TEMPE, ARIZ. — To borrow from the great catcher/philosopher Yogi Berra, it was déjà vu all over again on Saturday night for Washington’s defense.
In losing a fourth straight game — this one a 44-20 loss to Arizona State — the Huskies continued a trend of porous run defense. What’s worse is that much of the damage was done by backups.
A struggling defense — one that ranked second-to-last in the Pac-10 in run defense coming into the game — looked to have caught a break when ASU’s leading rusher, Ryan Torain, went out with a sprained foot in the second quarter. The Sun Devils didn’t seem to miss Torain much, however, as Keegan Herring and Dimitri Nance found plenty of space to run.
Herring led all rushers with 119 yards on 10 carries, and scored on a 76-yard run in the third quarter. Nance, who had a 56-yard score only minutes before Herring’s big run, finished with 92 yards on 13 carries as the Sun Devils piled up 296 rushing yards on 49 carries.
“It’s really frustrating,” said defensive coordinator Kent Baer when asked about the third quarter in which the Sun Devils gained 144 yards on the ground. “That third quarter is really frustrating to me.”
Linebacker Dan Howell put a lot of the blame on himself after the game, but he was hardly the only one in the mistake department. His missed tackle on Nance’s touchdown run was one of the most glaring mistakes, however.
So what are the Huskies to do about the missed tackles?
“You just keep emphasizing it,” said Baer. “The guy that missed it, I was really surprised. It’s something he doesn’t miss very often, but in that situation he did. We don’t have a whole lot of margin of error right now. We just keep pushing, and we’ll get there.”
Had Nance found 8 more yards to run Saturday, it would have been the third straight game in which a UW opponent had two 100-yard rushers. Against UCLA, Chris Markey had 193 yards on 14 carries, including a 72-yard touchdown run, while Kahlil Bell added 109 more on 27 carries as the Bruins finished with 333 rushing yards. The following week, USC’s Stefon Johnson and Chauncey Washington rushed for 122 and 106 yards, respectively. Ohio State, which only had one 100-yard rusher in Chris Wells, also ran the ball well against the Huskies, finishing with 281 yards.
Part of the problem against ASU, Tyrone Willingham said, was Washington’s aggressive approach designed to put pressure on Sun Devils quarterback Rudy Carpenter.
“What we tried to do all night was put a lot of pressure on ASU,” said Willingham. “Try to find a way to create plays, make plays and stop them, and they popped a couple of big runs on us, stretched us in some of our gaps, and we missed a tackle or two in there, which allowed them to have the big plays.”
Sharing the ball: Willingham and offensive coordinator Tim Lappano have been saying for weeks now that the Huskies need to get other tailbacks into the game in order to keep starter Louis Rankin fresh, but had failed to do so up until this weekend.
On Saturday, it finally happened. J.R. Hasty, who is a junior in academic standing but had not played before this season, saw his first significant playing time and finished with 12 yards on five carries. Freshman Brandon Johnson also got into the game, carrying twice in the fourth quarter for 7 yards.
The downside of using more tailbacks could be an unhappy starter. Partially because of Hasty and Johnson playing, and partially because the Huskies were forced to throw while playing from behind, Rankin was limited to just four second-half carries after playing his best half of football — 68 yards on seven carries—since Washington’s opener at Syracuse.
To his credit, Rankin wasn’t willing to complain publicly if he was in fact upset about a lack of carries.
“I’m not going to say anything about what happened in the second half,” he said. “I don’t have anything to say about that.”
Injury update: Two players had to leave the game with injuries. Offensive tackle Ben Ossai suffered an ankle injury, while receiver Quintin Daniels left with a knee sprain. Willingham said the severity of both injuries is still unknown.
Surprise starters: Washington made a pair of unexpected lineup changes Saturday, one on each side of the ball. Jordan White-Frisbee started at guard in place of Casey Bulyca and Mason Foster started at linebacker for E.J. Savannah.
Tyrone Willingham said both changes were made for disciplinary reasons.
Contact Herald Writer John Boyle at jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on University of Washington sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com /huskiesblog
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