Talking defense with Donatell, plus a few injury updates

Published 3:56 pm Wednesday, October 1, 2008

A few quick injury updates before we get into what defensive coordinator Ed Donatell had to say today.

Redshirt freshman Brandon Yakaboski suffered a knee injury in practice yesterday, and while the severity of that injury is not yet known, Tyrone Willingham said he doesn’t expect Yakaboski to play this week. That leaves the Huskies with potentially just two healthy tailbacks who have seen playing time: Brandon Johnson and Willie Griffin. David Freeman, the starter in each of the last two games, has a pair of bad ankles, but could play. Terrance Dailey has not played yet this year, and seemed to be headed for a reshirt season, but he may be forced into action if Freeman can’t play.

Safety Victor Aiyewa said he felt pretty good in his return to practice yesterday, and that his goal is to be ready for this week, but said that, “It’s all up to the coaches.”

“Obviously I’m not up to speed yet,” he said. “Just give me a couple more days and I should be able to get back up to speed.”

Willingham elaborated a little bit more on Byron Davenport’s knee injury saying it appears to be a problem that started before Davenport came to Washington.

Donald Butler (concussion) practiced yesterday, and while his status is still unknown, Willingham said Butler could possibly play this weekend.

Here’s some of what Donatell had to say today:

On Arizona’s offense:

“This is nice, talented receiver group. Their quarterback distributes the ball well. They’re dangerous with their screen packages. And they mix in the running game. … They obviously protect their quarterback well, he’ hasn’t been down many times. And that’s due to the line has done a nice job and they have a system that gets the ball out of his hands. You do see a lot of backs coming out of the backfield.”

Is this the type of offense you wouldn’t have seen 17 years ago when you were last in college?

“I don’t want to make an excuse on that. We just haven’t played the way we can play.”

Haven’t played the way you can play this year? Can this team grow up?

“Absolutely, that’s our vision of it, there’s no question. We all envision that. I picture them in my head and I see some things where they are improving. What hasn’t been visible – you haven’t been able to say well I see that in the game yet, it hasn’t been noticeable to you. We want to make it where it’s a noticeable change. That’s our intent for anybody that’s watching us, or to help our team win.

What do you use when you don’t have success on scoreboard?

“I just break down certain plays: Let’s go fit this play today. Let’s go fit the power play —- boom, boom, boom, boom. Ok you got it? Let’s do it another way – da da da. And then if you get one thing down maybe that thing will come up and you’ll get it right. You see this play here – Quinton, what did you learn from that? Tell me what you’re going to learn. From here on you’ll have that for me right? Yeah, got it. Somewhere along the line those things add up. There’s no other way to fix anything, to me. It’s just touch as many people as you can. And then maybe if you can find a guy who touches two other guys, then you’ve got something. Create some multiplication and so forth. And that’s what’s pretty cool because it’s a great opportunity to create some multiplication. It’s a great opportunity. Create it with your coaches, create it with these guys and get something going. Again, there are times when you think, gosh this is crappy. This ain’t going as well as I want it to. And then there are some things you say wow, look at what we can do.”

Looked like primarily a 4-3 defense last Saturday?

“That’s what we felt gave us the best chance to win. You’re still going to see some odd stuff from us here and there, but that’s what we’re going to use the most.”

On the topic of the Huskies still having zero sacks:

“I don’t know. I really don’t know, but it’s almost like luck. You can go down to the third quarter in Oregon and we have our arms around the guy and he’s almost on the ground … I mean it would have been the first one there. But we also should have had the second one and the third and the fourth, too. You feel a little bit like yes, ok, let’s get one. It’s like trying to get a win. There has been pressure on quarterback, there have been hits, but not enough, not enough. That’s the thing I look at: Are guys out of their rhythm a little bit. It is not up to where it needs to. I look at pressure and then it can possibly become sacks, or confusion of this guy this week or something to make them hold the football. We all believe in our formulas because we’ve been at the top of the charts and it’s really a neat puzzle to look at your guys and say how do we do this. There are a ton of different ways.”

Do you worry about players pressing without success?

“Not them, me. I don’t know that. I’m sure when they put the work into it and the intention is to get back there and jump the guy and you don’t you might say, wow I’m not getting there. You could say that. But sometimes there’s reasons where there’s a breakdown or there’s not total utilization of knowledge and I look at that and say: See? This is how we can fix this. The probably is in your favor of doing it right the next time. You’ve got to stay the course with what you think is right and if you think you need something adjusted, you adjust it. I think that anything, you want to see the result and you can get a little doubt, and that’s our job to communicate that.”