UW AT Hawaii

[kearly]

Really surprised Williams didn't get a shot in the 4th quarter. I'm sure Pete didn't think we would be this bad and really didn't know what to do about it.

I had the same exact thought. The game plan with the offense made no sense in the 4th quarter. It was obvious Lindquist had completely shut down as a QB and was just trying to avoid throwing interceptions. You could tell Petersen didn't anticipate this because no effort was made to change the offensive game plan. It wasn't until the game was nearly over and Petersen realized he could just run every play and probably win the game that he finally took the burden off Lindquist's shoulders.

Really a shame that Lindquist is so terrible. He has some good tools, and that 91 yard TD was a thing of beauty.

I disagree about Washington. I thought he looked really slow through the hole, ran straight up and timid, and was really ineffective. I thought Coleman ran much more decisively. Wasn't he somewhere around 100 yards?

Coleman had pretty much the same YPC as Washington until those last couple drives when UW was plowing that gassed D. He finished with respectable numbers, 78 yards, 4.6 YPC. But before those last couple drives he was in the low 3's.

Coleman seems solid enough, but he's kinda slow and not a big play RB. He's like UW's version of Spencer Ware.

Dwayne Washington showed how explosive and dynamic he is last season. He averaged 7.1 YPC and had a rush TD every 12 carries last year. I'm personally sold on his talent (6'2", 215 pounds, with big play speed). His numbers weren't great in this game, but he only had 12 carries, and if you limit Coleman to his first 12 carries he doesn't look any better. And in a game like this, UW desperately needed cheap points and big plays (I was fine with them using Coleman at the end, I think that late game situation called for a tough yards kind of back).

We better not lose to Eastern.

Hey, at least we don't have to worry about going 0-12!

Looking ahead, If Halliday has one of his "on" games during this year's Apple Cup, we might see the first WSU blowout win over UW in quite some time. Not looking forward to that game.

 

[fenderbender123]

while petersen was bad tonight kearly I can remember plenty of games that sark coached this poorly.
The team looks terrible, if they don't improve they'll be lucky to make a bowl. Which would be completely unacceptable.
That said I believe in petersen, but wow that was bad.

My thoughts as well. I recall UW almost losing to friggin' Eastern at home...

 

[davidonmi]

if you're talking team preparation you are probably correct. However there were games where we just shot ourselves in the foot with penalties and turnovers which I put on the coach more than anything.

As for the Oline. Make no mistake hawaii's Dline is awful. They could not stop the run to save their lives last year. While the pass protection was fine, outside of the last drive, there was barely any push in the run game, which is completely unacceptable considering the opponent. We need Riva badly

 

[Blitzer88]

This was not a good start to the Petersen era...........didn't seem like the type of coaching effort that is supposed to get Washington to the next level.

 

[HawkWow]

The cushion our D gifted UH was mind-boggling. We played like we entered Aloha stadium up by 40.

It's been hotter than hell and humid as hell over here for days on end, now. If you've ever had the misfortune of attending a game at Aloha stadium, you will know on days like this it's like a sauna and extremely uncomfortable. I've also been on the field and it's even worse down there. Not making excuses for the Dub (I'm extremely disappointed) but add the climate to the fact Norm and UH came into the game with their backs against the wall, aware of the possibility the school may abandon football, they definitely played with inspiration. Visiting any stadium in week 1 is never an easy task...even though the stadium was about 1/2 full, UH played their hearts out.

Lindquist played scared the entire night. I find it hard to believe he is as bad as he was and maybe a piece of the problem is the old adage "when you have 2 (3) QBs, you don't have 1". He looked more bent on not making mistakes than he did on making plays. My concern is I don't think Miles is a helluva lot better and now with the D playing like a Juco team 50% of the time, I think Coach Pete is saying "thank god for the Seattle Seahawks".

Pete definitely has to sharpen his own tools but I'm not giving up on him after 1 game. He has nothing in his history that suggests he can't coach with the best of them. The hurry up late in the 4th seemed rather odd, but the UH D was gassed and I guess Pete felt he could exploit that while also catching them off guard. But the one thing I hoped for post Sark was more discipline / less penalties and in week 1, that wasn't evident.

The good news is this Nebraska-like schedule we have to open the season will (should) provide the opportunity to dial a few things in. But without a QB, its going to be very difficult to play with the big boys. Go Dawgs (anyway).

 

[MLOhawks]

The one thing I didn't like about the Petersen hire was when he brought most of his staff from Boise with him. Their good coordinators got picked off and that's why they declined the last two years. So, Petersen brought his "B Team" with him to Udub instead of the 2006-2010 A Team.

 

[hawksfansinceday1]

We better not lose to Eastern.

Eastern's gonna score on UW. The good thing for the Huskies is that the Eagles are not good defensively. Think it's possible to see a game much like Eastern v. Oregon State a couple of years ago. IIRC the final had both teams in 40s (Eastern won).

 

[davidonmi]

Both teams will be in the 30's at least. Thankfully miles is quite a bit better than lindquist because we're going to have to score a bunch to win

 

[dopeboy206]

The one thing I didn't like about the Petersen hire was when he brought most of his staff from Boise with him. Their good coordinators got picked off and that's why they declined the last two years. So, Petersen brought his "B Team" with him to Udub instead of the 2006-2010 A Team.

+100. I didn't like it either, I was hoping Justin Wilcox stays as our DC.

 

[razgriz737]

Lindquist had a weird game. The first half I thought he looked raw but competent. A number of his incompletions in the first half were egregious drops by his receivers. In the second half though, he just looked lost. Totally afraid to throw the ball.

Running game seemed really lacking without Sankey. None of our backs seemed to have Sankey's shiftiness and vision. I wasn't paying attention to the O-Line though so it may have been due to blocking, at least partially.

 

[kearly]

Not making excuses for the Dub (I'm extremely disappointed) but add the climate to the fact Norm and UH came into the game with their backs against the wall, aware of the possibility the school may abandon football, they definitely played with inspiration. Visiting any stadium in week 1 is never an easy task...even though the stadium was about 1/2 full, UH played their hearts out.

Very good point. I think if UW had played this game when Hawaii was 1-2 they might have found them to be a much softer opponent. But because this was the season opener with the coaches no doubt using this game as serious motivation for the very life of the football program, it meant that Hawaii was going to play their asses off.

But the one thing I hoped for post Sark was more discipline / less penalties and in week 1, that wasn't evident.

Pete Carroll has shown us that penalties aren't necessarily a bi-product of poor coaching. UW had a lot of penalties last year because their defense was very physical and because their O-line was terrible in pass protection. Sound familiar? Funny enough, this formula is a winning one right now, and not just for the Seahawks.

My thoughts as well. I recall UW almost losing to friggin' Eastern at home...

EWU had won the FCS national championship the year before. When they barely lost to UW it snapped an 11 game win streak. UW played a great game on offense, but sadly still had Nick Holt on defense. EWU had some fringe NFL talent on that offense, and their QB in particular had an awesome performance in that game.

I remember it being a great game, not because UW played down to their level, but because EWU brought their best that day. And because words can never do justice in describing just how much Nick Holt sucks.

As for the Oline. Make no mistake hawaii's Dline is awful. They could not stop the run to save their lives last year. While the pass protection was fine, outside of the last drive, there was barely any push in the run game, which is completely unacceptable considering the opponent. We need Riva badly

To be fair, we don't know how good Hawaii's run defense is because things like run defense can change very quickly from season to season.

Regarding the run blocking performance, I look at it this way... It felt like Hawaii was running down UW's throat all game... But they finished with the same YPC as UW did. From their perspective it must have felt like UW's O-line was having their way in the run game just as much as their run game did to us. Especially at the end, when all UW did was run for half a quarter and Hawaii basically couldn't stop it.

UW was money on short yardage rushing. There was a lot to like. UW only had 5 first downs through the air but managed 12 on the ground. UW's RBs were moving the chains with a non-functional QB under center.

One area that I will concede is that I thought UW's O-line was stupidly over-hyped coming into this game. I think some people were expecting UW to rush for 7 yards a carry but my expectations were far more grounded, especially since most of the carries went to RB's who lacked big play speed.

And as HawkWow points out, Hawaii was super motivated in this game. It's not a walk in the park to run on a D-line as big as theirs when they are motivated. Given that UW was one dimensional and had a revolving door at RB, I think their average per carry and success rate for 1st downs was pretty impressive.

 

[davidonmi]

I agree on overhyped. People thought because the Oline was now experienced it would result in them being a top unit.
Experience or not they lack talent on the Oline, and a lot of that has to do with poor Oline recruiting under sark.

One of the bigger positives was the pass rush. This team may struggle against physical rushing attacks, but they will be able to get after the passer this year.
The LBers were incredibly underwhelming

 

[Tical21]

After Stringfellow went away, Washington was probably the player I was most excited to see this season. I am certain he is dynamic in space. But we never gave him the ball outside the tackles. He runs too upside and isn't reckless enough to run between the guards all game, at least until he learns how to do it. I thought there was a considerable difference when Coleman came in and got some carries. The pile started falling forward. We saw some life. Then Washington came back in for the third quarter and everything stalled again until Coleman got it going in the 4th.

That defense. Ohhhh boy. I think somebody needs to show coach Pete tapes of our last 10 years and how our defensive results correlated with how much cushion our corners gave. We've done this cushion stuff before, to the tune of the worst defense in the country over whatever span we did it. If we play with that same cushion this week I am going to find a way to chew out the staff.

 

[Trenchbroom]

My thoughts as well. I recall UW almost losing to friggin' Eastern at home...

EWU had won the FCS national championship the year before. When they barely lost to UW it snapped an 11 game win streak. UW played a great game on offense, but sadly still had Nick Holt on defense. EWU had some fringe NFL talent on that offense, and their QB in particular had an awesome performance in that game.

I remember it being a great game, not because UW played down to their level, but because EWU brought their best that day. And because words can never do justice in describing just how much Nick Holt sucks.

Eastern alum who was at that game. Bo Levi Mitchell was our QB--he's the #1 QB in the CFL right now and it isn't even close.

As for next week's game, expect an exact copy of the 2011 meeting. Eastern's Offense is awesome but our Defense sucks (and we just lost our best CB for the season last week--down to freshman at both corners).

I'll hope that Eastern wins the coin toss because it will be an arena league game for sure.

 

[hawkfan68]

That was a brutal second half. An ugly, ugly game all around. Even those white helmets on white uniforms were ugly. Hope they shelve those. I'd like to see them go back to the traditional purple and gold w/ gold helmets. Then for away games while jersey, gold pants, and gold helmet.