A 43-10 win is absolutely worth celebrating. But for the 8th ranked Washington Huskies this Tulsa game is worth watching again. There was greatness on display by the Huskies, there were some parts of the game that need to be worked over this week, and there were some uncharacteristic mistakes that this team is not used to making.
The Good
Tricks and Gadgets:
We will talk about the miscues later in this article but for now we are going to focus on just how electric this Huskies receiver room is. There were three players with more than 100 all purpose yards, and four different touchdown scorers. What says this group apart from all the other elite ones in college football today is their commitment to their craft. Three players had carries and McMillan lined up both in the backfield and under center.
It makes them hard to plan for and impossible to guard. From the first play of the game UW displayed this aspect as McMillan and Bernard lined up in the backfield and McMillan caught a screen for a big gain.
Later in the game Odunze scored a rushing touchdown on a fake screen to McMillan that turned into a reverse for him. Pairing this ability to mix and match personnel and play calling with the threatening big play ability of the Huskies.
Winning the Line:
If you purely look at sacks the defensive line isn’t showing that much, but when you watch the game you can tell they are there. Tulsa definitely did. Two sacks came from Voi Tunnuufi and corner Jabbar Muhammad but the pressure was there all day. Both Trice and ZTF were getting double teams enough to be noted and even then those two plus the whole line were getting hands and bodies into Tulsa’s backfield.
On the other side of the ball Penix was untouched. Tulsa recorded zero sacks and just three tackles for loss in the whole game. If the O-Line can continue to give Penix and the receivers this type of time to complete passes the Huskies could easily be the best offense in America.
The trenches were definitely a question mark for the dawgs heading into the year so to see them performing at these levels is a great sign for the season.
The Bad
Running the Ball:
We said going into this game that the running game needed to show up. It didn’t. Maybe we dish a little bit of blame onto the lack of Dillon Johnson today, but the Huskies have to be better. Will Nixon led the team with a mere 30 yards, while Daniyel Ngata added 18 and a touchdown. But that is simply not good enough for a team that wants to contend for a national title. The backs didn’t look great and the offensive line wasn’t any better. Tulsa was pushing into the backfield on most rush attempts and even when they didn’t get into the backfield Will Nixon and Daniyel Ngata struggled to break tackles and drive up field.
There really is only so much to be said on this subject but it needs to be better. You start to run out of excuses, especially after Boise State and Tulsa. I refuse to sound the alarm quite yet, but a test against a BIG 10 opponent will be prove it game.
The Ugly
Offensive Miscues:
While there is no doubt that the Huskies offense put up the big numbers they left some plays on the field. Penix is the star of the show meaning he is going to be under the toughest scrutiny.
His 409 yards and 3 touchdowns are no doubt impressive, but it is what we hope to see from the Heisman challenger. The one interception isn’t super concerning but Penix had a couple more throws that could have been picks as well. Overall a good day for the quarterback.
The same is true for the wide receivers. Overall a very impressive day, big plays and touchdowns. But also drops. Four total, all very uncharacteristic of this team scored some extra reps on the Jugs catching machine for some of college footballs top weapons.
It’s very easy to pass these mistakes off as simply not preparing well for a team that they expect to beat and that seems like a good answer looking forward to the rest of this season and the gauntlet the Huskies will have to run.
Discipline:
Very similar to the point above. But this is about penalties. What stood out most to me was the couple of special teams miscues. Plays that don’t need to happen and extend drives. Multiple penalties for hitting the punter extended multiple drives for the Golden Hurricanes and while the defense came up with stops you can’t count on getting so lucky against top quality and ranked opponents.
Grady Gross also missed a field goal after being perfect on extra points all season. Gross is an incredibly talented kicker so that’s not much of a worry in my eyes but it’s just another little thing. And those can add up.
Based on the score and the baseline statistics the Huskies lived up to their number 8 ranking. The talent and play showed in that game. But some mistakes started to show themselves in a less important game. As the schedule starts to heat up the Huskies should too. Meaning that hopefully this article is irrelevant a month from now.
Sure, yesterday the Huskies managed to look good(great), bad, and ugly, but the players understand that this is an issue that’s solved under the “UsVsUs” banner.
