Losses: Skyler Fancher, Senio Kelemete, Colin Porter, Nick Wood

Returning Players: James Atoe (So), Dexter Charles (RS Fr), Mike Criste (So), Ross Dolbec (RS Fr), Micah Hatchie (So), Erik Kohler (Jr), Ben Riva (So), Drew Schaefer (Sr), Colin Tanigawa (So), Ben Teichman (RS Fr), Siosifa Tufunga (RS Fr)

Additions: Shane Brostek, Nathan Dean, Jake Eldrenkamp, Cory English, Taylor Hindy

The offensive line went from a position that many thought would be a strength to a position of uncertainty. With all of the offseason upheaval of Colin Porter's retirement and injuries and illness to guys who are being counted on to contribute this year like Kohler and Schaefer as well as Tanigawa's major injury from last season, questions arose quite quickly.

The strength was supposed to come from losing only one starter (Kelemete) to graduation and returning the other four to work on the cohesion that they had built up last season. Yes, Kelemete played the pivotal LT position, but there was a lot of good young talent in the program and whoever earned the position (likely Hatchie or Riva) would have experience playing with him help get him spun up. The Tanigawa injury seemed easy to overlook because he'll be back, and it would allow Kohler to slide over to his more natural position, guard, until he was Tanigawa was ready to come back.

But then Kohler missed a good portion of the offseason workouts, and had to spend Spring ball catching up to everybody else, working with the 2's. Porter was nowhere to be seen, and shortly into camp it was announced that he would not be returning, and the team would be without its best returning lineman. Drew Schaefer suffered a knee injury (which shouldn't hinder him going forward) and had to sit out a bit, and suddenly the entire line working as the #1 unit was a bunch of guys who had either never played, or only played in a limited capacity. Panic.

When we step back and look at it, it's not as bad as the Spring made it seem. Kohler and Schaefer should be ready to go by the time the preseason rolls around, Tanigawa will be back at some point as well, though the coaches will definitely not rush him back before his body is ready. Still, going from having to replace just one starter to potentially replacing three is a blow.

The interior will be more than solid once Tanigawa gets back, and even before as guard tends to be an easier position to step into. The key to the offensive line this season will be the young tackles, Hatchie and Riva. If they can pick things up and live up to the billing that they received coming out of high school, the unit will be fine. Early in the season though, with the matchups against LSU's stud defensive ends, it may be something of a trial by fire. The goal is that they get some good experience against San Diego State, do their best to hold their own vs the Bayou Bengals, maybe regain some confidence against Portland State, and are experienced enough to tackle the tough start to the Pac-12 schedule.

The verdict: Worse.

I don't see this unit being better than it was last season, but may end up being on the same level once they get some reps under their belts. The thing that is encouraging, though, is to look at the players ages: 1 senior, 1 junior, 5 sophomores, 4 freshmen, and 5 incoming frosh. The position should improve as the season goes along, and continue to do so for the next couple of years.

In this week's playbook breakdown, we have one of the favored weapons of Steve Sarkisian: play action. When you have a great back like Chris Polk, who commands the respect of a defense, play action is a necessity.

The primary goal of play action is to keep safeties from flying up in run support, knowing that there are receivers who could be wide open over the top if they do. The same thing is true for the linebackers, only to a lesser extent as they're not typically responsible for defending deep passes. If they continue to overcommit to the run, you hit them deep.

The situation: 12:24 left in the 1st Quarter, Huskies 0 - 0 Colorado at the 17 yard line, going in.

The Dawgs had pretty much done whatever they wanted to do to the Colorado defense on the game's opening drive. Running, throwing, everything was working and the Colorado defense was on its heels. Coach Sark went to the playsheet and dialed up a play action, with the receivers heading left at various levels.

The play as the Huskies ran it was this:

Continue reading this post »

Remember when Dippin' Dots were supposed to replace ice cream? Boy, I sure hope somebody got fired for that.

• If you haven't already looked into it, Chris Brown's book is available. You can get it on your kindle or order it on paperback. It's a great look into football X's and O's, theory, and the history of the game's evolution. There's even a shoutout to Jim Lambright and the defenses he orchestrated at UW when Chris is discussing Bud Foster's Virginia Tech schemes, of which Lambo's defenses were an ancestor.
• The boys at The Solid Verbal have Ryan Abraham (of USCFootball.com) on their podcast to talk about USC. They focus on USC, but naturally hit on other Pac-12 programs and note that Washington is a game that the Trojans may need to be worried about, citing the excellent job that Steve Sarkisian has done building the program, recruiting, and beating USC 2 of the last 3 years (though Abraham incorrectly says that USC was Sark's first win at UW, when in fact they beat Idaho the week prior).
• Ted Miller wants to know which Pac-12 game you can't wait for with two Washington games included in the poll.
• Arizona has a new helmet. Meh.
• CGB notes that Cecil Whiteside was kicked off the team for unspecified team rules. Whiteside finished his freshman season with 3 sacks, 4 tackles for loss, and 2 forced fumbles.
• Brian Floyd of Cougcenter notes that WSU basketball signee Que Johnson got a good SAT score and that might mean something, or it also might mean nothing.
• Bob Condotta had a live chat yesterday and Ted Miller had one too which if you haven't looked over them yet are nice way to kill some time when you're trying to kill some time today. Don't lie, it's Friday before a holiday weekend. You're not getting anything done today and we all know it.
• Spencer Hall tells you that in all things, keep it simple, stupid.
• Jim Moore is bothered by Mike Leach shooting a bear. And I agree with him, which makes me feel very strange. Time for one of those clothes-still-on showers.
• If you missed it earlier in the week, former WVU coach Bill Stewart died of a heart attack. Stewart was by all accounts one of the nicest guys in the coaching business, even if his head coaching tenure was a bit... uneven.
• Really sad and disturbing story about a former USC commit, Brian Banks. It's great that he is out of prison, but I can't help but feel for the guy. He had a chance at getting a college degree, maybe playing in the NFL and having the kind of young adulthood that few get a chance at, but instead spent that time behind bars. The truly sick part comes in where his accuser admitted that she lied, but wouldn't tell prosecutors for fear that she'd have to return her $1.5 million settlement.
• Softy had Sark on a couple days ago. Not much going on right now, but they did talk about the stadium, which when finished Sarkisian said "It'll be the best stadium in America, from a facilities standpoint and a gameday standpoint." So that's nice, and I'm sure any Oregon fan who reads or hears that will have gotten their panties nice and wadded. He also believes the team is right on the cusp, and with a couple balls bouncing the other way could have been a 9 win team last year.
  

It's a the first big weekend of the summer so have fun, but more importantly, be safe out there everyone.

The fellas over at Cal Golden Blogs exchanged some emails with us about the wrapup of spring football, how they feel about their football team right now, questions they have about it, and things that may have been answered. Here are their answers to some questions:

1. What were the core questions that you had hoped would be answered by Spring Practice? Were conclusions reached?

Kodiak: We wanted a starting quarterback to distinguish himself, find three new starters on the Oline, and see someone step up to fill our vacated inside linebacker and safety positions.
Zach Maynard solidified his position and separated himself as the undisputed #1QB. Oline is still a work in progress, particularly with regards to snaps. Lots of potential at safety and linebacker, but the young players showed themselves vulnerable to playaction and zone-read types of plays.

2. Any major style changes coming our way in the fall? New offense or defense installed?

Kodiak: Depending on personnel, there may be some tweaks to both offense and defense. We didn't have a lot of healthy fullbacks in the spring, so we were using a lot of double TE sets with a single back. We only had one healthy scholarship wide receiver and will be relying on 2-3 true frosh to contribute immediately in the fall. If we don't have enough quality wideouts, we might use more tight ends and split them out wide. 2/3 of our top tight ends are more comfortable as receivers than blockers anyhow. On defense, we might have better depth/talent on the Dline than at linebacker. However, we've run a 3-4 the past several years. I wouldn't be surprised to see more formations with four down linemen so that we can get our best players on the field.

3. What players emerged on offense? On defense?

Kodiak: Backup tailback CJ Anderson really opened some eyes. He may push for a starting role, and our returner starter, Isi Sofele, rushed for 1300 yards last year. On defense, Mustafa Jalil and Deandre Coleman look really tough at defensive end.

4. What are your biggest worries coming out of spring ball for the fall?

Kodiak: Oline. We need a new left tackle, right guard, and perhaps center. If we continue to have issues with poor snaps, penalties, and porous pass protection on the edges, we're headed for another 7-win season.

Berkelium97: The biggest holes on the team heading into fall are literally that--holes in the depth chart. We do not have a punter and we only have two receivers on the depth chart. We have no choice this fall--we have to rely on some of the incoming freshmen to step up and fill these roles. Keenan Allen is the only returning receiver who has seen significant action. We quickly need to develop some receivers if we want Maynard and the passing game to produce this season.

(Continued after the jump)

Continue reading this post »

They've been running the triple option in football for a thousand years, and though there aren't a whole lot of teams that still run it in the traditional way, it still has life in the modern age.

The read/bubble option is based on a play that we in the Pac-12 are familiar with: the zone read. The team that is perhaps most famous for running the play currently is Oregon under Chip Kelly, but Rich Rodriguez was very much a pioneer of the spread running game and it will be a staple of his offense at Arizona. The Huskies too, have run the read option over the course of their recent history with Jake Locker leading the attack.

The meat and potatoes of the read option is the quarterback, from the shotgun, "reads" a defensive end or outside linebacker, and either gives to the runningback or keeps the ball, depending on the action of that defender. If the defender stays home, the ball goes to the RB moving away from the end, and if the defender pursues the back the quarterback pulls the ball and runs into the space the edge defender vacated.

What some teams will do off of that read option is to add a third option to the play, either a back looping behind the QB, or a receiver establishing pitch relationship with the QB (usually through motion). If the QB keeps the ball, there's a second defender that they're optioning.

The Steve Sarkisian take on the zone read triple option is to replace the third option with a bubble screen. Here's the chalkboard version of how they ran it against Arizona with the defender reads in red:

This version is a power to the left rather than the traditional zone, but the concepts are the same.

More after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

In the first entry in a series looking at plays that are in Steve Sarkisian's playbook, we're going to break down a wide receiver screen that has commonly become known as "The Jailbreak."

Since the proliferation of the spread offense the jailbreak screen has become a staple of many teams' offensive repertoires, and being low risk with a lot of big play potential, it's easy to see why. It's a versatile play that can be run out of a lot of different formations and alignments and the philosophy behind it is simple: get the ball into the hands of a playmaker with blockers in front of him and attack the space on the edge of the field.

The situation: 2nd and goal from the 8, 12:22 3rd Quarter, Huskies 10 - 7 Utah

It doesn't take a whole lot of critical thinking to get into Sark's head here. Goal-to-go from outside the 5 can be tricky for a playcaller. You're too far to execute a lot of your goal line pass plays, and don't have the space to run most of your traditional passing game either. Running the ball would be a good choice, but it's a bit predictable for a guy like Sark, and it's also not likely to score in one play, so he dialed up the screen to Kasen Williams. You don't call this play to set up 3rd and goal, you call this to punch it in, and this play gave them a great chance to do just that.

Here's how the Huskies had it drawn up against Utah:

Assignments and execution after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

No Huskies likely to be taken tonight, but if you're watching at home, stop on by and chat with the usual suspects about the goings on at pro footballs's annual amateur selection.

Remember January 30th, 2006? The Huskies lost to Stanford. They lost a game that they should have won. Up three after Brandon Roy's two free throws made it 63-60, Chris Hernandez came down the court to shoot a three to tie the game, and was fouled in the act by Justin Dentmon, a freshman. Hernandez was a lights out free throw shooter. He went to the line, sank all three and Stanford defeated Washington in overtime.

On January 10th, 2009, with the Huskies up three on Cal at the end of the second overtime, D.J. Seely grabbed a missed three pointer and made the putback to pull within one point, but only one second left on the clock. The Huskied had won. Or would have, but a freshman Isaiah Thomas had slapped Seely's arm as he went for the putback, and he was headed to the line. He made the free throw and Cal would go on to win the game in the third overtime.

Just as Dentmon and Thomas were, Wroten will likely be the scapegoat for many who seek to pin the blame on somebody. Nobody has been a bigger critic of Tony Wroten than me, but to pin this on him is to ignore so much else of what happened in the game. The first half defense was atrocious, the team turned the ball over far too often, some spotty calls led to Darnell Gant having to sit on the bench and Aziz N'Diaye fouling out (arguably the biggest thing - when if you go back and look at it, N'Diaye fouling out really turned the game), Joe Burton somehow getting knocked down by everyone and always getting the call, people not named Tony Wroten shooting 3/11 from the stripe, allowing 14 offensive rebounds, playing Austin Seferian-Jenkins early instead of Shawn Kemp Jr., and the list goes on.

If you're Lorenzo Romar, and you have to replay those last two possessions, do you do anything different? Wroten had been knifing through OSU's defense like butter, and was 9/11 from free throws. It really seemed like they wouldn't (and couldn't) stop him and it turned out that they couldn't. What ended up happening was that a guy who has been shooting 58% from the free throw line didn't shoot the 85% that we wanted him to. The percentages caught up with him and he ended up hitting 9/15, or 60%, almost exactly his season average.

Tone was electric at times in the game, OSU not having an answer. He also showed that he is in many ways a flawed player, whipping passes out of bounds, forcing action at the rim and missing free throws. He was, basically, who he has always been. But to pin the loss on him, or to criticize him because he's a boisterous personality off of the court is not fair, because I promise you: nobody is hurting over that loss right now more than Tony Wroten. But he'll bounce back. He'll learn. He'll use it as motivation. He'll get better from it. He is, after all, a freshman.

You may have read somewhere that the Huskies magic number for making the NCAA tournament is 5. In that, if this Husky team wins 5 games between now and the end of the Pac-12 tournament, they can probably feel good about making the NCAA's. And I'm here to tell you that this is nonsense. I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer, but to ascribe a set number of wins to the rest of the Husky season is to ignore what happens every year in the month of March.

As anyone who regularly monitors conference tournaments and the selection process will tell you, the bubble is constantly changing (hardening, softening, growing, shrinking, other sexual entendres), and this far out there is simply no way to know what it will take to get into the tournament. If some of those 31 automatic bids start going to surprise teams, or teams with similar resumes as Washington, then it's going to get harder and harder to get an at large. And yes, it's going to happen, because it does ever year. It's just a question of magnitude, and with this season of college basketball lacking as many dominant teams as in years past it would be very easy to see a greater number of surprise conference tournament winners.

Then there's the issue of winning games without improving your resume. Nobody is going to care much about UW beating ASU at home. Winning at USC doesn't really blow anyone's skirt up in the air. The only game left on the schedule that could be mistaken for a sexy win is vs Arizona on Saturday. Conversely, the only team left on the schedule that you would expect an NCAA team to lose to would be Arizona, so the most important game to win is also the one that is the most "loseable", which brings up the Dawgs' biggest problem if they don't win out: who they've lost to. All it is going to take is for someone in the selection room to say "But, South Dakota State" and everyone else goes "Oh yeah, also, Pac-12" and then one jerk says "Oregon blowout" and the Huskies are NIT bound. There simply aren't any games left on the schedule besides Arizona that you'd be OK with losing. And winning out (which would hit the magic number) and then going into the tournament and losing to, say, USC would be almost as bad because (right or wrong) the committee sometimes uses conference tournaments to project NCAA performance.

I'm not here to say that 5 more wins definitely won't get UW into the tournament, but let's not go having any tea parties if they do hit that number. A magic number is exactly that: magic. And we just so happen to live in a world where what is known as magic is actually just an illusion.

Discuss the recruits as they roll in here, and any other news of the day.

Cougars come to Hec Ed for the first leg of the interstate rivalry. Join us here to cheer on the Dawgs.

Señior Kent on the call!

Huskies get the ball to start things off and look to hang onto their 35-24 lead.

The Huskies are ever improving, to the point where they nearly beat a Marquette team that is among the best in the country. Tony Wroten played the best game of his career and Darnell Gant hit several big shots throughout the game while most other players played like you'd like to see. Except Abdul Gaddy. Gaddy had one of the worst performances of his career, including a poorly thrown pass to Terrence Ross in crunch time that led to Marquette taking the ball the other direction and scoring. But his biggest problem was that he couldn't throw the ball in the ocean standing on the shore, and that's something that comes and goes... usually. Sometimes players have off nights, and sometimes certain stadiums give certain players trouble locking in on their target with their sightlines and depth issues. Let's hope for the team's sake that it was the former, and not the latter.

Duke is a very good team (shocking I know). They're good, but not some unbeatable machine. The Huskies have the length to match up with anybody, and as long as Aziz N'Diaye can stay out of foul trouble Duke shouldn't have too much of an interior size advantage. The key for N'Diaye will be keeping the Plumlees off of the offensive glass. Desmond Simmons (who quietly had a very good game against Marquette) will be counted on as well.

My dreams of Abdul Gaddy handling the ball with Scott Suggs and C.J. Wilcox on the wings, while Terrence Ross slashes to the basket and N'Diaye mans the low post will have to wait another year (hopefully) as Suggs is not going to be suiting up this season. Some people have said that one of the biggest losses is Suggs' leadearship, but that is nonsense. The biggest loss is his 45% three point shooting. Here's hoping he gets in the weight room and the gym, improves his game more than he already has (remember, some thought he would transfer after his freshman year when he looked completely lost at times) and helps next year's squad to great things.

Scott Suggs will not play this season after undergoing surgery before the start of the year. The thought was that he'd come back and be able to contribute by midseason and be ready to go for conference play.This effectively makes Darnell Gant the only senior on the roster, which does a couple things:
1) Alleviates recruiting concerns for this year, as there will only be one available scholarship.
2) Makes next year's team better, as it will be bringing almost everybody out.

These two things are of course contingent on transfers and early entries, and while nobody on the roster has really played well enough to move up draft boards all it takes it a hot March.

Suggs is one of the best shooters in the country, and having a full season of him next year is better than part of a season this year. He would have had to work his way into a rotation that already has some pretty good players and he'd be doing so from a disadvantage not being 100%. All in all, probably the right move for all parties involved.

I realized that I had died and been reborn numberless times but just didn't remember because the transitions from life to death and back are so ghostly easy, a magical action for naught, like falling asleep and waking up again a million times, the utter casualness and deep ignorance or it.

-Jack Kerouac, On The Road

It seems every UW basketball season adheres to a similar outline. The team has its struggles on the road which cause a lot of reactionary things to be said about the greatest thing to happen to the program since, well, ever; things like "Fire Romar!" and "Romar can't coach!" despite Lorenzo Romar being the only reason the Huskies are not the Sun Devils.

The second part of that outline that has been cropping up lately has been that the team figures itself out and manages to find ways to win games when they're not sleeping in their own beds the night before. Oddly, this is never used as evidence of LoRo's coaching ability. Strange.

The negative Nancies are out early this year my friends, being that the team has played more games than usual away from the comforts of Hec Ed. And now the Dawgs find themselves in New York with two big time opponents lurking. So with the difference of scheduling between this year and last, it may turn out to be a positive thing ultimately, with the team able to avoid having road woes in conference if they can get it straightened out before then. It has happened before. We've seen it, so it's not too implausible.

But I am not here to give you the warm fuzzies and tell you that it's going to be straightened out by tonight or tomorrow. Marquette is really good. Even if the Huskies were playing their best ball of the season they would have their work cut out for them tonight. The Golden Eagles are tested, having just beaten a very good Wisconsin team, and have two guys - Darius Johnson-Odom and Jae Crowder - who are not playing so much like they're human basketball players as they're playing like autonomous basketball playing robots, which apparently are a thing that you can make.

I have full confidence that the Huskies will right the ship at some point and be a quality team by year's end, and I would love for it to happen tonight or Saturday. But I know, as should you all, that it's much more likely to happen in a month in Boulder.

The Pomeroy Rankings say Marquette has played the 6th best basketball in the country thus far this year, so let's not go jumping off of any cliffs a few hours from now if the result is less than desirable.

Want to wash the taste of yesterday's football game out of your mouth? You're in luck, because the hoops team is set to take the floor shortly.

The game is being televised on CBS Sports Network. Don't have that channel? I've got a solution waiting for you in the comments.

Go Dawgs.

Dawgs taking on the Pilots in the first televised game of the year. At Bank of America Alaska Airlines Arena.