Washington Huskies Preview

The erratic Washington Huskies come to Boulder for an 11:30 AM kickoff for the second to last game of the year.  Washington has its best week offensively of the season last week, is playing well and must be salivating to face our defense.  Moreover, their defense is drastically improved this year under Justin Wilcox.  Washington has won their last 11 games that have been decided by 10 points are less, which doesn’t bode well for the Buffs, as it is really hard to see them running away with it against the Huskies.  Although UW are only 20 point favorites, it is hard to see anything but a blowout loss for the Buffs. 

§  Burn the Redshirt: John Shrock became the 22^nd frosh to play this year (13 true, 9 redshirt).  We can only hope, pray, sacrifice things to the football gods that all this experience for the youth pays off somehow next season and beyond.

§  Depth Chart moves: With Gus Handler and Ryan Dannewitz out, it looked like Stephane Nembot would get a whole game under his belt, but noooooo, they decided it would be better to get senior Eric Richter some time, and rotated him in at guard, forcing Jack Harris to shift back and forth between right tackle and guard. Then, Richter gave up the stupid hold that nullified a huge early TD that could have changed momentum.  Brilliant. Fortunately, Richter is currently only listed third at the LG spot behind starter Alex Lewis and T-Fr. Jeromy Irwin, so Nembot might get the RT slot all to himself.

§  T-Fr. S Marques Mosley and DT Samson Kafovalu appear to have solidified starting positions on the defense.  Parker Orms is not listed as injured on the depth chart, but is listed third behind Polk and Bell at free safety.

§  Injuries: Lots of “day-to-day” concussions-Hirschman, Kasa, Uzo-Diribe, Washington, Orms; Yuri Wright is questionable with his sprained ankle; DT Justin Solis, OL Ryan Dannewitz and RB Josh Ford are definitely out, Gus Handler is likely out again.

When the Huskies have the ball:

§  QB Keith Price had his best day of the year vs. Utah and will have his chance to have a breakout game against the worst defense ever.  Maybe they’ll play former Mullen star Cyler Miles just for fun so he can have a huge day in front of family and friends.

§  Even with two of their top three RBs out for the season with injuries, Bishop Sankey has quietly put together a very nice follow up season to Chris Polk, whom they thought would be too hard to replace. Sankey especially must be loving looking at Arizona-CU game film.

§  True sophomore Austin Sefarian-Jenkins is another beast at the TE position, maybe the best in the nation, and we all know how this defense has dealt with good tight ends this year: we ignore them and pretend they aren’t there, so then we don’t have to cover them. He is so versatile and athletic that they had him play some DE against Utah and likely will do the same in Boulder.

§  Greg Brown has no clue, no answer and soon should have no job.  He was always a great secondary coach, but he cannot handle more than that.  It’s too bad Cabral didn’t take the coordinator position and we could have kept Ashley Ambrose or added someone else for the DBs. [One interesting name thrown out there is former Buff staffer and current Temple DC Chuck Heater, who would bring some wide defensive experience, as well as still keep it “in the Buff family”.]

§  Former CU coach Eric Kiesau is the UW OC and he must like what he sees on film as well and will be looking forward to his return to Folsom.

When the Buffs have the ball:

§  It appears that Nick Hirschman will not be cleared to play after his concussion, and so Connor Wood has gotten all the reps this week and will get the start.  However, earlier in the week Embree did admit that he anticipated playing more than one guy and that Jordan Webb could be “in the mix,” or even possibly John Shrock, so nothing will surprise me under center. I don’t think it matters as all three “name” QBs have been big disappointments, and our future will be in the hands of scout team star Shane Dillon (who is currently getting to work with a healthy and practicing Paul Richardson).

§  The Buffs were actually able to muster a run game against Arizona with Powell and former high school backfield mate Donta Abron combining for 220 yards and 3 TDs. Although much of this was against a lackadaisical Arizona defense playing with a big lead, it is at least something to build upon.

§  Although they have eight players with at least ten catches this season, which bodes well for the future, but… the receiving corps overall is just lame, ineffective and not that talented. Against Arizona and a weak secondary, they were not even able to do much to help their quarterbacks. Tyler McCulloch had two nice catch and runs, but that was it; Nelson Spruce had a few decent catches, but all for short yardage; they say every wee k that they are going to get Gerald Thomas the ball, but against Arizona they didn’t target him until the very end of the game; when Kasa went out, it made it that much easier for the Wildcats to cover the rest of the receivers; TEs Slavin and Hobbs each had one catch, but they need to be more involved.

Special Teams:

§  The Buffs own the definite edge in punting and Darragh O’Neill is still my vote for team MVP.  Even when the team makes him do rugby style kicks, which he hates and is not really comfortable with, he can still nail a 61-yarder inside the five, which incidentally was followed by Denker’s opening fumble and then Powell’s first TD.

§  Long snapper Ryan Iverson has been named as one of 50 nominees for the Burlsworth Trophy.

§  It’s pathetic that in Colorado, at altitude, we can’t recruit a freaking kicker that can get the ball out of, or even to the endzone (and we have at least three scholarships devoted to kicker/punters, and that is not including walk-on O’Neill).  Instead, we have to try tricky “sky kicks” that work just as badly as letting the opponent return normally.

Overall,

§  If you really feel you need some more:

Stuart’s TIPS: http://www.cuatthegame.com/2012/coloradowashington-preview/

Plati’s CU Game Notes: It’s gotten so bad at CU that even Dave Plati can’t get his notes out before Friday?

Washington Game Notes: http://www.cubuffs.com/fls/600/gameday/uw12/uwnotes.pdf?DB_OEM_ID=600

From Ryan Priest of “UWDawgPound” (who is a little more articulate than HuskerMax): “The essence of every college football fan can be distilled into one simple emotion -- hope. It's an emotion that comes in many different varieties: hoping that a preseason No. 1-ranked team can live up to the hype, hoping that a favorite player can avoid injury and play to his potential, hoping that a team down 17 points at halftime against a rival can rally and win one for the ages. But perhaps no hope is stronger than the kind that manifests as a belief that no matter what happened in the days, weeks or years prior, victory is just around the corner. It's when this most desperate of beliefs is torn asunder that a team and its fans lose any semblance of positive morale, and resign themselves to the bitter choice of writing off the present in exchange for, yes, hoping for better results in the future. I write this because, at present, it is painfully clear that this is the situation in which the Colorado Buffaloes (1-9, 1-6) find themselves just prior to Thanksgiving 2012. (I don't expect too many Dawg fans to watch this team with any degree of schadenfreude on Saturday, though, considering how closely removed we are from our own program's painful nadir.) Of the 44 players on the offense and defense's two-deep, an astounding 17 are redshirt or true freshman, and another 12 are sophomores. This is simply a team that needs to grow up and become adults before they can compete in a talented conference like the Pac-12, and the biggest question for coach Jon Embree is whether or not the administration will have the patience to give him the time he needs to attempt a turnaround of this once-proud program.”  [Note: Only a few years ago UW went 0-12.]