BYU Cougars:  Five keys to defeating the Washington Huskies

By Todd Erickson  |   Thursday, September 04, 2008  |  Comments( 0 )

BYU Cougars
Got something to say?

Sign Up and be the first to comment on this article!

Brigham Young’s BCS-busting dream season could easily become a nightmare in Seattle if it doesn’t take Washington seriously this weekend. This game is the first real test that will indicate if Bronco Mendenhall truly has mended the deficiencies in his game preparations for early season road contests. In the past two years, all of BYU’s four losses occurred within the first few games of the season on the road at Arizona, Boston College, UCLA and Tulsa.

Five keys to defeating Washington

1. Contain Jake Locker. Duh. This one's pretty fundamental. Oregon held Locker to 57 yards rushing on 16 carries and 12-of-28 passing for 103 yards last week. The Ducks also sacked him three times. The Ducks won at home 44-10, although the game was close (21-10) at the end of the third quarter. Ty Willingham pulled Locker once the game was out of reach with just over 7 minutes remaining.

Locker is a 6-foot-3, 222-pound speedy, powerful runner who poses the option threat every time he touches the ball. He’s not a terribly accurate passer and more dangerous on the ground, but the kid is competitive and will find a way to beat you if you don’t bottle him up on every play.

At the same time, the Cougars cannot afford to let running backs Chris Polk or Brandon Johnson pick up the slack for the Huskies on the ground. Oregon held Polk to 19 yards on 14 carries and Johnson to 13 yards on seven rush attempts. Quite simply, they took away the ground game and forced Washington to try and beat them through the air. BYU would be smart to follow a similar game plan, especially with the depth and strength the Cougars possess on the defensive front line.

2. Protect the ball—protect the quarterback. BYU got away with fumbling the ball four times last week to Northern Iowa. If the Cougars do that in Seattle, they’ll leave with a loss.

The Cougars need Max Hall to turn in another zero-pick game as well. It’s pretty demoralizing to a defense when Hall is able to sit in the pocket and pick it apart with an array of targets at various distances across the field.

If the O-line keeps the pressure off Hall, the ground game will open up and then Harvey Unga and Fui Vakapuna can land some pretty nasty one-two punches in the gut of the Husky front eight. Washington is sporting a 3-3-5 defensive scheme under new coordinator Ed Donatell and it has good team speed. Oregon managed 496 total yards on offense against the Huskies—256 yards passing and 240 yards rushing. A balanced output of that caliber would bode well for the Cougars in Seattle.

3. Control both sides of the line of scrimmage. This is really a sum of the first two keys to the game. Washington returns solid experience on both sides of the line—just like the Cougars—and it’s not rocket science to figure out the veracity of this equation. If BYU can contain Locker and the Husky rushing attack while protecting Hall and giving him enough time to read through his progressions and find his open receivers, besides winning the turnover margin, then the Cougars will go home with a much-deserved victory. Both sides of the line need to step up their game in a big way against the Huskies.

4. Spread the ball around. Washington will try to neutralize BYU’s weapons and force the Cougars into a one-dimensional attack. They’ll gladly allow Dennis Pitta a couple hundred receiving yards in exchange for bottling up Unga and the ground game and marginalizing the rest of the wideout corps. Hall needs to get the ball to Austin Collie and Michael Reed on a consistent basis early in the game to stretch the field on the Husky defenders and as Bronco Mendenhall has said, “force them to pick their poison.” The rotational receivers like Hafoka, Ashworth, White and Chambers need to make some big plays when called upon like White did last week in the fourth quarter.

When the Cougar offense is humming in high gear and several players are getting touches and gaining yardage, a state of confusion and panic sets in on the defensive side of the ball. When this happens, Hall & Co. chew up the clock, wear the opponent’s defense down and the scoreboard starts to rock 'n roll at a dizzying pace for the Cougars.

5. Start fast and take the crowd out of the game. There are several reasons why BYU has never won in four tries in Seattle, but the overarching factor in all four of those losses has been a slow start on the Cougars’ part.

The Washington home-field advantage is real. Even in down years, the Huskies have pulled off major upsets on their home turf and the fans are itching to make one happen this Saturday. It is imperative for the Cougars to score early and often to quiet the 70,000-plus faithful in Husky Stadium. It’s the first home game of the new season and both players and fans will be pumped up to cage the Cougars.

If the Huskies have the lead or are hanging close in the fourth quarter, it will be a monumental achievement for BYU to pull off a win on Saturday.

Prediction: I would be surprised to see BYU start fast and sustain any sort of comfortable lead against a very hungry, agitated Husky team. I envision a see-saw struggle with the Cougars hanging on for a 24-20 win. The scoring could go a bit higher, perhaps 34-30, with special teams play being a deciding factor.

Todd Erickson is the author of Road to the Rose Bowl (Silverback, 2005), the definitive book on the last 50 years of matchups and tradition in the Rose Bowl Game. He is a member of the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) and pens the RealFootball365 weekly college football columns AP Top 25 Recap and Fourth and inches ...
Got something to say?

Sign Up and be the first to comment on this article! (0)

About Todd Erickson

Todd Erickson is a member of the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) and pens the RealFootball365 Top 25 college football power rankings and "Fourth and inches..." weekly columns from August thru January. He is currently working on the second edition of Road to the Rose Bowl...
read more
Article Tools Share!   |  RSS  |  Bleacher Report About Bleacher Report