Weird game. Colorado had a solid edge in all three phases through 2.5 quarters, but UW dominated the last 1.5 quarters in all three phases. UW didn't even have their first lead until fairly late in the game, and yet by the end it felt like they dominated Colorado.
Petersen still has some stuff to fix. The tackling around the LOS was a disaster. It was a weird game where UW made the difficult tackles but couldn't make the easy ones.
Colorado has a sneaky good OL and they deserve a ton of credit in both run blocking and protection. They were helped out some by some really stupid blitzes (sending six, two of them delayed blitzers, on 4th and 8 ), but for the most part they protected their QB better than any UW opponent this season. Their QB had 52 pass attempts but was only sacked 3 times, and one of those was a play where he ran out of bounds for a 1 yard loss. He didn't take his first real sack until mid-way through the 4th quarter.
Colorado has a lot of speed and a lot of skill, with an athletic / smart / skilled QB, it's almost like facing Sark's UW team last year. And before they started shooting themselves in the foot, they came very close to running away it. UW deserves a lot of credit for hanging around in this game early on despite getting their butts kicked.
Hang around, come back, take over, salt away a win. Great display of mental toughness as a team, especially with the three backbreaking RZ turnovers UW had.
I really hated it when draft pundits hyped Andrew Luck to the moon because of the athleticism he showed making one stupid catch at WR. I hate it when Miles Jack gets hyped because he can play both LB and RB, something that almost every decent LB/RB in existence did in HS. It's stupid. And until today, I thought it was kind of stupid that Shaq Thompson was getting all this hype because of big plays and "versatility".
But after today, I think he's erased any remaining doubt in my mind that he's a 1st round pick. Today he looked Heisman-esque at RB. Couple that with his defensive TDs and he might end up being the highest drafted outside 4-3 LB since Aaron Curry (lol). Scouts also obsess about versatility and Shaq has the physical tools to play any position on the field other than OL/DL. Some will view him as Andre Ellington+, some will view him as Lavonte David+, some will view him as Dashon Goldson+, and all of them will probably have first round grades on Shaq.
Maybe we lucked out and got an easy going officiating crew, but penalties were way down in this game and only one of them hurt UW in a meaningful way. After penalties were such a nightmare early in the year I have to credit the coach for cleaning it up. UW's offense looks so much sharper now, it's night and day from the first few weeks of the season.
Petersen also impressed me with his halftime adjustments. Colorado only scored 3 points in the second half.
And I really like the way he's developed Miles, who's shown improvement every single week. I don't know if Miles developed better technique or hit the weight room, but his wimpy arm is a distant memory now. His arm strength is no longer an issue at all. I'm at the point now where I am actually not horrified by the thought of Miles starting in '15 and '16, especially if the weekly improvement continues.
It took awhile, but slowly it seems that Petersen is living up to the hype.
The coach for Colorado seems likable in kind of a Dennis Erickson sort of way. He had some incredibly creative and effective plays in this game that he called on 3rd and short. But for as smart and as likable as he is, his clock management in the 2nd half was horrible. He wasted a timeout on a hopeless challenge when his team was trailing, then he used up almost the entire remaining clock on a drive when down by 15 points, then he wasted a timeout at the end to save maybe 10 seconds. It probably wouldn't have mattered, but it was still incredibly dumb.
