SEATTLE – The Stanford football team swarmed all over Brigham Young quarterback John Beck last week, sacking him five times in an 18-14 Cardinal victory.
It also put a stranglehold on the Cougars’ running game to the tune of minus-5 yards on 25 carries.
Numbers like those attract attention.
“They send a lot of people,” said Washington Huskies center Todd Bachert, whose 18th-ranked squad plays host to the Cardinal today at Husky Stadium. “They’re a little like Cal the last couple of years. They blitz and try to cause confusion.”
Defense is the reason Stanford is 2-0 going into the Pacific-10 Conference season, with victories over San Jose State and BYU. The Cardinal has had a tendency to come up with the defensive stop when it’s needed most, none bigger than last week.
After Stanford quarterback Trent Edwards scored on a 14-yard run with 3:51 left in the game, BYU mounted a drive of its own. Beck got BYU to the Cardinal 9-yard line, but Jared Newberry flew in on a blitz on fourth down to sack him, preserving the win.
“It’s a real pressure-oriented defense that gives you a lot of things to concern yourself with, particularly with protections,” UW coach Keith Gilbertson said. “There’s more man coverage than we’ve seen, probably, in the last three weeks. They also give you more personnel groups, defensively. They are similar to Ohio State with the 3-4 and the nickels and those types of fronts. They pressure a lot.”
The question is whether they can get away with it against Washington (2-1) as they did against the Spartans and the Cougars. Although Stanford leads the nation in rushing defense (2.0 yards per game), the ranking is skewed simply by having played BYU, which hasn’t scored a rushing touchdown in the past 26 quarters, dating back to last season.
“We’ll never stop trying to run,” UW offensive-line coach Dan Cozzetto said. “Some of the biggest plays come against the blitz. And we feel good about matchups against their perimeter.”
That would be receivers Reggie Williams, Charles Frederick and Justin Robbins against a secondary that includes junior safety Oshiomogho Atogwe, who picked off two passes last week.
The basic premise about burning the blitz is that the secondary is forced into one-on-one coverage. Can the Cardinal get away with that, especially against Williams, one of the top three receivers in the nation?
“I feel good about Reggie no matter what the coverages,” quarterback Cody Pickett said, “same with all the receivers.”
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