Happy Holidays Bob! Thanks for all your hard work in 2007!

Bob:

You continue to do a wonderful job with this blog. Thanks for all your hard work. Merry Christmas and a happy and safe New Year to you and your family!

Bob,

Wells was definitely an important injury. He was one of the few experienced guys in the backfield. Why not bring in the fact that Davenport was also injured? And that UW was so thin at DE that it had to play McDowell at times, a true freshman who clearly wasn't ready to be thrown into the fire. Or Nate Williams, another true freshman who clearly has a lot to learn. Harris might have been consistently performing, which is nice, but that's not the same as consistently running the defense, which is the Free Safety's most important task.

To claim that Washington didn't have major personnel issues in the secondary, and to claim that this shouldn't be a significant factor as to why the defense performed poorly is truly amazing. Heck, all pre-season long everybody recognized that this was going to potentially be a major problem. Between arrests, injuries, and lack of players, the secondary was disturbingly thin going into the '07 season. Yeah, you can blame the coaching all you like, but the bottom line is talent and experience was missing.

Todd turner was fire?

on a positive note. I saw Alameda Ta'amu in the mall today. This kid, is HUGE. I mean he looks like a pro player. Its hard to imagine this kid not playing a ton next season. Especially since TW has told him he will play DT. I was just completely shocked how big someone 17 or 18 could be. He has to be the biggest guy on the team before he even gets to UW. I've also seen Rocky Bernard in person. And this kid is much bigger than him.

I never saw him play in high school but you have to think he just hurt kids. Kid looks like a freak

Happy Holidays Bob! Thanks for giving us Husky Dorks 365 Days of good passionate conversation! Looking forward to Spring Practice!

GO DAWGS!!!

Brad I thought the same thing. That kid is a freaking monster. I believe Ta'amu is flying far under the scouting radar.

just think of jwf and tamu in the middle of our dl,nobody would be able to run up the gut on us. last comment on baer, i wish he would have been released last year then we could have given tormey a shot at dc,right now we need a proven coordinator for next year. hopefully lappano attends some coaching clinics over the summer,we had way too many 3 and outs this year,which killed our defense in the second half. long sustained drives are much better than trying to chuck the ball down field every series. 3rd and 2 and the man calls a very low percentage deep pass play. the te's need to be involved much more so next year also. good job on the staff as far as recruiting is concerned.

I heard Walker is a done deal with Miami. Go to the Miami boards and there talking about it. As long as he doesn't stay at Ucla we might be able to get some of there soft verbals. But im hoping for him to be the dc here.

Just a quick response to ???? --- I am in no way saying injuries weren't a factor, just that I don't think they were the only factor. Davenport missed two games this year and sat out most of another --- UW won two of those three games. He was also limited against Cal, another game UW won. So if that's the third injury referred to in the Baer article, hard to argue objectively that that was "devastating.'' Again, just trying to throw some facts out there. I agree UW had lots of personnel issues in the secondary. On the other hand, a coaching staff in its third year isn't completely blameless for such a situation, either. I'm just saying it's a little bit of everything and I that I don't think fixing it is as easy as just getting back one or two players, or just changing one or two little things.

Happy Holidays Bob! Thanks again for all your great work!
Malibu

Merry Christmas to all of you and I wish you a great New Year and one filled with lots of great recruits and a bowl game...Happy Holidays!!!

So regarding the Apple Cup fiasco, on that infamous play where our defense was playing two different schemes on WSU's go ahead wide open TD, does anyone know exactly who told who what the coverage for the play was?

Like, was Baer saying one thing and Ty something else? Just curious if anyone knows exact details.

Thanks, and Merry Christmas.

Bob, I agree with your comment that it isn't just about injuries and that it's a little bit of everything. But I do wonder how much blame can you put on the coaching. There's no way that personnel issues - not just injuries, but a lack of both depth and experience in the secondary - were huge factors.

In my opinion, your response downplayed Davenport's injuries. Sure he was only out two games, but he was also out fall practices and missed many regular season practices. He also tried to play hurt in more than a few games. The sad thing is that he was our best DB. After all Murchenson was hanging around the court house. The next alternative was McDowell, who clearly was too green to be consistent. Neither were ideal options. Both got burned enough times for the coaches to dig even deeper into the lineup. And, of course, things didn't get any better.

I'd also like to repeat that Wells was clearly a better defensive QB than Harris, despite the latter playing well. There was much less confusion on the defensive side of the ball with Wells.

What annoys me is that literally everybody who looked at UW before the season began admitted that there were major issues in the secondary, and that this looked to be a major problem for UW due to the pass happy pac, and BSU and Hawaii's offenses.

Check out Oregon, UCLA, and Cal's seasons after they had injuries. Their seasons went down the tubes. Most USC folks argue that the Trojans struggled this season, including loosing to Stanford, due to injuries on the Oline and their QB. When these guys healed, USC's performance improved.

UW's secondary already had huge question marks before the season began. Additional injuries just made things worse. It's possible bad coaching played a role in UW's problems on defense this season, but UW fans need to be consistent on how they analyze these things.

I'm not trying to be a Baer apologist. He probably did need to go. But let's keep our perspective on the problems that the coaching staff has been dealing with.

One final comment. You said that year 3 the coaches should be able to address these issues. I think this is more of a recruiting failure. This is where UW tried to get the quick JC fix that completely backfired. Also, quite a few high profile CB recruits ended up being ineligible. You can peg that on the coaching staff. I do think that was more bad luck than anything. Same with the injuries and ineligible players in the secondary.

I hope Neuheisel doesn't get the UCLA job. But even if he does, I'll always think of him as a Husky. It was a perfect fit - a liar, cheater at UW.

Personnel contributes, but when you put up...wait...just a sec

*clears throat*

The WORST Husky Defense In The History Of The Entire School

It has just as much to do with coaching

Here's to Willingham's last X-Mas in the NW.

David--

Could you please expand on your comment? Thanks.

Mellojello, would it be asking too much for you to just give it a rest? We all know your opinion a/k/a obsession - get rid of TW. We really do! You've stated it, in just about the same way, hundreds of times. Now it's just like water torture..drip, drip,drip... so why do you keep it up? Really. Everyone - including yourself, if you would give it a try - would be happier if you just gave it a rest.

I hate Notre Dame. I always have. I despise that school. Unfortunatly, I even lived in Indiana for a while. While I lived there I was so annoyed that Ty was their coach. Because I liked Ty. He is what a coach should be. I had to force myself to dislike him because he was a Notre Dame guy.

So needless to say, I was very happy when he was hired to coach the UW, the school I graduated from. I am very happy he is our coach. He is a great guy, a great coach, and the idiots who want to chase him away are just that, idiots.

As everyone has told the new format SUCKS.
The IT guys need to be told so.
.
Now it's out there.
.
kb could not change a game plan during a game to save his live - hence HE is GONE - good riddance......
.
GET 3 GREAT COACHES - ST, TE, And DC – PLEASE!!!
.
Then EARN a bowl game NEXT year.
I want to go see it!
.
jd

Happy Holidays to Bob and all the regulars out there. Thanks for all your hard work, Bob.

Thanks for all the updates bob, I come on to check regularly and love catching any new info.
.
I see that casey locker is a safety at ferndale, any body know anything about his potential. Happy holidays
.
I don't see what is wrong with the blog.

Bob - great job!! You have gone beyond the call of duty - love your blog it's the best. Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and happy New Year.

ZOMGS! I just got back from being in the british virgin islands for about 8 days, and it appears that Baer was actually fired...wow. Actually I had forgotten that Turner was gone too, so for a moment it seemed as though all hell had broken loose...anyway. Whats the news on the recruiting front? I see that Thompson gave the "ok". Any news on EJ woods?

Rick Nueheisel will be a great fit at UCLA and will excell. All of the Do-gooders ran him out of Seattle and the Huskies have sucked since.

Happy Holidays Dawg Fans! Thanks Bob for all your hard work in '07. I look forward to reading more great stuff in '08!

On the new format: I think the new blog format is an improvement from before. Its way more user friendly.

On the Baer/Defense topic: Not to sound like a hater on Christmas but blaming the poor play of the '07 defense to 1 major injury to Wells and a couple of other nagging injuries is ludicrous. Football is a contact sport and injuries are a given. UW losing only one defensive starter for the season was truly a blessing. One major injury does not equate to a last place finish in the Pac 10 and the worst defense ever in UW History!

Question: If Wells had played the entire season would the defense have been the worst in school history?

The answer is, YES! Prior to the '07 defense being the worst in school history, that distinction belonged to the '05 defense, coached by none other than Kent Baer. The '05 defense was led by TWO DB's who are now playing in the NFL, D. Goldson and C.J. Wallace. Also on that defense was E. Benjamin, who prior to the '07 season, was on the Tampa Bay Buc's roster. So that makes a total of three NFL players who were on the '05 defense coached by Baer. Yet, the defense at the time was the worst ever. Jason Wells is not the caliber player D. Goldson was. There is no way Wells would have prevented this years defense from being the worst in history.

Bob,
I find it interesting how you are critical of a coach ONLY after he's been fired. Sounds a bit cowardly to me. Come on; grow a couple and try being just as honest with your criticism with coaches who are currently on the staff.

TW needs to be gone..as long as he is here, we will suck..and poor Locker..he's incredible talents will be wasted..

The common link is the defensive line. We have had no serious D-line prospects since Terry Johnson. Not coincidently, our defense has been terrible. I think with some of the incoming guys who can contribute ie Taamu, Kelemete, Thompson, and Noble, and Teo-Nesheim, Woods, Duncan, Elisara, Aldrich and Matthews we'll be fine in 2008. Hopefully we'll be able to get more surge from the DT position so the QB can't just easily step up into the pocket and avoid our wide DE rush we employ.

GO DAWGS!!!

Don,

Bob isn't a columnist or analyst for the PI. He just reports facts for the most part. If you pay attention he rarely states overt opinions as often as the ACTUAL columnists like Steve Kelley or Jerry Brewer

Don~

comments like that are just really annoying. Don't take anything out on the man who runs this blog, because he's awesome!

Merry Christmas Bob!!! Hope you got some snow, because I did over in Issaquah, and a White Christmas for the first time in the Northwest in a while.

Just a quick question~ Are the Huskies going to get a quarterbacks coach for Jake Locker, just like Tim Tebow benefitted from?

When will we learn tha it is PASS RUSHING that makes or breaks a secondary???

I don't know if this has been asked already, but I wondering who is on the short list of potential Def. Coordinators in the event UCLA names DeWayne Walker the head coach?

Looking for fried coachs, please apply at the UW athletic dept, when ever?

ty is garbage and the worst coach in college football if only uw would hire mora

OMG if Jim Mora was coach the Dawgs would have skipped right over the National Championship and would be playing in the Super Bowl and all the teams would forfeit their games next year out of fear of playing us and in his spare time Coach Mora would find a cure for cancer and he'd make peace in the Middle East and win every single award and become the next President of the United States.

I agree with the comments about the D-Line. The UW hasn't had any good interior lineman for several years now and it shows in the defensive stats. Unfortunately, Reffet was the only decent interior lineman this year, and he seemed to be more passion than ability. Afoa and Lobos did not pan out, and neither did Gunheim on the end. The key to re-establishing a solid defense is building up a line that can at least control the run and put some pressure on the QB. That way, there isn't so much pressure on the LBs and DBs to stop the run and also to stay in coverage for so long. I think the youn d-linemen have the potential to do what the o-line did this year -- that is, establish that they are physical and talented, even if they are inconsistent and inexperienced. Teo-Neshiem is very solid on one end.

I also think that the huskies need to find a way to get Chris Stevens on the field. He is a solid tackler and play maker. If he had played in place of Dan Howell last year, he would have made at least some of the numerous plays that Howell wiffed on. If moving Stevens to the secondary is the only way to make this happen, then they should do it. With a defense that has such limited talent and depth, why not use one of your more experienced players and proven play makers?