Washington Huskies Coaches Discuss Challenges Facing Minnesota Golden Gophers

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SEATTLE — The Washington Huskies football team is set to begin its Big Ten slate against the Minnesota Golden Gophers at 8 p.m. PT on Saturday at Husky Stadium.

The Huskies will enter the game 3-0 after getting through a nonconference schedule that included two Pac-12 teams (the Washington State Cougars and Utah State Aggies) and a Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) program, the Eastern Washington Eagles.

In all three of those nonconference games, Washington's defensive line dealt with an athletic quarterback capable of escaping the pocket and extending plays with his legs. EWU quarterback rattled off 50 yards on the ground and a touchdown on a 17 carries.

The Golden Gophers will feature a more traditional pocket passer in 6-foot-5, 230-pound junior Drake Lindsey. But just because he's not as mobile as the signal-callers the Huskies have faced earlier this season doesn't mean he won't present challenges the team is preparing for.

"The talent on the roster is better (than our previous opponents)," UW defensive coordinator Ryan Walters said in a weekly news conference Tuesday at Husky Stadium. "They're big up front, work really well together. Quarterback is a big, traditional pocket-type passer. Big arm, gets the ball out on time. Wideouts (are) really disciplined, run really good routes, good catch radius and they do a good job of getting (yards after catch)."

Lindsey this season has completed 65% of his passes for 747 yards and four touchdowns to only one interception.

Washington's defensive front has had most of the pressure on them to stop the mobile quarterbacks in the previous three weeks. Now, with the quick-passing capabilities of Lindsey, the responsibility will lean towards the team's secondary to neutralize the effectiveness of the Minnesota quarterback.

The defense will have some examples to point to as to how to stop Lindsey and the Golden Gophers offense.

The No. 24 Mississippi State Bulldogs held the Minnesota offense to just 13 points en route to a 38-13 win Sept. 12, and there's some noticeable things on tape that Walters and the rest of the staff can utilize in their game plan, albeit not to an exact scenario.

"They got downhill fast," Walters said. "They played really physical. They gave them a bunch of different looks from a front-perspective. They pressured a lot. I think Mississippi State scored touchdowns on the first three drives, so kind of put Minnesota behind the eight-ball and (they) sort of had to change their mentality during the course of that game. You can't really look at how Mississippi State played them because the score early got so lopsided."

The offensive line will also have some challenges from the Golden Gophers defense.

Minnesota's defensive line boasts 2025 All-Big Ten honoree, senior lineman Anthony Smith.

The 6-foot-6, 280-pound lineman finished 2025 with 12.5 sacks and 17.5 tackles for loss in 13 games last year. This year, he has half a sack and two tackles for loss in three games.

"(He's) a really good player," Huskies offensive line coach Michael Switzer said Tuesday. "Obviously have a plan for him this week. That's been a big discussion in terms of early game-planning. Making sure that we're putting ourselves in good positions, whether it's protection, whether it's run game. For sure he'll be a focus of our game plan and how we're gonna attack him."

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