il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo: The Husky Football Season Review

Thanks to everyone for coming out on Saturday and watching the Dawgs stop the Apple Cup streak and putting up with me falling all over the place like some Capitol Hill dance company (and sorry for not making an official invite, I was pretty burnt out by Thurday night). As my buddy Raj used to tell say: “you’re F’n up left and right”…yes…yes I was, but I felt that I had a good reason and here is your Season Review titled after the Greatest Spaghetti Western ever.

Il Cattivo (the ugly):

There’s so much material her, but I’m going to try and condense it to just the main points:

Every minute of game-play from the interception in OT versus CAL to the 67 yard Cody Ellis grab Saturday:

Unfortunately this included four consecutive losses that reflected a team reverting to the failures of the past instead of the integrity of the future.

1-The Cal interception, in hindsight this game should never have gone to OT if TY had followed the rule that you go for two after the Miracle Hail Mary. Initially I was against the two-point conversion, but what difference does a loss in OT have? The way that Lynch was cranked up in the 4th quarter and Cal's offensive line finding inspiration, there was no way our Defense was going to handle the college overtime format, which benefits dominate offensive line play. I put this one on Lappano and Ty for not thinking beyond the next play following the Marlon Wood catch.

2-ASU, OT/Bonnell injury/Johnny D-time, This game had a little different twist, however UW was once again riding momentum going into the OT after trailing by two touchdowns to begin the 4th quarter. Once again, UW is unable to control the line in an OT contest and is forced to kick a 45+yard field goal and then on the very first play from ASU give up a wide open wheel route to the TE. Deflating loss that was made possible by a mis-read by the LB's that seemed to be a theme for the team during this time period , oh yeah and that loss lead to:

3-The preview to the worst UW football game I’ve ever seen. UW goes to Eugene and can not formulate even a decent offensive game plan. With UO dominating the running game and killing the clock UW consistently drops third down passes and is unable to rush for more than 50 yards in the entire game. Not sure why we are unable to get creative in the 10th game of the year when you knew you weren't going to be able to go through the tackles. The result of that de-moralizing loss set up:

4-The worst UW football game I’ve ever seen. Yes, even worse than the spanking that Miami gave UW after the Apple Cup four or five years ago. Three points versus the Stanford Defense? Really? Three Points? And One of their TD’s came on an interception the other came on a 65+ yard play that involved one of the worse whiff’s in college football. Man, just writing about this game pisses me off…this was definitely the lowest point of the season and made every fan take a look in the mirror and ask why they keep subjecting themselves to this. This loss is placed solely on the shoulders of Ty, even though each coach and players should've been asking themselves some serious questions, the lack of emotion and execution in the last home game and final game for the seniors made me pray that Ty recruits tougher players from a mental and physical aspect.


Next before I throw up again:

Il Brutto (the bad)

These games were less gut-wrenching than the ugly, but were consistently frustrating to witness and experience seemingly over and over again.

1-Oregon State-in hindsight, OSU actually was a fairly decent team, proving this by stopping USC’s Pac 10 winning streak in Corvallis. However, at the time UW had the opportunity to put the Beav’s away and were unable to consistently make first downs and turn the pressure up. On the other end of the ball, the defensive scheme for the game was horrible, allowing Evanson Bernard the ability to chew up seven to eight yards a handoff. This was the game that the Beavers got their Groove back thanks to Ken Baer putting confidence back in Matt Moore by allowing the Beavers to create a running game and then play-action to big gains. Oh yeah, we also lost our on field general mid-way through the season….that was brutto.

2-USC-I don’t have a lot of critique about this game, because the team played over it’s head for about 55 of the required 60 minutes and who knows if they got hosed on the last call or not. The downside to this game was the hangover it caused the next week versus OSU.

3-Oklahoma-27-13, UW has the ball at the OU 3 yard line with 4 plays to punch it in and change the complexion of the game….and….what happens?.....yeah that’s right a fumble by the QB and bam any chance we had at a big time upset is gone. This game wasn’t completely ugly because they came out and played tough in the first half and went into the break even, but failed to show up in the third quarter, when good teams usually win games.

Overall, the bad games usually carried with them a glimmer of hope, but the end result was another L in the record column, which automatically takes away from them falling under the good. I left out the Cal game, because I believe it led to a mentality of losing that crushed the team spirit.

A trend from all of the bad games that separates them from the ugly games is how the game usually came down to one play. One stop, one first down, one turnover that seemed to kill the mental stability of the team. I think if just one of these things had turned around for us, especially early, the season has a different look. Call me crazy.

Il Buono (the Good) :

So I just gave you seven games that ended with losses and were separated by whether they were “ugly” losses or just “bad” losses. Well, this group is obviously for the wins and there is never an “ugly” or “bad” win when you’ve won a combined three games the previous two years.

1-San Jose State, the first time this team had been over .500 in quite sometime even though it still went down to a last second play and they gave up 29 points to a middle of pack WAC team. Bottom line: “never look a “W” in the mouth.”

2-Fresno State, another middle to bottom of the pack WAC team that we win by just a hair or blocked PAT. This was a good win early for the team, putting us back over .500 and giving us some confidence going into Pac 10 play. I think we were helped by Oregon taking FSU to the limit the week before in an emotional game, but whatever, a win is a win, even though Fresno is going to end up winning probably 3-4 games at best. Baer called a great second half to this game, after being dominated on the line through the first half.

3-UCLA, talk about the feel good game of the season. Stanback has his best game as a QB, Dan Howell returns a pick to ice the game, the heart of the team to come from behind. This was definitely the peak of the season for the team, getting only their 2nd Pac 10 win in three seasons and their first against UCLA since 2000, which lead directly to:

4-Arizona, in one of the oddest settings of the year, watching the game from the BoA with 7,000 other win-starved Dawg fans, we saw an offensive explosion during the 2nd quarter that resulted in a 21-3 hafltime lead and eventual W. In hindsight, I’m glad we got UA early after seeing them tear up WSU, Cal and UO in respective weeks. See what happens when your job is on the line? Stoops? Riley?

5-WSU, to the best W of the year and the only win inside the "NW championship." Does the W in the final week against your rivals negate the six previous weeks of futility? You bet your ass it does. Am I bitter that this team finished under .500 after starting 4-1, sure? Of course.. but somehow beating the Cougs is like pulling from a bottle of Early Times in five degree weather, is it still cold as sh*t outside? Sure, but the engine is getting revved and your ready to go.

Things that stood out in the Good Category:

a) UW was able to run the football, this is huge at any level of the game, this helped Lappano call a better game and work the play-action.

b) Defensive-stops, when they needed them, they made them and even created turnovers, something they’ve slowly improved upon in the last three seasons.

c) Special Team Execution, it doesn’t have to be stellar every game, but when you don’t have dominate line play, you can’t afford for the Special Teams to hurt you.

d) Offensive play calling, Lappano reminded me of Rain Man most of the season, occasionally calling innovative plays, but mixed in with a ton of redundancy and lack of creativity. Part of this was player execution, but part was not calling plays to the strength of your team and not spreading the QB out and running misdirection to hide the weakness and inexperience of the offensive line. I still think this fact alone costs us two to three games.

e) Defensive play calling. I was satisfied with most of Baer’s schemes throughout the season with the exception of OSU, and in the wins I thought he mixed pressure and coverage well to keep the offenses guessing.

This is running long and I have more that I want to cover including position by position breakdown and what the spring and 2007 season look like. Stay Tuned for a Fistful of Locker….