UW Secondary: "Just a girl who cain't say no"

The Husky secondary allowed 323 passing yards to San Jose St. in Saturday's win. The Spartans completed 80% of their passes. Yes, 80%. You might not complete that high a percentage in practice. Why even have a defense?

Post-game, excuses came fast and furious.

Coach Tyrone Willingham: "It is difficult to shut down everything in [the passing game]." (also, apparently, to shut down anything)

Def. Coordinator Kent Baer: "I think some guys got a little tired." (yes, because they were chasing San Jose State's receivers all over the field)

Baer also mentioned, according to the Times, that he didn't expect SJ State to run a five-receiver offense--it wasn't in their game films from the previous year.

We wonder how all this incompetence affects planning for Oklahoma. The Sooners lost their starting QB to a rules violation, and have a Heisman Trophy candidate running back--so the obvious game plan would be "let the quarterback beat you"--in other words, stack the line against the run and force the Sooners to throw.

But since San Jose State's Adam Tafralis threw for 80% against us, it's hard to see that working. We don't know much about Oklahoma's QB, Paul Thompson (here's something--like Isaiah Stanback, he was a WR) but we're sure he's a more talented QB than whoever San Jose St. has.

Bob Condotta, in his Husky football blog, takes the optimistic view:

The good news for next week is that passing isn't exactly Oklahoma's strength. In terms of the matchup of strengths and weaknesses, if the Huskies had to face a non-conference powerhouse on the road this season, a running team like Oklahoma seems like the best possible fit.

Maybe, but passing wasn't supposed to be SJ State's strength either--our secondary turned it into one. If the Dawg defense is thinking about the pass against Oklahoma, Adrian Peterson will run over them. Oh, for the days of Dana Hall and Walter Bailey.

In bad news, the Huskies' top two tight-ends are out for Saturday and probably longer.