There were certainly some high powered TCU offense during his tenure, particular the 2010 edition with a senior Andy Dalton that went undefeated. Patterson is known as being a defensive mastermind and that’s how he made his calling. Gary Patterson for Husky OC? Brilliant? Or so not gonna happen that the question is beyond stupid? - High viscosity magma Unsurprisingly, the coaching staff hasn’t found it yet. It seems like there has to be a middle ground between Morris hanging on to the ball too long and constantly getting sacked/throwing the ball into traffic and only giving him easy throws that don’t even give the receivers much of a chance to make plays after the catch without breaking multiple tackles. Those 2 games were 2 of the 3 times this season he has finished with a yards per attempt mark below 6.0 (Montana was the other). Morris this season has had 2 games with an average depth of target below 7.0: Oregon State and Stanford. When you’re getting 2 yards per carry then those quick throws to the perimeter give you a chance to pick up positive yardage on first down but UW was actually doing worse on those plays than they were running the ball on the night. 64% of Morris’ passes were within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage and Washington unsurprisingly averaged 4.5 yards per attempt on those plays. That being said it certainly felt like on the occasions where Morris did get an opportunity to throw the ball that they weren’t exactly calling plays that required a high degree of difficulty on the QB’s part.
Similar to how most opponents feel going against the UW defense, running the ball 3 times seems like it almost always resulted in a 1st down. The Huskies gained at least 4 yards on almost two-thirds of their rushing attempts and only were held to a loss or no gain on 7% of attempts. Running the ball more than throwing it wasn’t exactly a bad strategy against Stanford. It’s tough to say that you’re wrong about that and it does in fact seem like a problem.
It seems like the coaching staff doesn’t trust their QB to throw, for most part, this seems like a problem right? - DawgFan12 But I think Stanford and Shaw played to their outs at that point as best they could and fortunately UW didn’t mess it up. And obviously giving up a touchdown and a 2-point conversion and having to go 75 yards in 20 seconds with no timeouts just to reach overtime was the worst case scenario. It was a bad situation for Stanford no matter what. Now you introduced the possibility of making a defensive play but the odds of the Huskies making the field goal are probably only 5-10% higher. Let’s say instead of throwing a touchdown that UW had instead hit Cade Otton on a 5-yard hitch route and spikes the ball with 3 seconds left. Now Stanford also wins in regulation if they manage to get a sack, force a fumble, get an interception, or force a completion of less than 2 yards. But more than likely Donovan was smart enough to know that the only sensible option was to throw the ball and specifically throw it past the sticks. If they got held short it becomes 4th down and Washington doesn’t have enough time to get the field goal unit out and Stanford wins in regulation. The first is to hope that John Donovan was an idiot (no comment) and choose to run the ball with confidence that the Huskies could pick up 2 yards. Let’s take that down a bit for the extra distance and say there’s about a 75% chance he makes the kick and Stanford loses on the spot.īy taking the timeout he introduced a few new possibilities. Granted a 39-yarder is harder that a 30-yarder but Henry for his career was 18/21 (86%) between 30 and 39 yards. Henry had already made field goals of 32, 35, and 37 yards. In that circumstance Washington with no timeouts left almost certainly spikes the ball with less than 5 seconds left and attempts a 39-yard field goal as time expires. Let’s say that Shaw doesn’t call the timeout. I actually think it was a vey smart move by David Shaw to call the timeout there although ultimately it may have bitten him in the ass. I have to think that the Huskies would have tried the field goal on third down with the clock ticking. Did Stanford do the Huskies a favor by calling a timeout with 26 seconds left? It was third down and the Huskies had no timeouts.