UW Game Preview
The Biscuit
The matchup with UW is no longer the cupcake everyone expected. Sark has his boys playing much better, but their talent deficiencies, particularly along the lines (sound familiar?) and their lack of depth have hurt them thus far this season. UW is very much improved, but very much improved from 0-fer still isn’t great. ND should win this game, but sadly UW matches up pretty well with the Irish and could give us a game.
UW Offense
The UW offense obviously depends heavily on Jake Locker, but not necessarily on his feet. Sark likes a more traditional offense, and has Locker throwing the ball. Locker has thrown for 1000 yards, at a 58% completion rate. However, he’s not getting a ton of production per pass, averaging 7.4 yards per attempt, and he has 3 INTS to his 6 TDS. Growing pains in a new offense to be sure. And his stats are padded from their game against Not-USC/Stanford/LSU. But still, he’s not looking bad.
The run game is very different at UW this year, and it’s more traditional than Ty’s “Locker run for your life” attack. It’s also not that much more effective. The team combines for 433 yards at 3.3 YPC. Those look like ND stats from a year ago (okay not quite that bad).
So how does the UW match up well against ND? Well, they like to pass, which is a big weakness for the Irish D, and they have a scrambling QB that will make you pay if you miss tackles in the backfield (See: Nevada and Michigan, all day long). So statistically, the U-dub offense isn’t very scary. But they tend to play into the areas where ND is weakest. I am hoping that Tenuta has a plan for correcting our tackling issues, and that we can mix up the blitz to keep UW off balance, while maintaining some semblance of decent coverage. At the least, this isn’t a game where we “have” to stack up against the run like the past 3 (we ‘had’ to stop Nevada’s run game and force Colin to beat us through the air, we ‘had’ to because there was no way a frosh Noodle-Armed QB at Mich was going to beat us, and we ‘had’ to against the Boilers bc they have a first year starting QB that was 2nd string until like 2 days ago). I’m relieved by this, because those game plans didn’t work out so well. UW is more balanced, and leans toward the pass. Maybe if we scheme against the pass, we can stop it? But then what about the run???? Guess we’ll find out.
UW Defense
The UW defense doesn’t match up well with ND. Or anybody really. They are giving up >25 points per game and 380 yards, pretty balanced run vs. pass, for next to last in the pretty-bad-at-defense-except USC Pac-10. Stanford ran for 7,000 yards last week. And while Stanford is decent, it’s still Stanford doing all that running. Allen and company should have a field day, which should open up things for Tate and his complementary crew of WRs as well.
The Matchup
So why does UW match up well with us? Well, we score a lot. They have a pretty bad D, so we should score a lot again (assuming our injury-to-Floyd issue can be overcome, which is still TBD). UW can score on us as well, because, well, ND hasn’t really stopped anyone since Nevada. And if that happens, look out for another nailbiter.
The keys for the game: How ND’s Defense prepares and executes, and avoiding costly mistakes in penalties and turnovers. Tenuta needs to plan to stop the pass, while not giving Locker all day. I liked the mix at Purdue and am hoping our front 4 can contain the run against UW’s fairly thin OL, allowing Tenuta to blitz here and there, and drop into coverage when needed as well.
On the mistakes, I’m not all that concerned. ND has been solid in turnover ratio this year and the fact that we won’t have Big Televen refs bodes well for another decent game in terms of penalties (assuming Sam Young gets his head out of his…) UW hung with LSU and beat USC largely on red zone errors and turnovers by their opponents. Not taking anything away from their play in those games, but without 75 turnovers by USC, UW doesn’t win that game. So ND has to stay mentally sharp and take care of the ball.
If Tenuta and the D can figure out a gameplan that works and execute it well, and our guys are in the game mentally, though, this won’t even be close. I’m betting on something in between a blowout and nailbiter: ND wins 34 – 24, but not going to the wire. We’ll have the ball to wind out the clock in the 4th (Lord, I hope).




