By John Sleeper
Herald Writer
SEATTLE – For Washington, the numbers on offense reminded no one of the St. Louis Rams.
Against Michigan on Sept. 8, a 23-18 Husky victory, Washington gained just 69 yards on the ground and had the ball five minutes fewer than the Wolverines.
Had the Huskies lost, much of the blame would have gone to the UW offense, specifically a young line that returns just one starter from a year ago.
The offense couldn’t crack the goal line. It mustered just three field goals by John Anderson. Michigan had seven tackles for loss, including a pair of sacks.
But the most damning symbols of how horribly the Huskies struggled were when they twice drove to within 6 yards of six points and came away with only an Anderson field goal to show for it.
“That was embarrassing for us,” UW center Kyle Benn said. “We didn’t play hard enough on the goal line.”
In the second quarter, Washington was first-and-goal from the Michigan 2, then:
Then, in a disastrous third-quarter series, in which Pickett hit Reggie Williams for a 74-yard pass play to the Michigan 6, there was this:
Then Anderson missed a 31-yard attempt.
Michigan simply flooded an overmatched UW offensive line and denied the Huskies 14 points. It was not the display typical of a UW team for the last two seasons. Last year, Washington scored a Pacific-10 Conference best 88.9 percent of the time it penetrated an opponent’s 20-yard line. That’s 48 scores out of 54 times. Thirty-seven were touchdowns.
But that was when the Huskies had a veteran offensive line, one that sent three players to NFL camps.
This, as has been documented, is a line as green as the Husky Stadium FieldTurf. And it showed.
“There were some mechanical problems,” offensive line coach Brent Myers said, “and we didn’t have that goal-line attitude we have to have.”
Lost, however, in the panic centered around the line was that it was playing against Michigan.
Yes, the same Michigan in the hunt for a national championship year after year. The same Michigan that returned nine defensive starters. That has three of the best linebackers in the Big Ten Conference. Ditto about defensive linemen and defensive backs.
And four of the five UW offensive linemen were making their first start in purple and gold. One, tackle Khalif Barnes, was a redshirt freshman.
“That might be the best defense we’re going to play until we play Miami,” Myers said. “They’re not going to Michigan because they’re bad football players. That was a hell of a challenge for our kids, especially for our young guys.”
And yet, as the game wore on, they looked less and less like young guys.
With the Huskies ahead 20-12 in the fourth quarter, the offense sewed up the game with a drive that took nearly five minutes off the clock. Six rushing plays, including Matthias Wilson’s 10-yarder when he moved a pile 3 yards downfield, netted 27 yards.
Most of it was because of the push the young, inexperienced offensive line produced up front. All of a sudden, the goal-line shortcomings were history.
Geez, they were starting to shove mighty Michigan all over the field.
“We started not worrying about anything and just started playing football,” Barnes said. “It felt so good to be doing that against Michigan. It gave us a real confidence boost.”
In fact, it felt so good that they got greedy. When Alexis was caught a yard short of a first down and Anderson came in to kick a 30-yard field goal, the line was teed off.
“We overran one block, and the guy didn’t make the tackle, but he slowed Rich Alexis down,” Myers said. “If we get him cleaned, we definitely would have gotten the first down and might even have scored. Everybody else was blocked. But those are things that we’ve got to learn. It’s coming.”
Goal-line offense has been a point of emphasis for Washington since then. The o-line banged heads against both the UW first-team defense and the scout team. Both, Myers said, yielded positive results.
“We got in some good work,” he said. “That’s something we have to correct and after last week, we feel like we corrected it.”
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