Before the 2008 season began, if I told you that the Washington Huskies would effectively lose Jake Locker, a man with so much talent that he could win a football game for Ty Willingham, for 3/4ths of the season, would you ever believe that the Huskies would be better off for it? Me neither, but the stats, at least, are telling us that’s exactly what has happened.

Here are the relevant stats:

Locker’s season ended during the Oklahoma game. And while the rushing stats for the team dropped slightly in total yardage, the passing stats jumped by 15% with Fouch at QB. In total, the Washington offensive production average is about 30 yards per game better with Fouch than it was with Locker.

Now here’s the really strange part: In the 3 games with Locker, the Washington defense was giving up an average of 520 yards per game. Since Locker was knocked out, Washington is giving up an average of 445. In sum, Locker’s games saw Washington facing an average 215 yard deficit in each game, but the games without Locker have resulted in an average deficit of just 100 yards. By no means has this been enough to win a game for Washington, but it’s certainly a statistical improvement.

And I emphasize “statistical” in that last line because there’s one important caveat I’m not chasing too much: It’s arguable that the first 3 games featured much stiffer competition in Oregon, Oklahoma, and BYU than the last 3 games in Stanford, Arizona, and OSU. But I find the improvement in passing yards interesting. The numbers are by no means “impressive,” but the “improvement” comes against teams with an average pass yards defense rank of 46th, including Arizona at 6 and OSU at 24th. Notre Dame ranks in at 87th and is easily one of the lowest ranked pass yard defenses UW will have faced this season. It’s also interesting that the Huskies, ranked 11th in the nation in 3rd down conversion percentage, actually improved their conversion rate with Fouch on the field, from 50% to 54%. How do you perform so well in 3rd downs and still suck? Ranking almost dead last in turnover margin can do that to ya.

Notre Dame will, ultimately, win this game tomorrow, and probably in convincing fashion. But the Irish wont necessarily be benefitting from the fact that Jake Locker is sitting on the sidelines.

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