best (if not the best) head coaches in college football. But also because this is after the Wisconsin game.



Not taking anything away from our coaches and players but it obviously helped that we were coming off a loss to Cal. We went into Camp Randall with something to prove while Wisconsin (and everyone else) vastly underestimated us, giving us no chance to win. Obviously we caught Wisconsin off guard and capitalized on it.



Fast-forward two weeks from now. Chris Petersen and UW will not make that same mistake. The Wisconsin upset will still be fresh in their minds. And even if the coaches come up with another fantastic scheme, who's better at schemes and in-game adjustments than Petersen?



Again, not to get ahead of ourselves but, looking at our remaining schedule...



McNeese St and Northern Illinois should be W's.



We have Hawaii, Utah St, and New Mexico St at home and they should be W's. So should the game at UMass.



I'm still worried about away games at Boise St and Utah (both have beaten us more often than not for years now) but it looks like they have some vulnerabilities. If we keep playing (and coaching) ike we did on Saturday, we could have a double digit win season.



But I have a hard time figuring out how we beat Washington.

Utah State should be tough. They have a good defense and a heck of an offense this year.



Their coach called Kalani to congratulate him on the Wisconsin win, btw.

The fact that BYU is ranked--and likely will still be ranked when we play them--makes this an important 1st game in an every-other-week run for Washington against ranked teams.



In 2 weeks, they play us. Two weeks later they play current #20 Oregon. Two weeks after that they play #7 Stanford.



The Huskies will see BYU as a first step to climb back up the rankings and making a bid to be in the CFP after falling to #10 after their opening weekend loss to Auburn. In other words, BYU is the Huskies first real chance for showcasing their revenge. If BYU wasn't circled on their calendars, it is now.

I have a hard time believing that BYU can win this game. There will be no surprise for the Huskies on whether BYU can beat them or not so they will be ready to play and play hard. I don't think BYU will win this game so I will be interested to see how well the compete. If they do win, I will be elated.

I think their speed will hurt us. Our chances are not good.

Just looking at stats, I don't know that I'm that scared of Washington's offense, but I don't like the matchup of their defense against our offense.



So far, they've played Auburn (L 16-21), North Dakota (W 45-3), and Utah (W 21-7).



Auburn, besides UW, has played Alabama State (W 63-9) and LSU (L 21-22). It's worth noting in their game against UW, UW had some good red zone chances that failed to produce points due to penalties and turnovers. An offense that struggles to finish drives is good news for us.



Utah, besides UW, has played Weber State (W 41-7) and NIU (W 17-6). Against UW, Utah should have had 14, but managed to fumble a sure pick 6 out of bounds and then turned it over on downs on the 2 trying to finish it off.



Throwing out the FCS games, Auburn averages 21 PF and 19 PA. Utah averages 12 PF and 13.5 PA. I know we're dealing with very little data, but that at least suggests UW's offense is a little worse than LSU, but better than NIU. LSU's offense probably looks better in the stats than it is (only 31 against SELA, numbers against Miami inflated by defensive scores and one big run, 3-16 on 3rd down, 2 offensive TDs vs 33 points). UW is around 34% on 3rd down vs FBS teams. They did most of their damage through the air against Auburn, but on the ground against Utah. Possibly that's because they were playing from behind in one game and out in front in the other. Play call numbers suggest they like to be balanced, but they'll take what they're given. On the whole, I think we can hold them to 21 or below like Utah and Auburn. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not that scared of their offense.



Their defense is probably on par with LSU, better than NIU. Our offense was good enough to beat Wisconsin and AZ, but AZ's defense looks absolutely terrible right now, and against Wisconsin our offense was bailed out by 1) Squally's 44-yd run to set up TD #1, 2) The double pass trick play for TD #2, 3) Zayne Anderson's INT to set up TD #3, and 4) Squally's 46-yd run to set up the FG. We did not move the ball at all in the second half. Almost all of our 2nd half yards are the big run and the short drive after the pick. You take those out and we gain a whopping 17 yards the entire half - even with them, it's only 90 yards. We got beaten in just about every stat except turnovers, YPC, and the only one that really matters, points. If UW's front 7 is disciplined enough to avoid leaving gaping holes for Squally (likely) and their offense can take care of the ball (less likely, we'll probably get 1 or 2 turnovers), we're really going to need the O to step it up. If we can score more than 21 points, I think we win. Without some big plays---defense, offense, special teams---it's going to be very difficult for us to get there.

Our offense wasn't bailed out by long runs and trick plays. That is our offense. The defense didn't forget to plug those running lanes, the offense blocked them open. You can't take away from what the offense did in the second half because it did it. They did score a TD off the turnover, and Squally had the long run. That is the way football works. As far as our D vs the WA offense. The most important thing will be to get pressure on their QB. He is really good when he doesn't have pressure but can be forced into making mistakes when he is pressured. He made some extremely bone headed plays against the utes which killed drives but it was all caused by pressure. Washington is my second favorite team, I root for them when they aren't playing BYU so I watched the whole game against the utes. BYU can win this game if they get pressure on WA's QB and stop the run but I am afraid that Washington will not be complacent about preparing for a BYU team that just walked into Madison and beat Wisconsin.

I hate the term "trick play." It's a play. Perhaps a superior play. "Trick play" denotes some sort of trickery as opposed to skill resulted in a successful play. It's used in a negative way, like, "oh, well, they didn't beat us because of skill or because they are better than us. They beat us because they tricked us."



It was a well executed play. A superior play to what the defense offered.

The win over Wisc changes everything about the UW game, at least for UW.



Two weeks ago this was a game UW couldn't lose. Beating us wasn't going to pad their resume. They just couldn't afford to lose if they still wanted to go to the playoffs.



Now, this game is a resume builder. UW NEEDS to win this game, especially given how horrific the rest of the PAC 12 is playing. They can't rely on conference play as much to pad their resume. They get a shot at a Top 25 team. The pressure is on them.



There's no pressure on us. We win, great! We aren't going to playoffs. The best we can do is a NY6 bowl. That's it. And if we miss that, eh, oh well. After not going bowling last year, BYU will take what it can get. A 6 win season is success for us.



UW is playing for more. That can mean they will come out fired up for this game. They get redemption from the Auburn game.



Could also mean they come out so tight that they implode. If BYU can come out hard and strike first, I could see UW unraveling a bit if they have to start playing on their heels.



Again, we lose, no biggie. We had our moment this season. Honestly, it BYU were to beat Utah and lose the rest of its games, we really wouldn't care. We'd still talk about beating Wisc and beating Utah.

Gunk wrote:

I hate the term "trick play." It's a play. Perhaps a superior play. "Trick play" denotes some sort of trickery as opposed to skill resulted in a successful play. It's used in a negative way, like, "oh, well, they didn't beat us because of skill or because they are better than us. They beat us because they tricked us."



It was a well executed play. A superior play to what the defense offered.

Grimes calls them "specials".

Every play that an offense runs is designed to trick the defense in some way or another. They do motions and shifts and offsets in order to put the defense where they want it to try to pick up yards. It is the defense's job to react to what the offense does and stop it. BYU's jet sweep pass just did it's job a whole lot better than the defense and the result was a wide open TD. It was a perfect call for the defense that Wisconsin ran on that play.

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That makes the game 6:30 PM Mountain on FOX. Won't have to stay up horribly late that night either!