Oregon State vs. UW aftermath

Published 10:34 pm Saturday, October 18, 2008

Well, the losses continue to pile up for the Huskies and no one seems to know the answer to their struggles.

Oregon State won 34-13, though it could have been closer if the Huskies had been able to finish drives better, or at least make more field goals when they didn’t finish.

The good news is the Huskies, for most of the night, succeeded in their goal of slowing down Jacquizz Rodgers, the Pac-10’s leading rusher. The bad news, however, is they couldn’t stop his big brother, James, who scored on runs of 55 and 52 yards, and also had a 33-yard touchdown reception.

Oregon State’s 421 yards of offense is actually the lowest total by a UW opponent this year, but it’s still far too many yards.

I will say I liked the new linebacker look with Donald Butler moving to the outside to get Trenton Tuiasosopo on the field. That should pay off down the line as Butler gets more used to the new position.

And for those wondering why Cody Bruns didn’t play tonight after they took the redshirt off of him last game, Willingham said the freshman receiver hurt his hamstring on Wednesday, and that Bruns was in the game plan prior to that injury.

Here are some of Tyrone Willingham’s thoughts on the game:

“Our ballgame tonight was a game in which we didn’t make enough big plays, gave up too many big plays, didn’t create any turnovers, and gave turnover. If those things could have been avoided—our football team I though fought until the very end, played hard, but didn’t do enough of the right things to put ourselves in a position to win the football game.”

Are the losses getting old?

“Yes.”

What do you say to the players at this point?

“Well we’ve got another ballgame to play. There are still games on the schedule. If you’re a competitor, you find a way to rise up and play your next ball game and meet you next challenge. If you’re not a competitor, then you wither, it becomes too heavy for you, and you don’t find a way to fight.”

Any positives in the game?

“Yes, there are some positives, but it still doesn’t outweigh where we’re at right now and what we’re doing, and we’ve got to find a way to get out of this gloom and doom.”

New look at linebackers?

“We’re always searching to get our best guys on the field, and when we can do that, we will. This opportunity of Donald Butler, Trenton Tuiasosopo and Mason Foster we felt like gave us our best chance to have the best guys on the field.”

Do you feel like your players show up expecting to win?

“Yes, I do… our guys were fighting to the whole way. I think they expected and believed they could win and believed they could be successful.”

Do you still feel like you have home field advantage here?

“There’s an advantage, but we haven’t taken advantage of it… There’s an advantage here, this is a great place to play, there’s no question about that, but we have not taken advantage of what we have.”