By Danny Williams Posted on

Questions and Answers from the bye week

Washington (4-3, 1-3 Big Ten) bounced back in a huge way against Purdue (3-4, 2-2 Big Ten) last Friday with a 38-26 victory, and now heads into the bye week with some questions still to be answered about last Friday’s performance and the season as a whole moving forward.

Question one: Who will start at quarterback against Nebraska?

Backup QB Elijah Brown provided a spark for a struggling UW offense against Purdue, throwing for over 300 yards and three touchdowns on Friday which stoked the QB competition flame even more. Starter Demond Williams Jr. returned to practice as a full participant this week after suffering a rib injury, which means head coach Jedd Fisch has a major decision to make before October 31 when the team heads to Lincoln, Nebraska.

Fisch’s response:

“[Elijah did enough to be considered [for the starting job], and we’ll see how Demond does over this week physically and medically, and then we’ll make a decision here probably in a week or so on how we want to proceed, but I certainly believe that in the six quarters [Elijah] has played, he certainly has earned consideration.”

Question two: What was the key to Washington’s run-game success?

34 attempts for 186 yards, where did that come from? The UW run-game looked the best it had all season against Purdue and it all boiled down to, well a lot actually.

Landen Hatchett made his second start of the season and after having a snap-count restriction against Iowa, the training wheels came off against Purdue, allowing the senior center to find his rhythm.

Running backs Brian Bonner and Trey Cooley had their best games in a Washington uniform to date. For Bonner it was becoming more comfortable playing against collegiate competition, and for Cooley, finally getting his legs underneath him after missing a year with injury.

Fisch’s response:

“I think it was a combination of a lot of things. I felt like we were better on our combination blocks than we’ve been, I thought that the offensive line took the challenge of working really well together. I thought our tight ends did a lot of good things, handling their defensive ends when they got into different techniques.”

“I felt our runners did a nice job of making the first guy miss in the hole and putting themselves in a spot at the second level. I thought our receivers did a really nice job in the perimeter blocking, and then all together, I felt that the guys really believed in running the football and were excited about the opportunity to go back and pound the rock a little bit.”

Question three: What caused the defensive resurgence?

Along with running the football, Washington did an excellent job stopping the run. A night and day difference from the gashing that occurred against Iowa.

There was certainly an aspect of the players fighting for their coach. Ryan Walters returned to the place he manned the ship for two seasons, and his players knew it. The return of freshmen corner Jeron Jones also helped. The defensive back recorded his second interception of the season after missing the Iowa game.

Fisch’s Response:

“We tackled much better in space and we tackled in groups rather than [as] individuals. We talk about pack tackling, that when you go against really good runners and both Iowa and Purdue have really good runners and guys that had a lot of success running the football. We were a little bit out of sorts against Iowa [because] everyone was trying to make a solo tackle, and I felt against Purdue, outside of a couple of plays here or there, there was a lot of gang tackling.”

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