No. 2 Washington vs No. 3 Texas

Monday, January 1, 2024
5:45 pm PT, ESPN
CFP Semifinal – New Orleans, LA

All season, Washington has been doubted.

From the writers at SuperWest Sports (myself included) to the national pundits, all we heard throughout the year was that Oregon was the better team and would get the upper hand in the Pac-12 Championship.

The oddsmakers in Vegas doubted the Dawgs, too.

Yet, game after game, Kalen DeBoer has delivered.

And coming into the Playoff game against Texas, it’s more of the same. Once again, the national talking heads are saying UW doesn’t have the strength up front to handle Texas.

When those ESPN employees talk about the Longhorns, the names of the players roll right off of their tongues as they devolve into the talking points they have hit all season. It’s familiar for them.

They know the Texas team like the back of their hands because they watch the Texas team play every week.

Then, when it comes time to talk about the UW players, the pundits fumble with their names and give somewhat odd takes on the Dawgs’ keys to the game.

It’s painful to watch at times and produces some second-hand embarrassment. They obviously don’t watch much Husky football, if any.

It’s the all too familiar anti-West Coast bias.

It doesn’t matter that the Pac-12 was the top conference in the country this season. It’s irrelevant that the Huskies are the first undefeated team to emerge from the league since expansion in 2011.

Remember, we are soft on this side of the country. Or so they say.

Let me put it in direct and clear terms for all those ESPN pundits who don’t bother to watch Pac-12 football: They don’t know what they are talking about.

Washington’s offense is a motion-based system that carves up opposing defenses before the ball is even snapped. Designed to get the ball to players in open space, DeBoer’s system is chock-full of eye candy.

Wide receivers and running backs alike will move before the ball is put into play, either to draw defenders out of a certain area or to gain speed to get to the post-snap spot on the field quicker.

And it doesn’t even matter what the defense does.

If they choose to ignore the motion, the ball can swing quickly out to that player in open space. If they decide to move a defender out to cover the player, the ball goes to either a runner or receiver that enters the resulting dead space left after the snap.

Then, after several plays of success, the pre-snap movement gets into the opponent’s head. Suddenly, they are overthinking everything. That creates hesitancy, mistakes, and even more open space.

All before the ball is even snapped.

There’s a reason why DeBoer is 24-2 as Washington’s head coach and 103-11 throughout his career.

The offensive system is genius, and arguably the most cerebrally advanced system in all of college football.

Teams don’t go undefeated in the Pac-12. But DeBoer’s did.

The Dawgs arguably have the top receiving corps in the nation along with an elite offensive line. The Huskies are No. 4 nationally in sacks allowed per game, allowing Michael Penix Jr. to go down just 11 times this season.

The same can’t be said of that Texas offensive line.

The Longhorns are No. 63 in sacks allowed per game, allowing their quarterbacks to get taken down 26 times.

But you don’t hear much about how the UT O-Line will struggle with the Dawgs front seven, do you?

Instead, the narrative is how the Huskies will struggle to win the battle in the trenches.

The other ostensibly uninformed argument is that the Huskies are too one-dimensional. Even if that’s true, Texas has the nation’s No. 93 passing defense.

That would put the Longhorns sixth in the Pac-12, just above the porous USC defense and below even Washington State’s struggling secondary.

If this game turns into a one-on-one matchup between Washington’s No. 1 passing offense and Texas’s No. 93 secondary, the Dawgs will take that every day.

But the fact is that DeBoer has a highly capable running back in Dillon Johnson who has over 1,000 yards rushing and 14 touchdowns on the ground.

That’s more touchdowns than the Longhorns’ leading rusher, Jonathon Brooks (who is now out for the season) recorded, with nearly the same yardage.

But, sure, Washington is one-dimensional.

Texas does have the country’s No. 3 rushing defense, though, and could make it a long day for Johnson on the ground.

Still, DeBoer’s offense has plenty of jet-sweeps, fake jet-sweeps, and passes behind the line of scrimmage to a wide receiver on the edge to compensate for any struggles in the traditional ground game.

In other words, the Dawgs have the scheme to loosen up Texas’s stout run defense.

At worst, the battle between the UW offense and the UT defense will be a wash and the game will be decided on the other side of the ball.

The Longhorns have the country’s No. 17 scoring offense, No. 18 passing offense, and No. 22 rushing offense. It features an even run-pass split when it comes to play-calling, with a slight run-leaning 53/47 tilt.

It’s oddly inefficient in the red zone, though.

The Big 12 team enters the game No. 87 in red zone offense. If the Dawgs can have a bend-but-don’t-break game where they force Texas to settle for field goals or turn the ball over on fourth down, DeBoer’s team would be in a favorable position.

The strength of Washington’s defense is its front seven and Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers isn’t exactly a run threat. He has just 21 yards rushing on the season and has been sacked 25 times.

That could allow the Dawgs to be reasonably aggressive on defense to try and get pressure. The Husky secondary may give up yards, but the unit has helped produce the nation’s No. 8 defense in interceptions forced.

Any mistakes from Ewers could be game-changing and the Husky game plan might call for somewhat aggressive blitzing to force poor throws.

Either way, it’s going to take a complete effort on both sides of the ball to get the job done.

The crowd will likely favor Texas and the oddsmakers in Sin City are once again doubting the Dawgs.

Just the way DeBoer likes it.

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