What We Learned: Eastern Washington Eagles
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The Huskies took care of business on Saturday afternoon, beating the Eastern Washington Eagles 48-16. It was a better game for the offense, but there’s still plenty to work on as the Huskies head in to conference play at an unblemished 3-0 mark. Let’s get to what we learned!
Find A Way
With Jayden Limar and Quaid Carr out, this already thin running back room got thinner, and left the Huskies searching for answers as to who is RB1, and how to get those short yardage gains. Screen passes were plentiful, at least in the early going, as that is often a way to kind of improv a run game when it’s not working in the normal fashion. It’s a good way to get the ball to your best players and have them make a play! But the run game was better. Brian Bonner broke out, rushing for 81 yards on 6 carries, including a cathartic 55 yarder, his longest. Still, it’s going to be difficult to put it all on the young freshman, something that Jedd Fisch no doubt knows. “We don’t feel the need to lead the country in rushing, by any means. So we just want to get better each week and then on the same token, as we’re getting better in the run game, how good can we get in the pass game, and then really see what type of offense we can be”. This is dependent on the offensive line getting good push up front, something that they have to prove that they can do against a Big Ten caliber line.
Through the air, it was very good to have Rashid Williams back, as he can step up and be that big play guy for the Huskies, as he hauled in 6 catches for 86 yards and 2 touchdowns, including this one, which showed shades of David Tyree in Super Bowl 42:
Hopefully he can stay fully healthy as we get deeper into conference play. Elsewhere, Dezmen Roebuck showed up and proved that those drops that have plagued him the past 2 weeks are hopefully behind him, finishing with 9 catches for 121 yards, a season high. Even the big man, 270 pound Baron Naone, had 2 catches for 103 yards! All told, Demond Williams finished with 373 yards, 4 touchdowns and 1 interception. However, it was against an EWU team that has allowed 34, 41 and 48 points in each of its three losses, so I would’ve been disappointed if he didn’t have that kind of stat line. Let’s hope he can lead the offense to a similar effort on Saturday night against Minnesota!
Fired Up
Let me give credit where credit is due: Offensive coordinator Marc Anderson’s scheme is kind of awesome. Tons of RPO, weird personnel groupings (the quads set, with 4 wide receivers to the right and 1 to the left, and the pistol set with a fullback to the right of the quarterback were my standouts) and misdirection at times confused the Huskies and allowed Eastern to rack up 142 yards, the most the Huskies have given up this year. Granted, that was on 46 carries, but at times it seemed like the defense got gashed because the communication isn’t where it should be. On Eastern’s lone touchdown, Nate Bell faked a toss and then slipped through the line for a 14 yard touchdown. That level of miscommunication can’t happen in Big Ten play. What also can’t happen in Big Ten play is all the penalties. 8 penalties for 101 yards can’t happen, no matter how many calls were missed by the refs! The targeting and punching penalties in particular cannot happen regularly. Sooner or later, an offense like a USC, or a Minnesota, or an Iowa is going to take advantage of those drive extenders and put us behind the 8 ball! It’s been a consistent issue ever since Fisch began his tenure, and while it didn’t cost us the game this time out, sooner or later it might and while you always want to be aggressive, the key is to play under control. This unit could mean the difference between wins and losses, if they clean up the penalties, and as we’ve seen, that might be a big ask. This is the kind of performance where it is correctable, at this point in the year, and they have time to get right for next week and beyond!
Special Reinforcements
Sometimes you need an old vet to show the young guys how it’s done. After Hunter McKee kicked 2 of his kickoffs out of bounds, out stepped Grady Gross, number 20. Grady has experience as a kickoff specialist before, in 2022, and as I recall, he was pretty good at it, regularly booting touchbacks. I was confused, like many of you probably were, but a glance at his profile on the UW football website that he was indeed granted a fifth year. Now, time will tell if that will stand (who knows anymore?) but it was indicative of a larger issue. Ever since Jedd has been on Montlake, special teams have been a problem. Not field goal kicking, but punting, and kicking off have been particularly problematic. Thus, enter Grady Gross, who had 5 touchbacks on his 6 kickoffs. Hopefully this stands, but if it doesn’t, it’s a glaring reminder of the issues that special teams still faces, and as I’ve said multiple times, special teams is something fans rarely notice until they’re given a reason to!
We have Minnesota in the after dark game at 8 PM on Saturday! Go Dawgs!
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