Opponents must think twice before throwing the ball vs. UW

Herald wire services

SEATTLE — Facing Arizona State was supposed to be a true challenge for No. 11 Washington’s secondary. The Sun Devils had an experienced quarterback and a top-flight wide receiver with NFL potential.

And then the Sun Devils switched gears, apparently deciding the best way to try to beat the Huskies was to avoid that standout secondary, though ASU still lost 27-20.

It was the latest sign of how much respect Washington is getting for its defensive backfield, which is annually producing NFL-level talent. The latest group is led by safeties Taylor Rapp and Jojo McIntosh, but its cornerback trio of Byron Murphy, Jordan Miller and Myles Bryant are equally good.

The result is a defense that’s solid from front to back and proving to be exceptionally difficult to throw against.

“They’re resilient. They’re tough, they’re gritty,” Washington co-defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake said. “They respond on the sideline. They’re on the sideline, ‘Now we’re going to do this, this isn’t working let’s do this.’ They’re all in. I love how they fight for each other and how they play.”

Arizona State quarterback Manny Wilkins might not have intended to pay Washington’s secondary the compliment that he did when he noted after Saturday’s loss that the Sun Devils knew going in that they wouldn’t be able to throw over the top. All their throws had to be underneath.

And it showed in the final stats. Arizona State had only two pass plays longer than 9 yards — a 12-yard pass to Brandon Aiyuk in the third quarter and a 20-yarder to Aiyuk midway through the fourth quarter, when the Sun Devils were in desperation mode trying to rally from 14 points down. The Sun Devils’ 104 yards passing were the fewest allowed by Washington against an FBS opponent since Oregon had just 31 yards passing last year. Since the start of the 2016 season, Washington has held 10 opponents to less than 150 yards passing.

Most notable was the job the Huskies did against Arizona State star wide receiver N’Keal Harry. He entered the game with 21 receptions for 315 yards and four TDs. He left Seattle with just five catches for 20 yards and was unable to make a major impact on the game.

“I’m surprised they didn’t take a lot of shots. I thought they would come in and throw the ball, make sure N’Keal got a couple of deep shots,” Murphy said. “But they twisted it up on us and we had to come out and play our game.”

The performance against the Sun Devils left Washington 12th in the country, allowing 154 yards passing per game. That’s second in the Pac-12 behind Utah, which leads the nation but has played only three games.

The 4.6 yards per attempt allowed by Washington are tied for second nationally. The Huskies are also one of four teams that have allowed only one passing touchdown, along with Utah, South Florida and Georgia Southern.

About the only thing the Huskies haven’t done is force many turnovers. They have just one interception and that came on a careless throw by Utah’s Tyler Huntley that was grabbed by Miller. Forcing turnovers may not be easy this week either facing No. 20 BYU. The Cougars have committed just three turnovers in four games.

“This offense is something we haven’t seen and won’t see again in terms of other shifts and motions and fly-sweep action,” Washington coach Chris Petersen said. “It’s extremely unique, (they) do a nice job with it.”

Burr-Kirven earns Pac-12 honor again

Just how good — and how rare — was Ben Burr-Kirven’s 20-tackle performance Saturday?

Not since 1996 had a Washington player accumulated as many tackles as Burr-Kirven had in the Huskies’ 27-20 victory over Arizona State at Husky Stadium.

And not since 2002 has a Washington player been bestowed Pac-12 defensive player of the week honors in back-to-back weeks, as Burr-Kirven has now.

“He just plays well. We’ve thought that for two years, we really have,” UW coach Chris Petersen said Monday. “He’s showing up maybe a little bit more on the stat sheet than he has in the past. Certainly 20 tackles is rare, and that’s not going to happen all the time, but he does a lot of subtle things that maybe doesn’t even show up on the stat sheet, and he has for a while. He plays at a different speed.”

Of Burr-Kirven’s 20 tackles on Saturday, 14 of them were solo. He also forced two fumbles and recovered one of them.

The senior linebacker from Menlo Park, Calif. — a Cinema Studies student at UW and a first-team all-Pac-12 academic selection last year — was also named the conference player of the week last week after posting 11 tackles in UW’s victory at Utah.

Burr-Kirven is the first player to win back-to-back defensive player of the week honors since Arizona State’s Antonio Longino in November 2015, and the first Husky to earn back-to-back honors since cornerback Derrick Johnson in November 2002.

Petersen won’t lobby for early start times

Kickoff time for the Huskies’ next road game — at UCLA on Oct. 6 — won’t be announced until this Sunday, at the earliest.

On Monday, Fox Sports opted used one of its two six-day selection windows and for its 4:30 p.m. kickoff slot on Oct. 6 will choose between UW-UCLA or Utah-Stanford that day (depending on how those teams fare this weekend).

Whichever game Fox does not choose will fall to ESPN for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff.

The No. 11 Huskies, no doubt, would prefer the earlier start time. Petersen has said he would always prefer earlier start times, and that would certainly be true of a road game — when UW’s chartered flight doesn’t arrive back in Seattle until the early morning — and even more so in this case because the Huskies will be preparing to play back-to-back road games.

And perhaps back-to-back road games at night.

After UCLA, the Huskies head to Eugene for a pivotal Pac-12 North showdown on Oct. 13. Oregon will be coming off its bye week.

Petersen was asked Monday if anyone at UW would try to lobby Fox this week to select UW-UCLA for the earlier kickoff slot.

“There’s no lobbying,” he said. “We just play. It is what it is.”

ESPN still has its two six-day selections available to use this season.