EUGENE, Ore. – Washington offensive coordinator Tim Lappano was clearly frustrated after watching his unit struggle to move the ball against an Oregon team that had shown some vulnerability against the run.
In fact, Lappano said “struggled” about 10 times in describing a UW offense that managed just 13 rushing yards against a team that came into Saturday ranked ninth in the Pac-10 in rushing defense, allowing 162 yards a game.
“We struggled,” Lappano said. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you we didn’t struggle running the ball, we struggled. We struggled.”
It was the fewest rushing yards Washington has had since it was held to seven in a loss to Ohio State on Aug. 30, 2003.
The reason for it, though, isn’t totally clear. The offensive line again had trouble opening holes and hurt itself with penalties. Three sacks of Carl Bonnell for a loss of 33 yards contributed. And the absence of senior Kenny James – out with a sprained ankle – didn’t help. Making his second start of the season, junior Louis Rankin was held to 33 yards on 10 carries. In his two starts, Rankin has 100 yards on 35 carries, an average of just 2.9 yards a carry. Washington’s longest run against Oregon was 11 yards and the Huskies haven’t had a run of over 16 yards in their last two games.
Offensive guard Stanley Daniels said he didn’t think it was a matter of the offensive line not being physical enough as much as penalties making it difficult to run the ball.
“I think that we were doing a lot of good things up front, we just kept shooting ourselves in the foot,” Daniels said. “It’s hard to get the run game going when you go for 6 and then (there’s) a 15-yard penalty. You get a nice little first down and then ‘Bam,’ all of a sudden it’s second-and-30. It’s hard to get into a groove, it’s hard for (Lappano) to trust us to run the ball.”
Daniels’ assessment isn’t totally accurate, though. Washington’s offensive line was only called for two penalties, a hold on second-and-10 after a 5-yard Rankin run and a false start on first-and-10. The most costly penalty was actually an offsides on the punt coverage team when C.J. Wallace recovered a muff by Patrick Chung only to have it called back.
If it wasn’t the penalties, though, then what was it? Certainly not having the physical James hurt, especially from a depth standpoint. The only other healthy tailback was Shelton Sampson, who has yet to get a carry this season, though Lappano said after the game that they may take a look at Sampson this week. Johnie Kirton is beginning to be used as a short-yardage back but the Huskies had almost no short-yardage situations.
Because of Oregon’s explosiveness on offense, the UW game plan called for the Huskies to run the ball often, but as the inability to move the ball on the ground mounted, the Huskies had to go almost strictly to the pass. Rankin had just two carries in the second half, and none after the second drive of the third quarter.
“Because of their offensive explosiveness, you don’t ever want to abandon your run,” head coach Tyrone Willingham said. “And we did not want to get away from our run, yet we were not having as much success as we thought we would.”
The lack of a run game continued a trend that has seen what was one a fairly potent running game into one that struggles to pick up more than 2 yards a carry. The Huskies hope the return of James next week will help, but for now Lappano is left looking for answers.
“The whole game plan was ball control, keep their offense off the field, be able to run the football and complete short, quick passes and eat up the clock,” Lappano said. “Obviously we couldn’t run the football. We tried to run it inside, we tried to run it on the edges, we just couldn’t run it. … We didn’t get it done running the football, we didn’t get it done throwing the football. In the second half, everyone in the stadium knew we had to throw the football and that makes it double tough.”
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