Our University of Washington Husky football team is undefeated after four games, but how good are they, really? Your guess is as good as mine.
If you’re an optimist, you might say: Hey, 4-0! But a pessimist would point out that one of those four opponents was a lower-division school, and the other three had a combined 5-31 record last season.
The biggest source of confusion is starting quarterback Cyler Miles. Here you have a player who has started four college football games, in which his team has scored 69, 59, 44, and 45 points. Also, Miles averages 6.2 yards per rush—an astounding figure for a quarterback, since sacks are counted as negative rushing yards in college. For comparison, Jake Locker averaged only 4.3 yards per rush as a Husky.
The stats—217 points in four starts and a 143.9 quarterback rating—tell one story. My eyes see a very different one.
On Saturday, Miles reminded me of Locker, but not in a good way. Georgia State stifled the Husky offense in the first half with a profusion of blitzes that Miles failed to diagnose and counter—one of Locker’s weaknesses in college, and one that has persisted in his NFL career. And like Locker, Miles displays unconventional footwork in the pocket, causing inconsistent accuracy.
Another source of confusion: defensive tackle Danny Shelton. Shelton leads the NCAA in sacks, which is brag-worthy in itself, but he’s doing it as a nose tackle. That’s unheard of. In 2009, Ndamukong Suh had one of the finest seasons ever by a collegiate defensive tackle, becoming the first defensive player to win AP Player of the Year. That year, in 14 games, Suh had 12 sacks and 24 tackles for loss. This year, in four games, Shelton has seven sacks and 9.5 tackles for loss. Pac-12 Networks asked the obvious question during Saturday’s broadcast: Is Shelton a Heisman Trophy candidate?
Not yet. Shelton’s four dominating games have all come against substandard teams—ones that didn’t build for the possibility of facing a 6´2˝, 339-lb. defensive lineman. (To be fair, only NFL teams do that.)
So Saturday’s home game against 16th-ranked Stanford becomes the litmus test. Miles faces a defense that’s shut out two of its three opponents. Shelton faces an offensive line stacked with NFL prospects. Honestly, the Huskies could lose by 50 or win by 30, and neither result would surprise me. Vegas—usually reliable in these matters—has UW as a six-point underdog. Close game or not, I’ll have my eyes trained on Miles and Shelton; we’ll know a lot more about this team once we see how these two perform against Stanford.
sportsball@seattleweekly.com
