Huskies 2018 season

The Cougs are playing good ball and Leach is always a ninja at ruining other teams seasons.
But when you analyze the SOS, they’ve had it about as easy as it gets to get that ranking. Approaching the Ducks who’ve had one of the easiest cupcake fest seasons in modern history with a shitshow OOC who had their fans claiming to just fedex the Heisman trophy to the campus. And any challenges being at home this year. A big LOL at that because they still got exposed a lot.

Hats off to WSU making it this far without botching that SOS gift, but Friday is all the marbles time vs a ranked opponent.

We’ll see what they can do against a real D.

Add in cold and possibly snow. I know their fans think that gives them an advantage, but the team that can run the best has an advantage in shitty weather.

WizardHawk said:

Add in cold and possibly snow. I know their fans think that gives them an advantage, but the team that can run the best has an advantage in shitty weather.

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Correct.. If we can run on them we win plain and simple. What has me worried is they shift last second and try to hit the gaps..Misdirection is the key. Can Jake audible? can he read it? Will he be allowed to? That's what I'm looking for early for sure.

I was looking at some stats to laugh at Oregon (that shit never gets old does it?) and for shits and grins looked up UW/WSU stats before this game.

Starting with defense:
UW 2017 FEI 9th 1.41 (DFEI)
UW 2018 FEI 18th 1.57
UW 2017 S&P 6th 17.4 (Def S&P+)
UW 2018 S&P 9th 16.5
WSU 2017 FEI 15th 1.54
WSU 2018 FEI 78th 2.35
WSU 2017 S&P 29th 23.0
WSU 2018 S&P 43rd 25.5

Not a surprise to any of us that UW's defense is just a bit behind last years unit. Vea's loss was big and they have had a bit more bend/don't break kind of philosophy under Lake calling that unit.

Cougs though... Wow. Knew they weren't sound on that unit, but holy crap.

A bit more... UW is 33rd against the pass in pass D on S&P and WSU is 81st against the run.

That's both D's going against what the other needs to do to win. No real shockers there.

And it's also not a shock that the offenses are the opposite compared to last year with UW dropping hard and WSU rising.
UW went from 18th and 34.7 on S&P in '17, to 32nd and 34.2 this year. WSU went from 62nd 28.6 last year to 14th and 39.1 this year.
Story isn't any better on the FEI index. UW 11th and 3.05 last year, 33rd and 2.69 on their boards this year. WSU from 79th and 2.04 to 5th and 3.49.

It all says the results should be closer than recent years. We all fully expect to be able to run all day on them, but can Jake not give up one of his panicked INT's? And can they make first downs on 3rd and long and keep drives going?

Can the D keep from giving up the explosive plays WSU has enjoyed much of the year? Can they get enough of a pass rush to throw the stash off his game? Coach K has been stellar at stopping the air raid, but how will Lake do calling that game?

Doesn't look like it'll be cold enough for snow in Pullman, but the forecast has rain which will be good for the Huskies.

seahawksfan234 said:

Doesn't look like it'll be cold enough for snow in Pullman, but the forecast has rain which will be good for the Huskies.

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You were saying?

WizardHawk said:

You were saying?

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On the bright side, I'm happy I was wrong.

Going to write a very strongly worded letter to Google for misleading me.

Jokes aside, really beautiful game to watch. I'm watching the FOX broadcast, but I have to say I'm not a fan of them superimposing the yard lines over the snow. Rather just look at the snow all over the field. The first down line is all I need. I might be in the minority here because I love bad weather games.

This senior class has one serious resume after this season:

-swept the Cougs
- all time leading passer
- all time leading rusher
-38 regular season wins
-Two Pac titles
-Fiesta Bowl
-Rose Bowl
-Semi Playoff

And this is coach Pete's first true class that meant something!

mcnabb7542 said:

This senior class has one serious resume after this season:

-swept the Cougs
- all time leading passer
- all time leading rusher
-38 regular season wins
-Two Pac titles
-Fiesta Bowl
-Rose Bowl
-Semi Playoff

And this is coach Pete's first true class that meant something!

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I’m as confident about beating Utah as the next guy, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. If that does happen though, right on man. They definitely will have the resumé to prove themselves and overshadow any criticism we’ve all had. Only thing left, the next level, winning the Rose Bowl. Need one of those elusive big time wins to top it all off.

Other than losing to Utah, worst case scenario is Northwestern pulling off a fluke win and being the Rose Bowl match up. How anti climactic would that be...

I think we all can agree that Utah cannot beat UW, but UW sure can beat themselves. It would take a pretty substantial collapse for them to lose that game. Utah's offense is even worse than UW's.

They still have to go out and grab it, but it's right there in front of them.

Being healthier than they’ve been all year, and seeing how they used Bryant in a game with minimal passing attempts does inspire some hope that the offense might be functional to close out the year.

TheDayMan said:

Being healthier than they’ve been all year, and seeing how they used Bryant in a game with minimal passing attempts does inspire some hope that the offense might be functional to close out the year.

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As encouraging as it was to see Hunter get involved, I saw at least 5 plays that were solidly designed misdirection/adjustment type plays that they have been lacking all year. Including that counter trap run that went the distance. They put in plays designed to take advantage of the cougs overplaying pressure and made them pay for it. That has me feeling better about where they are headed.

They don't need to do that much against Utah because I doubt the Utes score more than 10-13 tops. They just can't make dumb mistakes and take care of the football.

I feel pretty good about it for sure.

WizardHawk said:

As encouraging as it was to see Hunter get involved, I saw at least 5 plays that were solidly designed misdirection/adjustment type plays that they have been lacking all year. Including that counter trap run that went the distance. They put in plays designed to take advantage of the cougs overplaying pressure and made them pay for it. That has me feeling better about where they are headed.

They don't need to do that much against Utah because I doubt the Utes score more than 10-13 tops. They just can't make dumb mistakes and take care of the football.

I feel pretty good about it for sure.

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Definitely will say that the play calling in this one was one of the few games I've been happy about. Although it shouldn't be all that hard to recognize in the snow against an undersized Cougar defense it makes sense to pound the ball with some mix of play action and screens.

After watching most of the second half of the Utah/BYU game I'm even less worried now about this coming game. That's a bad offense they have now. Well, it was kind of bad before and now it's nearly a dumpster fire. The late scoring they had was basically 100% BYU out of position, missing tackles, and looking terrible on coverage.

WizardHawk said:

After watching most of the second half of the Utah/BYU game I'm even less worried now about this coming game. That's a bad offense they have now. Well, it was kind of bad before and now it's nearly a dumpster fire. The late scoring they had was basically 100% BYU out of position, missing tackles, and looking terrible on coverage.

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Agreed. Good for them coming back and all, but they did not look anything like a team who’s up for playing for a Pac 12 title next week.

There gonna end up with tOSU playing them in the Rose Bowl, I think the committee wont put them in the playoffs, ( well unless Okie craps the bed again against Texas) But either way I think Georgia gets that fourth nod...

mcnabb7542 said:

There gonna end up with tOSU playing them in the Rose Bowl, I think the committee wont put them in the playoffs, ( well unless Okie craps the bed again against Texas) But either way I think Georgia gets that fourth nod...

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Should be interesting. I enjoy playing around with FiveThirtyEight's college football prediction algorithm. Obviously none of these are a given, but if UW beats Utah, Clemson beats Pitt, Alabama beats Georgia, Ohio State beats Northwestern and Oklahoma beats Texas; these are the projections:

Chances that teams make the playoff:
99% Clemson
62% ND
99% Alabama
69% Ohio State
68% Oklahoma

So Clemson and Alabama will be in and the remaining three spots will be between Ohio State, Oklahoma and Notre Dame.

One very good team will be left out.

Here's the link if you wanted to play around with it:

2018 College Football Predictions

Petersen on the trick play...

ON THE DOUBLE PASS...
"I think it’s more (the situation). We’ve used that play for a while now and it’s been pretty effective. You keep your fingers crossed. They got to give you the right look, it’s got to be the right timing, all of that. I thought Bush (Hamdan) did a nice job of calling that. That was all him. He had that in his back pocket. It kind of even surprised me. I’m thinking, ‘OK, are they going to line up right?’ And they did."

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So maybe Hamdan is starting to play chess a bit. Gave him the full credit for calling it and at the right time.

seahawksfan234 said:

Should be interesting. I enjoy playing around with FiveThirtyEight's college football prediction algorithm. Obviously none of these are a given, but if UW beats Utah, Clemson beats Pitt, Alabama beats Georgia, Ohio State beats Northwestern and Oklahoma beats Texas; these are the projections:

Chances that teams make the playoff:
99% Clemson
62% ND
99% Alabama
69% Ohio State
68% Oklahoma

So Clemson and Alabama will be in and the remaining three spots will be between Ohio State, Oklahoma and Notre Dame.

One very good team will be left out.

Here's the link if you wanted to play around with it:

2018 College Football Predictions

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Thanks, but instead of asking a computer let me ask this to folks that breath and think on their own :

How do you let a one lose tOsu ( who got beat by Purdue)

go in over a one lose Okie team ( who lost to Texas)

* Plus do you actually think the NC2A is really gonna let Meyer be on one of the playoff sidelines this winter after the debacle of night firing his assistant in a timely fashion?

WizardHawk said:

Petersen on the trick play...

So maybe Hamdan is starting to play chess a bit. Gave him the full credit for calling it and at the right time.

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Saw coach Pete talking about this on the news, said there was a pretty good debate between him and Bush on when to use and if they were going to use it...