alphahydro

nice. good analysis; thanks. looks like they are 68th in rush defense. https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/opponent-yards-per-rush-attempt Can't recall watching a game where the other team wasn't playing from behind and tried to run on UW/play balanced.

UW is 2nd in the country in avoiding sacks. https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/qb-sacked-pct It's very possible that they are going to have issues with their center bc he hasn't had to block anyone like our interior D line all season, but UW are good at avoiding sacks and a lot of that is (a) they are good at shuffling players presnap to suss out your call and (b) Penix is a 19th year senior and is good at getting rid of the ball when you blitz him. But yeah if we are racing past their interior line all game, it's going to be a long night for Penix. That would be great, but I have no reason to believe we are going to get more sacks against the 2nd best team at avoiding sacks than we have the rest of the season. Having said that, I think later in the game, the texas depth on DL might be an issue for UW. I hope PK has a layered plan that allows for more aggression/press later in the game. Pressures will be more interesting to watch, imo. idk if there is a good set of stats on pressures allowed. Penix will definitely panic and toss a couple errant throws per game if you can disguise your coverage (make him make a second read post-snap), assuming you are getting decent pressure. You do need to get good pressure + disguise because the UW offense presents problems all over the field and Penix is good at checking down. I assume the UW staff is looking at moving the pocket to minimize pressure and the Texas staff is looking at which way they want to try to move him. More than one way to skin the cat Also, if you are curious to watch the games (on youtube) Arizona and Utah both played UW reasonably well this season - Utah brought a lot more pressure. AZ mostly brought 3/4 pass rushers. Both can work. The coaching staffs see the same things we do I think it's going to be a huge chessmatch. I suspect both their OC and our DC are going to try to protect their relative weaknesses (interior OL and safeties). And UW is going to get their 25-35 unless one of the playcallers makes a big mistake in the chessmatch. UW has faced good defenses and we have faced good offenses. The more interesting matchup imo is Texas offense vs UW defense.

Any thoughts on Texas running the ball on UW? Has Texas' run blocking gotten better coordinated lately? Or has success/failure been tied to matchup or something else?

fair enough re caution. And my view is more like - if there is an expectation among some UW fans that, against this end-of-season UW defense, even if everyone at Texas is healthy and Ewers has a good game, UW is going to hold Texas to 28-32 points because the UW defense is suddenly so good with everyone back imo, that expectation is probably too optimistic. But that doesn't mean that Texas easily goes for 42 if Ewers has a good game. Texas' advantage on offense isn't ginormous, imo. Plus, even if Ewers has a good game start to finish, I think UW is really well coached and their staff will do their best to shore up their weaknesses and attack ours. But if a UW fan is thinking their defense is going to hold Texas to 27 (in a game where Ewers plays reasonably well and Texas gets a decent number of drives), their baseline is different from mine. Texas scoring below 27, in my mind means some combination of (a) one or more of the key Texas players had a bad game (big drops, bad reads, fumbles), (b) low scoring game due to pace, or (c) bad luck somewhere, Texas comes in overconfident, or something like that. But yeah, UW defense is still very good and Texas has issues in red zone so 42+ is not the base case and Texas could definitely score 27 or less if key players have a bad game or the ball bounces the wrong way at key moments. It's just that Texas matches up better here than some of the UW fans think, imo. And in any event, Texas still has to worry about the UW offense. Even if the Texas offense has a pretty decent game, they could get outscored. My oversimplified view of the game is - assuming everyone is healthy, Texas O is a bit better than UW D. (matchup issues aside) It's 15th OFEI Texas vs 27th DFEI UW. But those stats include games where Ewers was injured and UW had key injuries on defense. When you "adjust" for both teams being healthy, you prolly get a slightly better adjustment for Texas. And the matchup issues break more Texas' way than UW's. So I think there's more margin for error on the Texas side. it's not a huge mismatch, but Texas' staff and players have a decent starting advantage. IMO, the big risk for Texas, based on past games, is that Ewers has a slow start. Even assuming Ewers has a decent game start to finish, this is not a massive difference; it's the difference between averaging 30 or 34.5 if you play the game 1,000 times, imo. And if Ewers has a bad game, it could be 26 or less. *knock on wood* But there is just a lot for UW's personnel to defend, and I could see things like key plays coming from Ewers' legs or Helm, because there is so much for UW's DC to account for. Texas D (7th ranked DFEI) is about as good as UW O (6th ranked OFEI), (matchup issues aside) when UW has the ball, Texas has an advantage at the line, UW has an advantage in the secondary. But no one really knows how those advantages are going to play out and how big the advantage will end up being. Part of me thinks that both coaches will gameplan to protect where they are at a disadvantage, and the game will come down to something like Texas' LB play. Texas LB could make some great plays, they could come up with key stops in the flat, they could turn the ball over, their athleticism could end drives when other lesser teams wouldn't. Or they could get burned on long, deep crossing routes. Or both. But the advantages we see didn't go unnoticed by the coaching staffs. It's just a matter of how they gameplan and react/adjust to each other's gameplan, imo. And frankly, with all apologies to Blake Gideon, I think UW's offensive staff prolly has the edge here, though hopefully not as a big of an edge as they had against Oregon. If you wanna be optimistic, as announcers like to say, the Texas DBs might get sick of hearing about how they are gonna get burned by Odunze -- and they could actually do something about it. They can spend extra time in the film room, they can be extra motivated and locked in during the game. On the other hand, there's not a whole lot the UW center can do between now and 1/1. Lol.

my pleasure. strongly recommend you don't place any bets on my analysis, but hey, if we are going to spin our wheels for no reason for the next 11/12 days, we might as well be in a cautiously optimistic mood while we do it, right?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

yeah, it's insane for a freshman. like how can you not be confident when your setter rolls like that?

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.

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.

definition of all gas no brakes.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.