SEATTLE — The way the University of Washington football coaches and players have been talking this week, a person might expect a 30-foot tall, Cardinal-red Transformer to walk out onto the field at Stanford Stadium shooting footballs out of his eye sockets.
That’s how great the legend of qua
rterback Andrew Luck has become over the past 12 months.
And on Saturday night, when the Huskies face Luck’s seventh-ranked Stanford team, the big question is what UW could possibly do to slow him down.
“He’s always been a great player, but now he’s completely in command of their offense,” Huskies safety Justin Glenn said this week. “He’s confident, he’s calling their plays. We’ve just got to be on our toes.”
Said UW defensive coordinator Nick Holt: “He’s got a good arm. He runs really well; he’s got good escapability. He’s an excellent, excellent quarterback. He has all of the attributes you’re looking for.”
The more the Huskies talk about Luck, the less he sounds mortal. And yet UW knows he’s human, already having faced the all-everything quarterback twice before. The Huskies are as experienced as anyone in facing Luck, so they’ll try to use that to their advantage Saturday.
“We look at everyone the same, no matter who it is, even if he’s a great player,” cornerback Desmond Trufant said. “We’re going to compete just as hard as he’s going to compete. So it’s going to be a great battle.”
The Huskies’ best strategy, if there is such a thing against Luck, may well be deception. The junior quarterback’s ability to change things up at the line, a la Peyton Manning, is a big part of his effectiveness, and so the UW defense may have to get into and out of looks quickly to keep Luck on his toes.
“He does everything right,” UW middle linebacker Cort Dennison said. “He sees blitzes and checks out of things, and every check that he does he makes the right call.”
Dennison may have his most active pre-snap game, since the senior is in charge of getting teammates in position. He’ll play the role of the Kasparov to every pawn Luck moves.
“They do a lot of shifts and motions, that kind of thing, so I have the job of helping our defense out,” Dennison said this week. “But I take pride in that. I like getting guys lined up right. I’m really going to have make sure they’re set this week.
“… They can adjust to us; we can adjust to them. It can be a cat-and-mouse kind of thing.”
Holt, the Huskies’ well-paid defensive coordinator, said UW has to be careful about getting too caught up in the pre-snap chess match.
“The problem is, if we do too much, we’ll nail ourselves in the ground and we won’t play as well as we need to,” he said. “So we’ve got to be careful with that.”
As UW head coach Steve Sarkisian said Thursday: “This isn’t a time to try and out-smart each other. (The Stanford players) are probably a little smarter than we are.”
Containing Luck might be easier if he didn’t have the supporting cast that includes one of the most physical offensive lines in the country, a solid run game led by Stepfan Taylor, and a bevy of athletic tight ends who have become the backbone of Stanford’s passing game.
The unit constantly shifts after the offense gets set, often creating confusion on an opposing defense.
“You’ve got to know what’s going on on your side of the ball,” UW safety Sean Parker said. “You can’t worry about what they’re doing because you’re going to get distracted from what you’re doing.”
The Huskies have had their struggles against passing quarterbacks like Eastern Washington’s Bo Levi Mitchell and Hawaii’s Bryant Moniz this season, and yet Luck will present the greatest challenge yet.
“He’s obviously a great quarterback,” Glenn said. “They’re going to have big plays. The big thing is bouncing back and not worrying about the last play. Even if they just had a 30-yard reception, you’ve got to think about the next play and not let that affect you. That’s how they get rolling.”
Perhaps the biggest key to facing Luck is knowing that he is, after all, human.
“There’s a reason why there’s so much hype: it’s because he’s an incredible football player,” Dennison said. “When you go into an environment like that, you’ve just got to believe in yourselves. It’s 11-on-11, and let’s just go play football. We’re all excited for the challenge.”
Notable
Stanford will be without starting safety Delano Howell on Saturday, due to a hand injury. “Howell is an excellent player,” Sarkisian said. “He’s really the quarterback of their defense. Probably one of, if not the, most physical players in our conference, never mind on their team. So I think there’s some significance to (Howell not playing Saturday).” . … The Cardinal have outscored opponents 50-0 in the first quarter this season and 128-6 in the first and third quarters. “It tells me that they have a real plan when they go into a game and when they come out of halftime,” Sarkisian said.
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