Huskies vs Oregoon State game thread

[D-train]

You could be right, the conditions were certainly bad. What I meant by a ball that wasn’t catchable was he appeared to have zero touch, all fastball. And drilling D Lineman in the face is discouraging!

Maybe he was trying to make those D lineman think twice before rushing him and risk another football to the grill? lol

[Michael K.]

Going to have to trust Lake. The conditions were real bad, so maybe the fact that we didn't turn it over is a real big deal, maybe the drops had more to do with the weather than our WRs not being able to catch the ball and maybe the low throws had less to do with his limited height and more to do with a wet football?

That said, we struggled to stop the run, and what if the pass defense looked better for the same reasons our own passing game looked bad? We were missing two defensive starters in the front seven, so I am choosing to believe that the run defense will get better. I also think OSU is going to be pretty good running the ball this year, so maybe it wasn't as bad as it seemed?

The missed FG was bad, the long snapper is real bad and the kick coverage is too. Plenty to work on this week!

[D-train]

fwiw

Dave “Softy” Mahler
@Softykjr
Jimmy Lake says the first game ball they gave out went to new UW OC John Donovan

[D-train]

I actually had to look him up:

Assistant coach
Early years
After playing for three years for the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays football team, Donovan worked as an intern for the Carolina Panthers.[1] Shortly after, he moved on to take an assistant secondary coaching spot for the Villanova Wildcats football team in 1997. That season, the Wildcats posted a 12–1 record and were ranked number one in Division I-AA.[1] He later moved on to finish earn his master's degree from Georgia Tech, while simultaneously serving as an assistant coach under head coach George O'Leary. He was temporarily promoted to coach the running backs in the 2000 Peach Bowl after Ralph Friedgen's departure to Maryland.[1][2]

Maryland
Between 2001 and 2004, after following Friedgen to Maryland, he primarily served as a recruiting coordinator for the Terrapins. In 2005, Donovan was promoted to the running backs coach.[3] He moved to the quarterback coach for the next two seasons, before being reassigned back to the running backs in 2008 amidst multiple coaching changes in the coaching staff.[4][5] Friedgen himself was later removed as head coach of the Terrapins in December 2010,[6] leaving many Maryland assistants to look for jobs elsewhere. With offensive coordinator James Franklin moving to take the head coaching position at Vanderbilt, Donovan was assigned with the play calling duties for the Military Bowl, Friedgen's final game as coach.[7] The Terrapins won the game 51–20, the most points ever scored by Maryland in a bowl game.[8]

Vanderbilt
On January 13, 2011, Donovan was named as offensive coordinator and running backs coach for the Vanderbilt Commodores football team, rejoining former Maryland offensive coordinator James Franklin.[9] As noted by Jaguars.com, these were "three of the most productive offensive seasons in the program’s modern-era history". Under Donovan's direction, RB Zac Stacy ran for 1,193 yards in 2011 and 1,141 yards in 2012 to become the first Vanderbilt player with consecutive 1,000-yard seasons in program history. Stacy earned second team All-SEC honors and was drafted by the St. Louis Rams in 2013. Donovan's offensive units earned three of the top four total yardage marks in school history dating back to 1945, gaining at least 4,400 yards each season, including a school record 4,936 yards in 2012. The Commodores averaged 30.0 points per game in 2012, marking the first time in school history they averaged 30 or more points per game, and followed with another program record of 30.1 points per game in 2013." [10]

Penn State
In January 2014, Donovan followed Franklin to Penn State as the offensive coordinator.[11] Donovan came under heavy criticism from the Nittany Lion fan base for questionable play calling. In November 2015, he was fired from the Penn State program.[12] Following the firing, a former graduate assistant who worked on the staff during the 2014 season claimed on Twitter that the offense was largely designed by the "HFC" and PennLive.com's David Jones wrote an article headlined "John Donovan was scapegoat for rebuild that will take longer than fans can accept." Surprisingly, Penn State would go on to win the Big 10 Championship the year after Donovan was fired, as new OC hire Joe Moorhead had the benefit of implementing his own system and employing a more accurate, more mobile quarterback, Trace McSorley.[13][14]

NFL Jacksonville Jaguars
On March 21, 2016, he was hired by the Jacksonville Jaguars to be offensive quality control coach. After the 2016, he was named offensive assistant. Former Jaguars' offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett credited Donovan as "instrumental to the Jaguars’ red zone plan" in their 2017 AFC Championship appearance season, which included a game that they went a perfect 6-for-6 in the red zone. [15] Following the 2018 season, Donovan was named the assistant running backs coach.

University of Washington
On January 10, 2020, the Washington Huskies' new head coach, Jimmy Lake, added Donovan to his coaching staff as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.[16]

[Michael K.]

He takes a lot of heat for what went wrong at Penn State. Penn State is now 0 and 4. Maybe Franklin is the problem after all?

I didn't mind the play calling one bit. Think back a few years, do you see any way in Hell that Sark calls that many run plays in week one? Sark was convinced that Polk and Sankey should be on milk cartons up until the time we were in trouble on the season, then he went back to the run. He was more worried about making NFL QBs out of Locker and Price to worry about actually winning games. Or, it could have been the tequila?

I remember the game Petersen beat him down at SC. We could NOT stop their run game, Sark refused to run the ball....so we won. It was like every loss he coached as a Husky. I can't think of a time I was happier. I think I liked beating Sark just a bit more than beating Mora Jr and Leach. But not much.

[D-train]

He takes a lot of heat for what went wrong at Penn State. Penn State is now 0 and 4. Maybe Franklin is the problem after all?

I didn't mind the play calling one bit. Think back a few years, do you see any way in Hell that Sark calls that many run plays in week one? Sark was convinced that Polk and Sankey should be on milk cartons up until the time we were in trouble on the season, then he went back to the run. He was more worried about making NFL QBs out of Locker and Price to worry about actually winning games. Or, it could have been the tequila?

I remember the game Petersen beat him down at SC. We could NOT stop their run game, Sark refused to run the ball....so we won. It was like every loss he coached as a Husky. I can't think of a time I was happier. I think I liked beating Sark just a bit more than beating Mora Jr and Leach. But not much.

I was trying to find a point spread for the game. They almost beat USC. Should be a pretty good test. Games starts at 8pm EST so I can watch it but I have a 6:30am flight to Phoenix Sunday morning. Are you guys still heading down or did you cancel?

[Michael K.]

I was trying to find a point spread for the game. They almost beat USC. Should be a pretty good test. Games starts at 8pm EST so I can watch it but I have a 6:30am flight to Phoenix Sunday morning. Are you guys still heading down or did you cancel?

It looks like we are still going. We have an ass early flight to Phoenix Thanksgiving morning. I'm less than thrilled about that. Not sure that anything is going to be open down there....will probably just spend the entire time at the Air B and B.

[D-train]

I was trying to find a point spread for the game. They almost beat USC. Should be a pretty good test. Games starts at 8pm EST so I can watch it but I have a 6:30am flight to Phoenix Sunday morning. Are you guys still heading down or did you cancel?

It looks like we are still going. We have an ass early flight to Phoenix Thanksgiving morning. I'm less than thrilled about that. Not sure that anything is going to be open down there....will probably just spend the entire time at the Air B and B.

Lynda was there in May and it was like they hadn't heard of Covid yet. No masks anywhere and everything open. Guessing things will be a little different next week now that they are a Blue State.

[D-train]

Looks like we are good to go at QB:

Dave “Softy” Mahler
@Softykjr
“Dylan Morris is capable of putting a team on his shoulders and throwing for 400 yards if he has to.” -
@TaylorBarton12
with us on the Honks

[Sibelius Hindemith]

Isn't Sirmon the better running QB between him, Morris, and the guy from Sac St?