The first week of the Pac-12 coaches teleconference got underway this morning, and Chris Petersen had a number of questions fired at him regarding the upcoming game against Auburn.
One of which had to do if he prefers a home-and-home meeting with another team out of the Power 5 conference, or a neutral site meeting.
“I would love to play in a neutral-site game — I don’t think we’re playing in a neutral site game”, Petersen remarked, “This is very much in their backyard. It’s going to be basically a home game on a different field for them”.
The question came back around to, what if this was a neutral site on the West Coast?
Petersen said, “I haven’t really given that much thought”, and added, “I know we’re playing a really good team…if it’s a neutral site I think that evens things out, only if it’s a truly neutral site — where fans at least have ot get on a plane to go to the game.”
It’s no secret that traveling to Atlanta from Alabama is simply a matter of crossing state lines (200 miles), but for Washington fans it’s 2635 miles. And Auburn has a fanbase in Atlanta.
How could anyone call this a neutral site?
“That’s for the powers that be (the AD’s and all that) to figure out if it should be home and home or a neutral site”, Petersen concluded.
As for other topics of interest, Petersen addressed past relations with Auburn head coach, Gus Malzahn. The two became well acquainted when Malzahn was offensive coordinator at Tulsa (under Todd Graham).
“It was a long time ago”, Petersen said, noting that this was during his own years at Boise State, “We liked what they did, similar to us. We spent a couple days out there talking to Gus.”
But Petersen also asserted that, during the regular season, those friendships are put on hold, “I know probabbly everybody on most staffs we play, when the season comes everyone is tightlipped and then (after the season) you re-establish those friendships.”
As for this thoughts on Auburn, Petersen’s first response was about their defense, “Their defense jumps out”, he said, calling them a “physical crew” that “doesn’t make a lot of mistakes.”
“You have to earn everything you get. They play really tight, good defense”, he said.
Offensively, Petersen said that Malzahn “has always been creative on offense; fly sweeps…different tempos.”
As for planning for newer running backs at Auburn (that Washington didn’t have much film on), Petersen said that game-planning was still not difficult, “We’re well aware of their QB and they’ll have a good tailback.”
