hythloday1Fri, November 28, 2025 at 3:01 PM UTC·34 min readIn last year’s preview I dispensed with much of the chatter at the time about UW’s apparently wide home-road split — undefeated in Husky Stadium, winless away — by noting that their fundamental statistical performance simply tracked how strong their opponents were and that a time-series analysis was far more predictive, that they had played most of their strongest opponents on the road, and that they had bumbled away some second-order road wins (Wazzu, Rutgers) while getting a few lucky gifts in one-score home games against otherwise competitive teams (Michigan, USC).
This year the Huskies’ home-road split doesn’t appear on the scoreboard to be quite as wide — they have a home loss and three road wins — but there are still quite a few chatterboxes who make Husky Stadium out to be impregnable based on a large disparity in the Huskies’ raw offensive stats at home vs away games. Proper data controls and examining both sides of the ball show that there is a something of a home-road effect on their fundamental performance, but it’s the standard one that accrues to just about every team.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe chief skew in the data this year is that the five FBS opponents UW has faced at home are tilted to strong offense / weak defense while the road slate is even more powerfully tilted the opposite way to strong defense / weak offense. That means constructive interference for the Huskies’ offense and destructive interference for their defense – an even wider split in the stats than the underlying home-road split explains when they have the ball, but no split at all when their opponents have the ball:
Controlling for this skew and performing retrodictive testing, my data model has the actual value of homefield to this year’s Huskies as a little under 3 points on the scoreboard, slightly higher than the 2.75 which is the FBS median value but hardly insurmountable.
Offense
The key to understanding the Huskies’ offense this year is in #2 QB D. Williams’ athleticism, although how that impacts the play-based and drive-based performance is very different. I’ll discuss the former first as it’s within the structure of the offense – this is a read-option run game which opposing defenses have been near-universally attacking inside to stop #1 RB Coleman. Roman told me on the podcast that during his interviews multiple players on the team have said that defenses are focused on pinching in to stop the inside run threat and bring down Coleman fast, but this is a big mistake as it opens up Williams for even more explosive running on the keep to the outside.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementI’ve been charting Coleman as the lead running back under head coach Fisch for the last three years, first at Arizona in 2023 and then in 2024 and 2025 at UW. This year has shown the biggest skew in which the mobile QB in the run game (excluding sacks and scrambles on called passing plays) has benefited from Coleman drawing defenses’ attention:
2023 Arizona QB Fifita: 4.8 YPC, 10.1% explosive
2023 Coleman: 63.4% success, 5.8 YPC, 16.1% explosive
2024 UW QB D. Williams: 6.0 YPC. 17.4% explosive
2024 Coleman: 46.1% success, 5.5 YPC, 18.3% explosive (pre-Oregon: 49%, 5.9, 20.3%)
2025 UW QB D. Williams: 7.9 YPC, 28.2% explosive (!)
2025 Coleman: 58.2% success, 4.7 YPC, 11.1% explosive
What’s very clear on film and in the numbers is that in 2025, Williams on the outside keep of the inside read option is not just highly effective, but the only above-average run threat that UW has fielded. It’s somewhat difficult to tease out exactly why Coleman’s carry average and explosiveness rate have collapsed compared to previous seasons, and Roman and I debated a few theories on the podcast which will be discussed momentarily, but it’s not difficult to say that the strategy employed by almost every defense UW has faced of attacking the inside run and not honoring the outside keep has been a miserable failure – the Huskies gain far more in the tradeoff with Williams’ legs.
Coleman’s yards per-carry numbers being down this season are probably best explained by opposing defenses’ strategies of attacking inside – it’s reflected in other advanced stats like adjusted line yards despite the offensive line being not quite as horrible as it was last year. However, I don’t find that defensive strategy to be a convincing argument for why his explosive quotient is down, because Coleman’s style of running has been to forcibly break a safety’s tackle after he’s gotten through to the 2nd / 3rd levels and go on for significant gain after contact, and that’s what’s way down this year – he’s simply going down much faster on contact (Roman noted that Coleman has dropped some weight to try and get more mobile this year).
There’s also been an injury issue Coleman’s had to deal with in the last few weeks, suffered in week 11 against Wisconsin. He was held out the next week as a precautionary measure against Purdue, then appeared last week against UCLA in a leg brace on the field but was largely used as a decoy (as well, Roman told me, to qualify for a couple career honors, which was a nice touch by Coach Fisch). Roman relayed that Coleman has been signed up for a regular workload in this week’s practices and is expected to be a full-go on Saturday, but it remains to be seen. For the purposes this article, I’ve excluded all of Coleman’s reps after the hit in the Wisconsin game in which he was hurt to keep the stats clean.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe backup who’s gotten the most carries and likely starter if Coleman is a scratch is sophomore #24 RB Mohammed. I agree with Roman’s assessment that the young back has been benefiting from the extra playing time and has improved his ability to find the hold compared to his reps last year, and is up to an impressive 63.4% success rate, especially valuable in short yardage, but Mohammed is simply far less productive than Coleman at the senior’s peak, much less whatever’s going on with him in 2025, with just 4.2 YPC and a 6.4% explosive carry rate for the sophomore.
The third back is redshirt freshman #4 RB J. Washington, for whom I have too few meaningful carries in two years for any evaluation. I hadn’t seen him in any road games this year until last week’s game in the Rose Bowl and couldn’t spot him on the sidelines when scouring the Wisconsin tape despite being RB3, leading me to ask Roman if Washington was on the travel roster, but Roman assured me he was and just missed that trip with illness.
I proposed to Roman a defensive strategy of always keeping the read EMOL outside to induce the handoff, and then defending the inside run with relatively light box resources, thereby eliminating the explosive QB keep and reallocating resources to stop the far more dangerous passing game. My argument was those things were how UW actually moved the ball and the inside run game could be safely deprioritized, indeed it would be to the defense’s benefit to trick the offense into running inside as it’s the least effective thing the Huskies do. Roman’s response was that this ignored the big gains that Coleman has been able to generate up the middle against other teams in the past. I think those were against other teams, and in the past.
Here’s a representative sample of successful rushing plays:
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement(Reminder – you can use the button in the lower right corner to control playback speed)
:00 – Here’s Coleman following his lead blockers pulling around. The guard whiffs on the corner but that’s okay, the corner whiffs on Coleman, the frontside tight end forgets to come off his chip to hit the backer but that’s okay, the backer forgets to tackle anyone. The Z-receiver forgetting to hit the safety turns out to be a problem though because Coleman can’t run through safeties anymore.
:05 – This is where Coleman still has all the juice, short yardage. This is the first play with multiple backup linemen in after another injury and the staff has full confidence that he can pick it up on a muscle run and he does – UW is at about 70% rush frequency in short yardage and 80% success doing so.
:16 – I am now five years, starting with the 2021 season, into charting every Big Ten football game and I’m still not done shouting at my screen at all these bonehead defenses that fire off the end, backers, DBs, coaches, cheerleaders, the mascot, and the marching band at the inside handoff and leaves nobody to set the edge. The slicing H-back is laughing to himself that he has no one to block until 15 yards downfield.
:43 – Here’s Mohammed on the goalline, good pick and slide around the DT, this wasn’t really part of his game when I caught his tape last year, and then he’s got the momentum to tumble through the hits at the end.
And unsuccessful rushing plays:
:00 – The all three interior OL are bending at the waist and lunging, even if they made contact instead of whiffing they don’t have the base to actually block. The DL is following the direction of the play from the QB’s turn into the handoff and the OL is panicking that they’re getting beat to it so instead of getting their feet moving so they can establish the foundation they’re throwing their upper bodies wildly.
:10 – At last, a defense I didn’t scream at. The fieldside end stays wide to honor the QB keep so he hands the ball off (also the defense allocates personnel for each of the RPO pass options, though I don’t actually think those are live). It means that the defense “only” has five box defenders for the five linemen and one safety for both the Z-receiver and the run if it breaks, but this isn’t actually a problem. The box KO’s those blocks — the RG-RT combo can’t clear a single DT and the pulling C can’t keep the boundary end out of the lane — and Coleman goes down for minimal gain.
:24 – It’s zone so the corner just stays put, he doesn’t chase the inside receiver into the formation, so the outside receiver Big Ten blocks him. The slicing H-back is meant to bluff or chip the backer on the scrape exchange but that’s too much work I guess (Roman spoke about this somewhat eliptically). This is how a defender should handle Williams’ juke attempts – don’t fall for it, he never cuts inside, maintain outside leverage and tackle outside in.
:44 – This is the other variant of the option run, the RB follows the wide zone blocking to the field while Williams is reading the boundary EMOL, here a walked-down backer. That backer properly keeps himself clean, inducing the handoff, and the DL does its job of block destruction without issue or need for any help whatsoever against this OL.
Roman and I discussed the rebuild of the offensive line after the departure of the previous staff almost totally wiped out the unit at the end of 2023, and how this year has looked more stable than the hasty backfill of 2024, and the future is looking better still with an investment in recruiting, playing younger linemen early, and moving away from portal journeymen. But while it’s not the complete horrorshow of 2024, it was still the case that in 2025 they began the year with a mix of mostly capped-out older players and an inexperienced true freshman, and injuries throughout the year have resulted in working in even more freshmen (which is a good sign of confidence for the future but does have a short-term cost) and a couple of more older guys who are problematic to say the least.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementA full recounting of the week-to-week history of the o-line is laid out on the podcast; ten different linemen have seen extensive meaningful play this season and it took us quite a while. For Saturday, it’s looking like the lineup from left to right will be Kansas State super-senior #50 LT Willis, true freshman #LG Mills, sophomore #68 C Henning, senior #56 RG G. Hatchett, and #74 RT Azzopardi.
Azzopardi mysteriously vanished four plays before halftime in week 11 against Wisconsin, with no visible injury that I could see (the play was an interception so there was no special teams action) and hasn’t played since. Unusually for our history of conversations, Roman didn’t have any information about what had happened with Azzopardi, other than to assure me he had not quit the team in shame as would be understandable for any Husky to do. Roman said that like Coleman, Azzopardi is scheduled for full workouts and is expected back on Saturday. If not, the solution the last few weeks has been to have Mills move from LG to RT and redshirt freshman #53 OL Finau fill in at LG (Finau actually grades out as the best lineman in the whole unit, and has been used to solve every problem they’ve had except the starting center #66 C L. Hatchett having a club on his snapping hand the last several weeks).
The ongoing and cumulative offensive line issues shape the biggest drive-based exceptionalism to this offense in the Big Ten. First, they have by far the highest negative play rate of any team in the league at 16.42% — that’s lost yardage on sacks, TFLs, bad snaps, false starts and other procedurals, as well as deadball fouls and turnovers attributable to the line — nearly two full standard deviations over the FBS median. It also means they have a lower than average ability to escape 3rd & long situations to continue drives within the structure of the offense, at just a 33.2% conversion rate.
It also informs by far the strongest correlation in the statistical regression between the performance of the best defenses UW has faced — the five teams with defensive rankings in F+ advanced statistics of 45th or better, against which all three losses and one very narrow escape (Maryland) came — and the bottom five defenses which average 91st. That factor is not just pocket pressure, but effective pressure.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe good defenses not only caused pocket collapses more than half again more often as the bad defenses did, 23.48% vs 14.63%, but they went on to actually contain the QB and get a sack or some other unproductive outcome on 72.2% of their breaks. Meanwhile the bad defenses allowed Williams to scramble for a successful play fully half of the time.
That works out to an effective pressure rate of 16.96% for the good defenses, a little better than one in every six dropbacks which is an enormous bite, whereas the bad defenses it’s just 7.32%, about one in 14 dropbacks, hardly worth mentioning.
The difference is very clear in the drive extension performance correlation – good defenses get pressure and use it effectively to get off the field, while bad defenses allow Williams to extend drives and go on to score touchdowns even after they’ve generated negative plays and put UW behind the chains. This is the single greatest separator in UW’s drive outcomes – Williams’ explosive out-of-structure play ability is either contained and the rest of the offense in-structure is not efficient enough to win, or it isn’t and the defense takes its chances.
Here are examples of Williams rescuing drives with his scrambling ability (he virtually always runs for it when he breaks the pocket, I have next to no examples of him throwing out-of-structure):
And examples of how defenses stopped Williams scrambling:
The top pass target, both in the deep game and horizontally, is #12 WR Boston, with excellent per-target numbers at 64.7% success rate and 9.9 adjusted YPT. Boston has missed some time in the last couple games with a similar timeline as Coleman, hurt during week 11 on a punt return, came back last week against UCLA but used really as just a decoy, and Roman told me he should be back to full strength on Saturday but we’ll have to see.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementFor most of the year the other starting receiver outside has been true freshman #81 WR Roebuck. This has been the biggest surprise on the team to me, and Roman and I spent a while marveling over his improbable effeciveness because there’s nothing about him on paper that looks like he should have the numbers he does – 70% per-target success and 10.1 adjusted YPT, which are phenomenal. But in addition to being very young, only getting a shot due to injuries to #3 WR R. Williams, not being very big at 5’11” and 175 lbs, a mid 3-star in the 24/7 composite at .8642, and absolutely nothing about his film looking like he’s particularly fast or can break tackles … he’s just always open and has better leverage than the guy covering him, and usually adds something after the catch. If the QB doesn’t miss him or lead him to a bad spot, Roebuck gets it done on intermediate routes with great hands and route running.
The third most targeted receiver is the slot man #7 WR Vines-Bright, another true freshman. He missed last week after suffering a concussion the week before against Purdue, but Roman said he should be back on Saturday. He’s looked fine on tape to me with a very good success rate at 63.6%, but the nature of this passing pattern has his per-target numbers very low — the tight end gets more action in the screen and seam game while so the slot man winds up with the crossers and dumpoffs — and he’s coming in at 6.5 YPT. It’s not really his fault but what it amounts to is that if defenses get Williams to check it down to Vines-Bright they’ve won vs the opportunity cost.
Due to the recent injuries we’ve seen some more of the backup receivers, but I don’t have enough meaningful targets for statistical evaluation. #5 WR O. Evans, the Penn State transfer, replicates Boston’s deep route running while true freshman #8 WR Lawson takes Boston’s other stuff, and sophomore #13 WR A. Harris fills in for Vines-Bright in the slot. Subjectively, none of them looked remarkable to me one way or the other, though I think Evans is the most dangerous from his prior film at taking the top off.
The tight end getting virtually all the pass targets is #86 TE DeGraaf, coming in at 58.6% success and 8.3 YPT. There’s a big split in his numbers for screens, which have a higher explosive rate, and hitch routes, which he reliably catches but tend to only gain a couple of yards and keep getting run too shallowly. #88 TE Q. Moore has returned from injury, and true freshman #85 TE Naone is seeing the field some, but both are being used just as blockers.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHere’s a representative sample of successful passing plays:
:00 – Watching Roebuck is kind of like a magic trick, the corner knows what this route is going to be and has inside leverage but he still manages to get his hips wrong at the last split second. Roebuck puts some kind of whammy on him just before the break to get the corner to float his weight outside and that’s all Roebuck needs. Check out the hands on the reverse angle.
:19 – UW’s line gives up immediate pressure, UW’s QB fires the dumpoff to Vines-Bright, welcome to the last three months of my charting history.
:32 – Boston’s very good, Williams has a shockingly big arm for a little guy, and Michigan’s DBs after their title run are a bunch of fruitflies – this should all be common knowledge. The important takeaway is look how much this shot play is designed – the rollout, Williams’ eyes, that there’s only one other guy in the pattern and he’s an obvious decoy (who pulls off five defenders, cripes Wink), and everybody else is blocking.
1:08 – Boston is quite a Swiss Army Knife for the passing offense, it’s why he gets double the targets as anyone else. More Big Ten blocking on the perimeter on the outside screen, which is 12% of playcalls, about three points higher than FBS average.
And unsuccessful passing plays:
:00 – Roman relayed that Husky fans have been complaining a lot about UW’s failure to score in first halves of games. I performed a correlation analysis after we recorded and found that a) he’s right, Husky fans do complain a lot, b) they’re right, UW doesn’t score a lot in first halves, and c) the strongest association in the regression was that in second halves they quit running this play. The catch is actually pretty impressive, DeGraaf has good hands, but there’s no reason to select this route or to run it at this depth, it’s almost always a waste of a play.
:21 – Predetermined route to Boston, Williams can’t step into it because the pocket is getting creased. Man, how embarrassing to not only give up a PBU to a Rutgers corner, but check out the high angle – the entire pattern is locked up by the whole Rutgers secondary.
:43 – For as impressed as I am with Roebuck’s magic, he’s as vulnerable as any 5’11” wizard to a punch in the back of the head. He just lacks the physical stature to survive contested catches, and Williams shouldn’t throw this ball. In fact, he should have come off it the instant the corner maintained leverage to the sideline, and gone to Vines-Bright on the post route vs split safeties (look at the boundary safety preoccupied with Boston drifting wide).
1:13 – Williams is so athletic, and rollouts are so frequent in this offense, that I just automatically assumed him to be accurate throwing on the hoof, but surprisingly it’s not so – he needs to stop and set up in order to hit passes, otherwise it’s comedy. I don’t really get the rollout here either, it does nothing to improve the angle since the MIKE has already stepped the other way, and it takes away his option to hit Vines-Bright once he clears the fieldside backer. Williams just loses the rep from impatience.
DC Walters brought his unique high pressure system to Washington this year: three-down, double-eagle front with three corners in man and a sky-high safety. I thought it was a bold decision given UW’s defensive history and available talent, and discussed with Roman over the Summer if the administration had asked Walters to moderate his scheme. Roman relayed that the staff was emphatic: they were all-in on Walters’ scheme and believed they had all the personnel needed to get the front pressure and back end coverage to make it work. And that’s exactly how Walters kicked off 2025.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIt lasted about half a season before the inevitable Seattle Switch to a 2-4-5 playing a soft cover-3 zone like every other DC before him.
I’m not sure what it is about overroasted coffee and 375 days of rain a year that deprives UW of capable defensive line depth, hard-hitting linebackers, or sticky defensive backs, but anything other than a very conservative defense which backs out and keeps the play in front of them simply hasn’t been viable since 2017. Other than an excellent run of cornerbacks developed by a DBs coach who managed to parlay that into a disastrous head coaching gig, and a slight change in performance against explosive plays which is explained entirely by the swapped conference slate, this is now the ninth consecutive season in which every fundamental metric I track from charting UW’s full season has been essentially identical.
In each of the film compilations below I’ll include an example of Walters’ previous system for comparison and illustration of the personnel dilemmas which prompted the switch to the 2-4-5, as Roman and I discussed on the podcast. There are some injuries which constrained personnel depth, some positions (like linebacker) more than others, and I started off the defensive section of the podcast asking Roman how much those injuries forced Walters’ hand. But ultimately I think they have enough healthy if not necessarily effective personnel that they could return to the three-down / man-coverage system if they wanted to (another reason to provide some examples of what it looks like at UW) … they just don’t want to because it was too high pressure for them to execute.
In this Summer’s preview, Roman and I discussed how much more versatile the defensive front depth looked than previous years, with each position having multiple versions it could flex into and a long line of personnel at every one. That meant there were separate defensive tackles and nose guards with perhaps four to six playable guys at each, a meaningful difference between a fist-down defensive end and a stand-up outside linebacker, and furthermore three different types of backers between a true OLB who was always on-ball, a MIKE who was always off-ball, and a third kind who’d switch back and forth for pressure versatility. At the very beginning of the season most of those predictions looked like they were playing out.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBut at this point there is no positional versatility at all, and almost no player rotation within the limited positions they do have. Of the 24 defensive front players we discussed as necessary for this full versatility approach, five are out with injuries – #3 ILB Al-Uqdah, #99 OLB R. Davis, #91 OLB I. Ward. #95 DT A. Parker, and #94 NT J. Parker. The backers are each tough losses, though given their histories anyone expecting the Parker twins to play was signing up for disappointment.
The rest of the personnel not playing appears to be by choice, either preserving redshirts for next season in the case of #9 ILB Manu, several backup walk-ons they seemed to like out of Spring but haven’t trusted in the Fall, or a couple OLBs they’ve reserved just for rare 3rd down packages while nearly exclusively playing just three guys for the two edge spots. But the most noticeable difference is taking four apparently healthy scholarship interior linemen off the field because individually or schematically the staff has calculated that additional LBs or DBs are more useful.
That’s meant it’s back to the same old, same old for UW’s ability to stop the run – underwater by about a standard deviation and a half overall, five points under median on 1st down, and completely inept in short yardage. The pass rush is effectively non-existent when bringing four, they’re just present for containment and only generate pressure selectively when they choose to bring extra or insert a DB from depth. Most of the tackling is done by the backed out LBs and DBs swarming the play at the second level and just keeping it from going explosive.
The two defensive tackle spots are at this point manned by a rotation of #90 DT E. Davis, #54 DT A. Thompson, and #11 DT T. Uiagalelei (cousin of Oregon’s Matayo) who share the most reps, with former nose tackle and only survivor of the scheme switch #92 DT Butler coming in a bit later. On the edges it’s three guys for two spots, #5 DE Durfee (finally healthy enough to play after transferring in from D-II years ago) and #48 DE Lane with very similar builds at 6’5” and 260 lbs, plus #41 DE Lynch as the big thumper to set the edge on rushing downs at 300 lbs.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementRoman clued me in to a mystery that was baffling me about Manu’s playing time – he was clearly the starter at MIKE ahead of #17 ILB D. Bryant and the green dot guy in the games he was in, but they were non-consecutive and didn’t seem injury related – evidently they’re preserving a redshirt for him, though why they used up the fourth game on last week’s trip to UCLA is beyond me. It means they’re now down to three guys for two spots here as well – Bryant, #10 ILB X. Alexander, and true freshman #23 ILB Rainey-Sale. Alexander probably steps up to be the leader of this group; Bryant is an absolute liability with the worst grades of any starter on my tally sheet in both coverage and tackling, and while Roman couldn’t stop raving about the freshman I just don’t have enough meaningful reps of him in action to evaluate as he’s only played in six games, the vast majority of time coming in laughers against Purdue and UCLA.
Here’s a representative sample of successfully defended rushes:
:00 – Ohio State o-line check in: still JAGs. I liked how the tight end, defensive end, linebacker, DT, cornerback, and running back all just tripped each other on this play, that’s about where OSU’s rush offense and UW’s rush defense are at.
:11 – Here’s the Walter’s original defense in all its glory. Note the hallmarks: symmetrical 3-down double eagle front with no giveaways, the off-ball “backers” are actually a MIKE and the down safety, three corners in man coverage and a single high safety. Davis and Uiagalelei do their jobs clogging up the initial and obvious run direction, and Alexander has stayed wide on the QB in case it’s a keep, but the play is made by Lynch – he takes on the slicing H-back and unlike a lighter end keeps Alexander clean, that’s what prevents the cutback from getting outside. The run still gets four yards though as Thompson is giving up a lot of ground.
:35 – Now for the switch to the 2-4-5. this is the three-safety wrinkle for 12-pers sets I’ll discuss below. They’ve gotten an extra backer out of the switch, but without a nose to control the A-gaps the inside run responsibility is on those backers to immediately attack. Alexander is too hasty and his poor footing gets him creamed by the RT, Rainey-Sale gets under the C’s block to trip the back though without help he still gives up three yards.
:46 – Again, in the new defense the responsibility has shifted to the backfield – the backer Bryant has to bounce the LG and get under him, and the DB has to come down from 10 yards’ depth — not ~25 as previously when he was on put-out-fires duty — because he’s now integral to slamming his body home and stopping the run before it can get more than three yards.
And unsuccessfully defended rushes:
:00 – This is the 3-4 from the old system, there’s a second off-ball backer in the box instead of the quasi-backer safety. This is about typical for Butler and Durfee’s block destruction, the backer Bryant’s ability to wrong-arm the TE to get inside him to access the back, and Esteen’s prowess in tackling, which is to say effectively non-existent. Al-Uqdah, the extra backer in this configuration, rescues the play from behind but he’s unfortunately out for the season at this point.
:21 – This is the transition point to the new scheme, they’re in man on 3rd down but it’s a nearly all LB front, with the box safety having the QB responsibility. He gets pulled the opposite way and the entire crew of backers overpenetrates like it’s a passing play; they’re shocked it’s a run on 3rd & 4. Alexander hasn’t set the edge and Bryant gets pasted.
:45 – Next week the transition to the new defense is complete, just in time for them to play exactly the wrong offense for it. Michigan was only interested in underneath passes the man coverage would have handled fine, and inside zone running the new light box definitely couldn’t. Davis is dogwalked, Lane is stoned by a WR, and without an extra DL to keep him clean, a safety has to take on an o-lineman at the 2nd level with predictable results.
1:03 – This was typical of the defense bringing the LBs down to crowd the line as a solution to the missing nose, the back would just cut around them and he’s past them while they’re caught in the trash. The DBs have to solve this run but the playside guys are getting blocked out and the box safety was faking a blitz and has a long way to run to help.
The long-term injury effects and midseason changes to the defensive backfield have been relatively minor in terms of personnel usage, instead mostly about the coverage structure to which that personnel has deployed.
The two starting safeties are #12 DB McLaughlin who transferred in from the FCS ranks, and longtime Husky veteran on I think his sixth different assignment #24 DB Esteen. These two were initially the “down” and “post” safeties in Walters’ scheme, one being a quasi-linebacker in the box and the other sky high who was the only insurance against a play breaking big (Oregon’s Dillon Thieneman used to play the latter role for Walters, though he’s got a different remit as a Duck). However since the midseason scheme switch the roles have loosened somewhat and I see the two at more typical depths.
They’ve also added a new wrinkle, which is true freshman #18 DB Dillard-Allen coming in as a third safety – not a nickelback or inside corner, but more like another high or free safety, so that Esteen can come down closer to the line of scrimmage to cover an extra tight end against heavier offensive looks. In that configuration they pull the third inside corner off the field. Dillard-Allen’s job becomes the rescue man in this configuration, rather than coverage per se, and I don’t really have enough reps of him in action to evaluate since the offenses they’ve played in which this look has been required have mostly wanted to run the ball and not put his tackling to much of a test.
I do have plenty of reps on McLaughlin and Esteen, however. I like the former quite a bit, in fact I think they could solve their shorthandedness at backer by just converting him (Roman told me the concern was his weight coming in, but he’s packed on muscle pretty well and is up to 6’2” and 200 lbs). He’s not the best I’ve seen in coverage but his position doesn’t demand that much of it within this scheme, he’s mostly running the alley and tackling short stuff and his grades are pretty high at that. Esteen on the other hand is decent in coverage (he’s actually something of a ballhawk), but very poorly graded in tackling and play diagnosis, which makes the scheme change not ideal for him.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe inside corners have switched off between redshirt freshman #2 CB Clark and redshirt sophomore #0 L. Bryant (unrelated to the linebacker). The major high stress position for the Walters’ defense was this one, playing man coverage all the time against jittery slot receivers and staying on field-stretching fades and crossers is incredibly demanding … and I think Clark and Bryant’s play is a major reason they switched out of it.
The outside corners are both tall Arizona transfers, #7 CB Prysock came over the year before last and #8 CB T. Davis followed in 2024. Both had better seasons in Tucson. In 2025, the middle of the field has been so much more vulnerable that offenses have just concentrated there, so evaluating whether Prysock and Davis have actually improved or their size is simply deterring QBs away while more readily obvious targets are available is difficult to tell. I have plenty of film both ways — good looking coverage and wide open guys — but very few QBs who’ve actually challenged them. Davis missed some time at different points this year, including last week, and the very similarly built true freshman #6 CB Robinson filled in. But Roman told me that Davis is expected back on Saturday and assuming that’s so they tend to play the corners straight through with no rotation so we likely won’t see Robinson.
Here’s a representative sample of successfully defended passing plays:
:00 – Here’s Prysock in coverage – dodges the rub, stays on top, I don’t really think the contact prior to the ball’s arrival is actually necessary since he’s in position for a good legal PBU.
:26 – Maryland’s second half offensive strategy was insane, up 20-0 they threw 25 passes and ran it twice, holding the ball for only 9:14, and to make matters worse, instead of rushing their “ball control” approach was constant screen passes which are the one thing UW defends well. In this game the Huskies won screen passes at a 91% rate.
:43 – Here’s the 3-down defense, using a stunt with the Uiagalelei at tackle and the lineman Davis at nose. The center and RG can’t handle the exchange and Davis’ charge throws off the QB’s timing, he dumps off a quick throw that the corner Davis can collapse on easily. Meanwhile the running back has completely cooked the backer Bryant on the wheel route; they’d go back to this a couple drives later, got the same thing from Bryant but the protection held up and scored a 48-yd TD on some pretty comical tackling attempts out of the DBs.
:57 – Reader, I’m sure you see my hesitation on the corners. The film I have is backup QBs from bad teams underthrowing balls, Davis is beat but catches up and sticks a hand in to tickle the ball away … what am I supposed to do with this?
And unsuccesfully defended passes:
:00 – This was the shortest of three huge passes that the inside corner Bryant in man coverage gave up to Wazzu (not the linebacker Bryant, he gave up a different set of big plays).
:17 – Roman and I enjoyed a long digression on the podcast about Ohio State’s intruiging strategy of playing against type in their visit to Husky stadium, why they might have pursued a ball control strategy instead of their typical big passes, and the parallels to Oregon’s trip to Penn State. The high angle tape is replete with clips like this one – they’re deliberately holding the ball a long time, then taking a short throw to roll the clock, even though it is readily apparent that multiple deep options have blown through zone coverage and are wide open.
:40 – I am loathe to give advice to a Husky but I found myself muttering at the screen “this is your coverage number 17, stop hesitating, you’re not even in a little bit of tension, what is that, tackle inside out on a curl-in, now what are you doing number 8 control the sideline don’t overrun that, number 24 I have been watching you for six years I swear to god if you whiff on one more tackle that badly I am putting this in my article” and here we are.
1:08 – Longtime observers of UW defenses will recognize this as standard, it’s not really a pass rush but rather containment of a QB scramble while the whole defense retreats and keeps their eyes forward. But the play is already behind them, Prysock is outleveraged and needs underneath help and the backers are too spaced out recovering from play action. The QB puts it right in the perpetual hole in the middle of the coverage and none of these athletes can close the gap.
