Five Things: Arizona
Last week…
1) Hercules – Human. Ish. Wazzu still recorded a high Havoc rate at 17%, but they did not quite dominate the line of scrimmage as originally anticipated, which is all credit to our line playing up. Half credit.
2) ABP – Failed. No playmakers stepped up, particularly among the young guys we stay keeping our eyes on. All five remaining games can be won, but having anything come out of this category would be really appreciated. Seriously, anything at all.
3) Luck – YES. Three turnovers that just happen to be in the right place and maybe go the other way 60% of the time? We got it in spades. We also beat the crap out of them legitimately, too, but there was a hefty dose of acceptable luck.
4) Quarterback – YES. This was always the gameplan for success with Ross – have him make sure not to lose the game, and do just enough to win it. No turnovers, generally steady, and that’s good enough. It may not against Stanford, for example, but there’s going to be nights this year where that is absolutely acceptably enough.
5) DB Depth – YES. We won this one by an incredible margin, and I honestly didn’t anticipate it being by that much. No WSU receiver had any impact outside of a play here or there. The coverage helped unlock the rest of the gameplan, rather than the other way around.
Three and a half out of five items feels wrong considering we won by 34, but the W is more important than my scorecard. Let’s move onto Arizona, which begins with…
1) Khalil Tate – This is the focus of the week, after UCLA tried and failed badly off of a bye week. Colorado, you can argue, was caught offguard. But we know, and we undoubtedly got a chance to watch the UCLA-UA game on Saturday night, which is the big test for Deruyter and Wilcox – how do they handle the Pac-12’s dynamo runner-thrower whose yards per carry is north of 15 and can do enough through the air to actually hurt you? Will the results be any more effective than slowing Herbert, when he was healthy?
2) Devante Downs, Jordan Kunaszyk, Cameron Goode, Alex Funches, etc – And the responsibility for one falls on the shoulders of this group, which may or may not be with Downs. Judging from the tight-lipped nature of the staff, I’m not sure we’ll know until gametime, and maybe not even until after that. Regardless, containment will be crucial – keeping Tate in the pocket, not letting him get loose a straight line runner down the field, and generally confusing him will be crucial. The guy looks like miniature Lamar Jackson out there, and he’s got the speed to punish us. Not many athletes on this team are catching that guy.
3) Home field – No fans last week due to the smoke, the Friday start, and the long odds, but I’m thinking we get a lot more in the stands for this one. The Wilcox train is on its way, y’all. Board or miss it, but we ain’t stopping.
4) Avoid traps – After a big win at home against a ranked opponent, the worst thing you can do is follow it up by…not beating the next opponent. Coming out drained. Flat. Unprepared. Buying your own hype. I don’t think that’s going to happen under Wilcox, who oozes no nonsense, all-football, all-the-time. But it’s worth guarding against. That’s for damn sure. Plus, if they can snag a win over Arizona, the rest of the season becomes literally house money.
5) Trips inside 40/Explosives – Arizona has been a very good bend but don’t break team thus far, not really coming up with that much Havoc, but ranking 30th in the country in isoPPP allowed, a measure of calculating how often explosive plays happen. It’s going to be up to us to take full advantage of opportunities handed to us, especially when there’s a high percentage chance of it becoming a track meet. (Which we’d probably lose.)