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alphahydro

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Everything posted by alphahydro

  1. The argument I've seen UW fans make goes something like- hey, UW can't recruit like Texas or Alabama. We have some great players, but once a starter goes down, there is sometimes a huge drop-off to his backup. After the team lost its 2 best defensive players (a safety and DT) the coaching staff had to cobble together a defense with easily exploitable holes (going from standouts to Jags at DT and safety). Additionally, once those injured players got healthy, the UW DC had a lot more options when game planning (hence the quote from the UW blog about being able to play cover zero in the P12 CG with the previously injured safety back on the field). So, yeah, (the argument goes) those key injuries explain why UW struggled, but hey the team is healthy now, and Texas shouldn't expect the injury-riddled defense that gave up 33 to Stanford, they should expect the fully healthy defense that held Oregon to 31. And hey, btw, don't forget--Oregon has an even better offense than Texas. So Texas should expect to score less than 31 while having to defend Penix and 3 future NFL hall of famer WR. I was just testing that argument. One response might be - yeah, UW's defense is definitely better with everyone back - and it looks like having everyone back allowed UW's DC to stymie a really potent Oregon offense - at least for a bit when UW game planned to focus their resources on defending a small portion of the field and for some strange reason the Oregon OC decided to play only in that same part of the field for the first several drives. But, yeah, once the game opened up, even with everyone on UW's defense back healthy, the defense didn't fare so well against Oregon. I guess this relates to my next point IF Sanders is fully healthy IF Worthy is fully healthy AND Ewers has a good game UW can't play cover zero. And they can't just try to keep everything in front of them. If they have to defend the whole field and Ewers is locked in, that's a lot for their personnel. On top of that, Texas' offense is more potent than it appears at first glance. If you take out the games where Ewers was injured, (including TCU, where I think he came back before he was really ready) Ewers had 2 very slow starts vs OU and Iowa State. In the rest of the conference games + Alabama, Texas' opponent adjusted offensive output percentiles were 92, 89, 93, 75, 99. And 3 of those 5 games (underlined) were against good defenses - DFEI rankings 9, 23, 37 (UW is 27). If Texas's offense plays at that level in the Sugar Bowl, it's probably a tough game for UW. If on the other hand, Texas follows in Oregon's footsteps and spots UW the first several drives, Texas could be in for long day. I'm not worried about the trap that Oregon fell into. I'm not worried about Sark spotting a half to UW because he doesn't adjust to UW's gameplan. *knock on wood* I do think that Ewers needs to come ready to play, and he needs to take what the defense gives him, quickly, from the first snap of the game, whether that's a shot, a check down, or throwing the ball into the fucking stands when we do some stupid shit like try to block trice with our TE. If Ewers can do that, I think Texas probably just has too many weapons and too good a playcaller for this UW defense to defend, even at full health. (Again, just my $.02, happy to review something I've missed). And if Ewers does all that from first snap and he's healthy enough to tuck it and run (and slide) when that's what the defense offers, I think the UW DC is definitely going to run low on solutions to all the problems Texas' offense presents, even with his starting safety and DT healthy. On the other hand, Iowa State and OU have similar ranked defenses to UW, and Ewers came out real slow in those games (imo). Have to avoid that in the Sugar Bowl. Don't want to spot Penix 4 or 5 drives and then try to play catch up. Good news is - Texas ended the season in good form. So we will see, but, frankly, the more I dig into things, the more I see cause for hope. FWIW. hook em.
  2. Yeah, that's a great catch (though in fairness I did think that was a great playcall by UW in that particular situation), and your point makes me think about something I'm still trying to work out in my head. in conference play, UW's opponent adjusted defensive performances were in the 27th, 30th, 33rd, 60th, 64th, 65th, and 66th percentile - and then the UW defense played well against Oregon State in a rainy game where the QBs threw for 160 yards each. And they played Oregon well twice. At least for the moment, chalk up some of Oregon State's lack of offensive output to rain. We have a bunch of terrible performances, a game in the rain (against an admittedly good offense), then a couple good games against Oregon. But let's look closer at the second Oregon game. (in part because i haven't rewatched the first) Bo Nix has an absurdly small ADOT (7 yards, 193rd in the country among D1 QBs). At least in the second game, maybe I'm oversimplifying, but UW looked like a really, really well coached team that came out trying to take advantage of Nix's small ADOT by playing to keep everything in front of them and funnel it to the middle. Turns out this is much easier to do on defense when the other team doesn't throw past los. Anyway, for whatever reason, Oregon failed to adjust to UW's strat. Or at least Oregon didn't adjust until they were down 20-3. I don't think Oregon put a single ball 20 yards in the air until they were down 20-3. (watch the video and tell me I missed one). And when they finally did (down 20-3), the Oregon WR was wide open and the play went for like 40. Oregon scored a TD on that drive. And then Oregon threw downfield a few more times. Once Oregon started threating downfield, the run game opened up, and Oregon followed the first TD with TD, INT, TD, PUNT, TD. But it was too late. By taking so long to adjust to UW's gameplan, Oregon had already spotted four drives to one of the best offenses in the country (and tbh, UO got even more outcoached on the other side of the ball, imo.) Another way of looking at this, is, if I'm a UW fan, I can tell myself, our defense was spotty in parts of the season, but we had injuries. And once everyone came back, look, we put in a great performance against UO. A more skeptical take is: UW's defense was awful to mediocre in every pac 12 game except Oregon State and the first half of the Oregon game. And that's mostly because Dan Lanning and his staff aren't exactly sponsored by MENSA and took so long to figure out UW's gameplan. Once UO started stretching the field, they scored 28 points in their next six possessions, driving 75, 75, 62, and 75 yards. Maybe all the P12 CG shows (as it relates to UW's defense) that if UW tries to keep everything in front of them and the other team obliges by staying in front of them, the UW defense looks good. But when the game opens up, UW doesn't look so good. Curious to hear from UW fans. I'm sure I'm missing something.
  3. sorry, but also, I think that website ignores drives that take place once the game is out of hand). So, for example, ASU didn't score against Oregon until it was 42-0, so the website stopped tracking Oregon's D vs ASU's O before ASU scored a single point. Which kinda makes sense. If you are just looking at final scores, UW's rating is lower than you would expect in part because UW went the distance against ASU, so all of ASU's drives counted. ASU was bad (3-9) so perhaps a lot of the points their offense scored against better teams came after the game was in hand. (Similar to what happened against Oregon). Which would put downward pressure on the rating of UW's performance. Finally, it looks like ASU missed two field goals, and I think those get counted against special teams, not the defense.
  4. oh, also, calling it a "D" is just my way of trying to quickly illustrate the pattern of UW's defensive performance over the course of the season. You could call a 65th% percentile a B+ or whatever. I just mapped the percentiles onto the normal school grading system. FWIW, this is what caught my eye and made me think to look at the stats. from: https://www.uwdawgpound.com/2023/12/7/23987235/film-study-2023-pac-12-championship-uw-washington-huskies-oregon-ducks-deboer-odunze-penix-johnson talking about how getting their safety back has influenced UW's ability to comfortably load the box against the run in certain situations. Not clear if they will try this against Texas or if it would have made a difference in the games where their defense underperformed--just made me think.
  5. Lol. I had the same reaction. I guess the problem was ASU scored 0 against Fresno State, 3 against Utah, 13 against Oregon etc. Also, the tool looks at how many non-garbage-time drives there were (only 9 offensive drives by ASU) and how many yards the defense gave up. If you let the other team drive down the field, the tool calculates that you are taking away expected points from the offense, and it counts that against the defense. So ASU had 341 yards on 9 drives, and, when adjusted for ASU's offense, that is about as good as a 65th percentile defense would do against ASU per drive, apparently. Put another way, per their calculations, if your defense is in the top 35% of college defenses, you would do better than that over the course of 9 drives against the ASU offense. Oregon's D got a 76% grade against ASU. (Coincidentally, Oregon's 42 points against ASU rated as the single best offensive performance of the entire season.) Again, I'm not vouching for their math, just asking about a UW defense trend that shows up in their data. But yeah, I had the same reaction as you.
  6. Question for the UW fans - If you go to https://www.bcftoys.com/2023-gr#washington They rank each team's performance in every game. As I understand it, the stats show each team's opponent adjusted performance against every team on their schedule. I don't know exactly how they compute the numbers, but let's assume it's reasonable. Even if you don't have 100% faith in the way they calculate the numbers, presumably the calculations are consistent and could help reveal trends over the course of the season. The stats are broken down to show offensive performance in the game, defensive performance, etc. Plus, they calculate how each performance rated against all the other performances in all the other cfb games this year. For example, by their calculations, Texas' opponent adjusted defensive performance against Tech was better than 96.7% of all the defensive performances this year. The offense's opponent adjusted performance against Okie State was better than 98.8% of all other adjusted performances. But the offensive performance against BYU was just average (at 49.9%, it was just about what an average cfb offense would have produced against this year's BYU defense). OK fine, so here's my question. If you take these numbers as reasonable, and you score the percentage/percentile performance as a grade (90-100 = A; 80-89 = B; 70-79 = C, etc), this is how bcftoys ranks UW's defensive performances this year: B boise B+ tulsa A michigan state D cal D arizona B oregon D asu F stanford F usc F utah A oregon state D wazzu B oregon Any obvious explanation for this pattern? I know there was talk about key injuries this year, at DT and safety. (For example, Texas' worst offensive performances clearly came during Houston, BYU, KState, TCU, a span that includes Ewers' injury and first game back) Do injuries explain the pattern of UW's defensive performances over the course of the season? Did they underperform against teams with big backs? QBs that could stretch the field? Teams with mobile QBs? Spread teams? something else? Just curious.
  7. Here is some game analysis from some UW fans who are more serious. I haven't looked at these, but for anyone curious: https://www.uwdawgpound.com/washington-huskies-film-study-hall they also have a sugar bowl preview (I assume they will do a more in-depth preview later). https://www.uwdawgpound.com/2023/12/11/23994875/sugar-bowl-key-matchups-preview-uw-washington-huskies-texas-longhorns-football
  8. yeah, it's insane for a freshman. like how can you not be confident when your setter rolls like that?
  9. I skimmed four UW games against what I think are the best comps to 2023-4 Texas defense (alamo bowl, p12CG, Utah, Arizona). Pretty interesting, because there were, imo, 2 different approaches to dealing with the UW offense. Texas and Arizona rushed almost exclusively 3 or 4 when Penix dropped back to pass. Oregon and Utah consistently brought an extra rusher to try to pressure Penix. Meaningless stats: vs AZ and Texas UW scored 27 and 31. Penix' QBR was 72 (UT) and 88 (AZ). Primary RB ran for 7.7ypc (UT) and 5.7 ypc (AZ). vs Oregon and Utah UW scored 34 and 35 Penix QBR was 88 and 87 Primary RB ran for 5.4 and 4.5 See for yourself. (I basically just skipped to the plays where UW had the ball) Texas didn't bring a lot of extra heat. They brought pressure at 20:00 and 45:42. I'm gonna say we don't want to see lots of those 1 on 1s on 1/1. *knock on wood* UTAH Utah showed us what happens when you blitz and don't get home. Check 26:45, 1:32:29 (3rd and 8), 1:44:49. You can play their WR really well and still get burned. Even if you manufacture a good blitz, Penix is great at getting rid of the ball and taking the loss of down. 26:00 The thing is, you need a good DL to get pressure on Penix with 4. If you can't trouble them with 4, they will still pick you apart underneath (13:28) and punish you if your WR get caught 1 v 1 (49:20). Utah did show that you can affect Penix with 4 if you can get a reasonable rush and cover well. (1:31:53), esp if you disguise your looks (30:57, 56:45, 57:59) OREGON Oregon showed us the risk of bringing a safety (49:17) or a LB (10:48) ARIZONA Arizona showed what happens if you play off and don't have great LB athleticism/play 16:16, 1:23:27, 27:00 and if you drop 8 and put no pressure on Penix 1:07:35, 1:39:15 Here's how I see it. Curious to read what others think This year, Washington has pretty much just passed the ball no matter what Washington is 124th this season in rushing play percentage. Arizona left the box undermanned for huge stretches of the game and UW still ran 2:1 pass plays. Despite running for 5.6 ypc against Texas, UW threw the ball 2:1 UW actually ran the ball more against Oregon and Utah; their RB is pretty good at cutting back against pressure When teams brought 4 and dropped into deep coverage, UW was generally content to pick the teams apart underneath UW managed very few 20+ yard passing plays against Arizona and Texas If you drop your safeties deep, UW will put a lot of pressure on your LB, but I think 2023/4 Texas is much better positioned to handle this pressure than Arizona or 2022/3 Texas If you can get pressure with 4, you can definitely still affect Penix. If you can't get pressure with 4, you generally live to fight another set of downs, because they are content to take what the defense gives them. I think Texas front 4 might be able to generate as much pressure as 5 from a lesser DL. *knock on wood* Oregon and Arizona exposed the problems with bringing heat to try to affect Penix. If you blitz and don't get there, eventually you will get caught exposing their absolute strength - 1 on 1 against their WRs with no help. Get ready to hear their stupid fight song and watch Penix cosplay as the chick from hunger games. If you blitz and do get there, Penix is good at throwing the ball away (UW is #3 in the country in avoiding sacks) If you get UW into 3rd and long, you aren't safe anyway. I think the risk/reward of blitzing Penix isn't that favorable. Success against this UW offense, imo, would be holding them below 29. For this Texas team, I think I would give UW the underneath plays and make them drive the ball down the field like they did against Arizona, but against (1) a DL that can get better pressure with four and (2) a much more athletic LB. I would try to protect my DBs, rather than lean on them while I was trying to create negative plays because 1) penix has been great avoiding negative plays 2) penix can still easily make 3rd and long throws and 3) I would rather try to make them beat me with the less potent aspect of their offense. I don't want the game to turn on them being able to play to their absolute strength vs probably the least effective part of Texas' team. Even if I were Alabama and had 27 all american DBs, I am not sure I would want the game to turn on my DBs being able to hold down UW's WR 1-on-1. IMO, the best way to parlay Texas' strength at DT is to "get away with" rushing 4, so you can throw numbers to mitigate UW's most potent threat. I think that was pretty much the Texas gameplan last year, and I think this year's defense can execute it better - even granting that UW's offense is better than it was last year. Curious to read other takes. hook em.
  10. swindle has that perfect stank face you wanna see in a QB/setter/PG halter was the goat in the semis skinner was a straight up cheat code today.
  11. Interesting. They are 70th in yards per rush allowed (not on the chart above) 83rd on third down 70th in the red zone scoring %age allowed (not on chart), and 129th in sack %age (not on chart) despite facing a lot of passes doesn't say a lot about their DL. it's actually kinda fascinating that they've done as well as they have defensively this year, especially in the last game. For example, Oregon is 3rd nationally in 3rd down conversion (51%), but was 3-10 on 3rd down in the P12CG. One possible explanation is that Oregon isn't as explosive on offense as they have been in years past. Idk. UW held Oregon to 31 and 33, but Oregon was also held to: 31 by Oregon State (ranked 38th nationally in points allowed per play) 35 by Utah (36th) 36 by USC(!) (113th) 38 by Tech (76th) 38 by Wazzu (74th) UW's DFEI (adjusted) and points per play allowed are both 27th in the country. So they perform well as a defensive unit (about as good as Iowa State (28th and 26th), and just below OU, based on those metrics), despite the red stats above. They basically stymie the passing attack (23rd in opp. passer rating) without getting sacks, and they suck against the run, but everyone passes against them.
  12. Yeah, i didn't meant to reply to Troph. I was adding on a thought to my last post and he happened to post right before I did. Here's how i see it - 1) UW didn't gash Oregon on the ground. But they ran at a nice clip, and if you can run like UW did, you get in a lot of favorable down and distances. And that makes them really tough to defend. No one's worried about UW's RB going for 275. But if you get outnumbered vs the run, you should be worried about the UW running back keeping the UW offense ahead of the sticks. That's the risk of defending their rush with an honest front - you don't get gashed on the ground, they are just able (potentially) to run just enough to put themselves into positions that limit what you can call on defense. (esp if you don't communicate well and get lost in the pulling and presnap motion, which is what looked to me like what happened to Oregon). Or that's how i see it. I haven't looked at the play by play, but that's kinda how i felt during P12CG (my guess it's part of the reason UW went 10-15 on 3rd). I don't have any real concerns about getting wrecked by the UW run game directly. I think the Texas front should do just fine against Oregon's run game. I think it will be interesting to see how often UW runs the ball, but I personally don't really see it as a key to the game. *knock on wood* In large part because I think Penix can still be deadly on third and long. Obviously it's still better than 3rd and short...but idk. will be interesting to watch that aspect of the game unfold. obviously texas is not going to sell out to stop the run. Just a matter of how much better they can do compared to Oregon without bringing extra men. 2) regarding my comment, which in retrospect was kinda stupid. UW knows the opposing team is going to try to bring pressure up the middle to disrupt Penix. The risk of bringing a safety is pretty obvious. if you bring a LB, they love to run drag routes over the middle (from what i've seen in 2 games, lol). I don't think Texas wants to gamble by bringing a safety, and i was just thinking out loud of ways that our advantage at DT would translate into getting pressure on Penix on passing downs. If, esp late in a close game, our depth and DT quality allows us to get pressure up the middle without bringing a LB, that could be key. But idk. just spitballing.
  13. another possibility - other schools have found success by bringing an extra defender up the middle. Can we simulate that pressure just by stunting DTs against their undersized center? just grasping at straws / trying to figure out where there might be an advantage. But their OL seems to have performed really well all season.
  14. I think this was Oregon's strategy in the P12 CG. I'm not sure it worked out for them. But it's hard to second guess when I know so little about either team. I think defending UW is about picking your poison, and you'd be crazy not to try to stop the run without help. I don't know that Texas' strength at DT is going to be hugely disruptive, at least not early in the game. But shit idk. It does seem like Penix can panic when you get pressure up the middle. I think one of the keys is can we limit the short game just enough without overcommitting via athleticism and the limit the run game just enough bc of the strength of the Dline. If we can't, there's just a lot to defend. The Arizona game is pretty scary. UW didn't score too many points, but holy shit did they march the ball down the field at will (if i'm thinking of the right game).
  15. That leads me to the second thing I would be worried about if I were a UW fan - assuming neither team sprints out to an early lead, do we (UW) have the depth in the second half to stay even in a close game with Texas? Or, do all the sudden the fresh front 7 of Texas start getting to Penix enough to disrupt our gameplan? (From what i've seen, he does seem to throw at least 2 balls up for grabs each game when he gets pressured). Everyone can have their own opinion on this, but after watching the P12 and SEC championship games, I remember thinking wow, the difference at the LOS is not subtle. If you skip to any part in these games, to me, the size, athleticism, speed, and violence in the DL and LB just seems to be on a different level. I think some of this is due to depth. (I was gonna post the OU game, but I didn't want to ruin anyone's day. But I think you see something similar to teh Bama game in that game when it comes to speed, size, and violence on defense throughout the game). Of course UW can win this game going away if Ewers has a bad game, or there are a few unlucky breaks, etc. But these are the things that would give me pause if I were a UW fan - thinking we had to play Texas 50 times, how would the game turn out on average.
  16. If I am a UW fan, these would be my concerns. 1) We (UW fans) are excited to see UW against Texas' secondary. But wait. You're telling me Texas' passing attack is about as good as UW's on a given play? EWERS 71% completion 9.0 AVG 3.5:1 TD:INT 162.6 Rating PENIX 66% completion 9.1 AVG 3.66:1 TD:INT 161.4 Rating But, we have so many weapons. We (UW) have 4 WR/TE with 30+ Receptions and 10+ yards per reception. Wait, so does Texas? And our pass defense isn't much better than theirs? But the Oregon game showed you can't defend our WR/TE and stop the run game. Wait, you're saying the same thing applies to us when Texas has the ball? And Texas has a better run game than us and a better run defense? --------------- this starts to look like a stalemate/relatively even matchup, similar to Oregon. And you have to start looking at individual matchups (J. Sanders prolly being the most obvious positive one for Texas - and if they really are bad at tackling, you start to look at some of Texas' possible game breakers), coaching quality (one place where it looked like Oregon suffered in the games I watched). And maybe how was UW able to play/defend against good passing attacks. (basically USC/Oregon/AZ/Oregon state). And frankly, you have to start looking at the difference between Brooks and the remaining RBs, imo. Arizona seemed to do a lot of damage late with their bruising RB.
  17. When I say well-rounded, I guess it's relative. I mean if UW plays a team of equal strength, I don't see any major facets of UW's team that are obviously going to be at risk of being exploited by the other team. It's almost like one of those video games where you get 100 skill points at the beginning of the game and you sprinkle the 100 points among the 10 different categories when you create your player (magic, speed, strength or whatever). UW did a good job of sprinkling the points pretty evenly. I don't have major questions about any facet of their team. UW's pass defense is only slightly better than Texas' (at least on paper, though UW has faced some really good passing attacks this year). But among the 3 playoff teams, the biggest threat to exploit a subpar pass defense is prolly Penix. Their run defense doesn't look good on paper, but they stymied Oregon's main running back without getting torched by the pass. Their O-line seems to do its job well in pass pro, they have a good coach. yada yada. I don't see any glaring question marks or deficiencies. Case in point is the Sugar Bowl. No one is really saying that Texas looks poised to win because they are going to dominate UW in this facet of the game or that. And this is a Texas team that beat Alabama convincingly at home and finished the season strong. In normal years, you might say the biggest threat for a "well-rounded" CFP team like UW is that they get throttled by a team with NFL athletes everywhere. You can be as well-rounded as you want, but if you get totally outclassed by 2019 LSU that started with 140 skill points instead of 100, you run the risk of getting stomped. I just don't see a juggernaut in this years CFP like we've seen in years past. (I don't see a repeat of UW Bama in 2016, where UW threw for 3.9 yards per pass and their main RB ran for 3.4 -- whereas Bama's main RB ran for 9.5 per carry). I could be wrong though, and if I were a UW fan, my secret fear would be that playing Oregon and Arizona just isn't the same as playing the other 3 CFP teams when it comes to line of scrimmage and depth over the course of the game. All I'm saying is, based on what I see, if Bama were to beat UW convincingly, it's probably because they have a slight edge that they can exploit. For example, Bama's DBs are good enough to do just enough in pass pro that Bama can afford to consistently send an extra blitzer up the middle. Or Michigan can force UW to drop extra men to help with the run and then hit some big play action passes. But it's going to be a minor advantage that gets exploited, as opposed to what we sometimes see out of the Pac-12 where one whole facet of the team isn't up to snuff. I said it was a terrible take, and I don't actually care if they are the most well-rounded of the four. (And I think well-rounded is slightly different from the most complete). But I do think it's important to think about UW as being well-rounded.
  18. that's fair. well-rounded doesn't mean best. UW could be an 8.0-8.5 at every position group and Alabama could be 9s and a 7.5. You might pick Bama in that head-to-head but think that UW was more well rounded. I think most of us agree that Texas' secondary hasn't been the strength of the team. I think the best counter-argument is that Texas' pass defense isn't as bad as the pass yardage stat suggests. Teams can't run at all, so they abandon the run and start chucking the ball up, leading to a bunch of pass yards. But when you look at opponent passer rating and yards per pass, Texas is actually respectable (about 30th in the country). Of course, if teams can't run the ball, should be easier to shut down the pass, and Texas hasn't really faced a ton of elite passing attacks this season.
  19. I didn't watch a lot of Oregon this season, but that approach makes sense to me. By the way, a few of the UW games are online for anyone who wants to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhF872NfGSk Pac 12 championship Arizona game.
  20. I think Oregon was favored by 10 over UW because the computers liked Oregon's record more (esp against common opponents). Oregon beat Cal by 17 more points than UW did, they beat ASU by 28 more more points; they beat oregon state by 22 more points, they beat wazzu by 12 more points. Utah by 19 more points, and stanford by 27 more points (quick maths there, so I may be off). It's possible that key UW players were sick for the ASU/Cal/Wazzu/Oregon st./Utah/Stanford games. Or the weather played a factor when UW played those teams but not when Oregon did. Maybe UW tends to play down to its competition. Idk. In any event, I think the margin-of-victory disparity against those teams is why the computers (and Vegas and human voters) liked Oregon so much. It's also why the CFP committee had Oregon ahead of Texas for so long (that and Nix's dazzling completion %age) It's also possible that Oregon beats up on less athletic teams, but loses their big competitive advantage when they play equally athletic teams. That's my pet theory and explains why Oregon was in a dogfight against UW in both games. Also explains why the one common opponent UW and Oregon beat by the ~ same margin (USC) was full of athletes. (It's also why I only looked at top competition when trying to match up UW's record this season vs Texas'.) FWIW, my terrible take is that UW is the most well-rounded team in the playoffs this year. What I mean by that is even though they may not have super athletes everywhere, they don't have any glaring weaknesses. It's harder to find a weakness or obvious potential issue with UW the way you can with UM, UT, or Bama. On top of that, I think this is a great year for UW, because even though they are probably the least athletic team of the 3, IMO there's no obvious juggernaut team that completely outclasses UW's athletes in 1-2 phases of the game. My gut is - if a team beats UW convincingly (aside from turnovers, luck, etc), it's because they have some talent differential here or there and they are able to exploit it in a way that disrupts what UW tries to do on offense or allows them to break a few homerun plays against UW's defense. (in a way that oregon couldn't). but i don't really know shit, so....
  21. I haven't watched enough Washington games to say anything useful about matchups, schemes, etc. So I pulled some stats while I was bored. TL;DR - I looked at Wash's results against teams roughly as good as Texas and vice versa (based on stats I pulled over the past week while i was bored. You may or may not think these stats are relevant). Based on the stats I pulled for Texas, UW, and each team's 2023 opponents: Assuming the Pac-12 and Big XII are pretty similar, the stats I pulled suggest a close Sugar Bowl with both teams scoring in the low 30s. This is before accounting for UW/Texas matchups, schemes, injuries, turnovers, etc. Over the course of the season, Wash was about as good on offense and defense as Oklahoma. On offense, based on the stats i pulled, Texas sits somewhere between Arizona and Oregon. Washington didn't face a defense quite as good as Texas', but Oregon's was pretty close (statistically), followed by Arizona. If you insert a team about as good as Texas (based on statistical performance) into UW's schedule, you'd expect something like 32-30 UW. If you insert a team about as good as UW into Texas' schedule, you expect something like 30-29 Texas. I expect some of the difference is due to game pace/plays per game, but I didn't look into this. Again, this is all assuming the stats are useful (you may not think so) and it doesn't account for matchups, etc. Some of Texas' stats include games where Ewers didn't play or Brooks did play. Similar caveat for UW. This is not serious or predictive. More like a sanity check for some of the more outlandish claims and something to chew on for the next couple weeks. I just pulled these random stats while i was bored this week, and these are my thoughts. The Goal - to see how Washington fared this season against teams about as good as Texas and vice versa. I'm not trying to argue anything here. I was pulling stats to see - how did Washington fare against offenses about as good as Texas; How did Texas fare against defenses about as good as Washington's, etc. i was just doing this out of boredom and curiosity, and i'm sharing my findings. Stats I pulled for each team on Tex and Wash schedules: Yards per rush OFEI (opponent adjusted offensive efficiency) points per play passer rating yards per pass DFEI (opponent adjusted defensive efficiency) Opponent Yards per rush points per play allowed. Opp pass rating Opp yards per attempt allowed I could have kept going, but tbh I ran out of steam. (no conspiracy, I just happened to start with these stats and got too bored to keep going) Preface You can draw your own conclusion about how useful the stats are. Was the Pac 12 roughly as strong as the Big XII this season? In pass defense, rush offense, rush defense, etc? idk. You can interpret the stats how you like. For purposes of the below, I largely assume that the conferences are roughly equal. (Only because I don't know of any good adjusted stats, and even if I did, I'm not a math guy but I wonder how good they would be with so few cross conference games between quality opponents this season.) Takeaway #1 - Based on the stats I pulled, Washington and OU had about the same season offensively and defensively. Matchups/schemes/injuries aside, this would provide reason to expect a close game. Offensively (national ranking): Yards per rush/ OFEI / points per play / pass rating / yards per pass 40th/ 6th/ 6th / 11th / 9th (UW) vs 45th / 7th / 8th / 4th / 5th (OU) Defensively (national ranking): DFEI / opponent yard per rush / opp points per play / opp pass rating / opp yards per pass att 27th/ 70th/ 27th / 23rd / 23rd (UW) vs 21st / 55th / 22nd / 12th / 27th (OU) Obviously, the big difference is, unlike OU, UW found a way to win the games where it shit the bed. lol. Takeaway # 2 - Looking at Texas' schedule, Texas scored about 30 points against defenses about as good as UW's. Defensively, if UW is a 27/70/27/23/23, the next best Washington comps are Iowa State (28/37/26/13/19) and Wyoming/KState (average = 41/84/39/28/28) Against OU/Iowa State/Wyoming/KState, Texas scored 30, 26, 31, 33. Based on these stats alone, ignoring matchups, injuries, schemes, etc., you would expect Texas to score about 30 against a defense of this caliber. (Most of Texas' big score games came against really bad defenses). Based on the numbers, Alabama has a significantly better defense than Wash (9/31/19/20/18). Yes Texas scored 34 against Alabama, but Texas' offense had a very good game against Bama and won the turnover battle 2-0. Takeaway # 3 - Looking at Texas' schedule, it's not easy to say how many points Texas would have allowed to an offense about as good as UW's. OU is a good comp (again, matchups aside) for UW. Surprisingly, so is Kansas. If UW is a 40/6/6/11/9, Kansas is a 9/10/13/15/6. (again these are national rankings based on unadjusted stats, with the exception of OFEI.) I think it's hard to take too much from the Kansas' game, due to their bad defense and overall caliber of athlete. Then you have K State (31 / 12 /19 / 52 / 67) which doesn't pass the ball as well, and Alabama (85 / 21 / 23 / 10 / 4 ), which didn't run the ball as well, based on raw, unadjusted stats. Here, it's one thing to say that OU and K-State faced pass defenses about as good as UW did over the course of the season. But it's hard to imagine saying that about run defenses faced when it comes to Alabama and UW. So this is just a really clear limit of the stats I had handy. Assuming you use OU/Bama/K-State as Washington offense comps (ignoring the Kansas result and figuring that Bama's rush is at least as good as UW's), Texas allowed just over 29 points against OU/Bama/K-State. Again, these are just rough sanity check type thought experiments, there is a lot more to say and this isn't meant to be predictive. I think one of the interesting takeaways here is - again, assuming the pac-12 and big xii pass defenses are pretty similar, UW didn't average a higher passer rating or yards per pass than OU or Kansas throughout the season, UW just threw the ball a lot more per game. Run with that fact as you will. Takeway # 4 - UW didn't face a defense that did as well in the Pac-12 this season as Texas did against its schedule. Oregon was closest. Texas 7/5/9/26/31 vs Oregon 15/18/10/17/15. (7th adjusted defense vs Oregon's 15th) No one else on UW's schedule is really close. Notably, Oregon has a better pass defense, at least per the unadjusted stats, though Texas' defense is better overall. UW scored an average of 35 points vs Oregon. UW offense also laid some eggs against Oregon State, ASU, and Wazzu. I didn't check, but I assume they had more offensive plays/drives against Oregon. Hard one to call. Unclear to me why UW's points production was so uneven this season. If UW had played more top defenses, we would have more data to look at. Takeway # 5 - UW didn't face a good comp to the Texas offense, even assuming Pac-12 roughly equal to Big XII. On paper, Texas definitely doesn't have an offense as good as USC's or Oregon's. USC put up 42. Oregon put up 31 and 33. No one else hit 30 in a competitive game. Texas is a 25/15/17/17/18. Arizona is a 36/11/21/9/23 and scored 24. Oregon State is a 29/8/26/32/20 and scored 20. I'd put a little less stock in these results for the same reason I don't put too much stock in Kansas offense's output against Texas. (athletic differences + weaknesses on the other side of the ball affecting output). So, yeah, idk. I will say I did come away from this thinking that Texas is prolly gonna have to work for points. Final Caveat. Again, these are just random musings. I wanted to see how Texas and UW fared against other good opponents. Turns out you basically just look at Texas/OU and UW/Oregon (lol) but I think it also helps to eliminate the games that aren't really all that informative. And then we are left with (to some extent) Arizona, Oregon State, K-State, Bama, and Iowa State, all of which tend to suggest we should expect a close game in the low 30s, absent considerations of some huge mismatch, be it talent, athleticism, luck, turnovers, scheme, etc. hook em.
  22. interesting. i noticed the one thing sark said about wash during some tv interview i saw was something like "they're a great team. they're doing a good job running the ball with dillon johnson. he's really come on lately" which now makes more sense. sounds like tosh got out-coached, which doesn't surprise me. and my overriding feeling during that game was that oregon's defense just looked poorly coached and poorly prepared. i guess some of that was great scheming by washington.
  23. makes sense (though not great news for texas fans). i am just going on season long stats. i only watched the oregon games. tbh, oregon's defense did not look well coached to me at all during the second game. over the course of the season, oregon's defense rates well. is the discrepancy because something about washington's play calling confused the oregon players? oregon had some key injuries? the rest of oregon's opponents weren't that good at passing? something else? ***** fwiw, i've glanced at the stats some more, and it looks like penix' gaudy numbers (10+ yards per pass, 40+ points) all came against terrible pass defenses (ranked 90-127) but he held up well against oregon both times (~8 yards per pass / 85 QBR). Outside of Oregon and the 6 teams with awful pass defenses, most of the opposing pass defenses he faced were mid (ranked 57-79 nationally) and he mostly did well against those mid pass defenses, except against asu and wazzu (and to some extent Oregon State), where he had rough games. Any idea why he struggled against these defenses but not Oregon? curious to hear your thoughts, as I don't know much about any of those teams and only watched a tiny bit of the wazzu game. curious to read any other thoughts you have about the sugar bowl matchup.
  24. 2 other things washington fans said on reddit 1 - their pass defense wasn't that good either, and they don't tackle well. so, over the course of the season, their pass yards per play was not as bad as texas' but it was in the same ballpark. i'll look at how they did against good passing teams (vs how we did against good passing teams) and see what the box scores say.
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