Grading The Game: Apple Cup

A showstopping performance by the offense on Saturday propelled the Huskies to a 59-24 victory over the Cougs. Let’s get to the grades!

Quarterback Demond Williams posted his highest PFF offense grade of the young season, a 91.5, as he carved up the WSU defense with deep shots down the field and blisteringly fast open field running to the tune of 298 passing yards, 88 rushing yards and 5 total touchdowns. His ability to evade sacks and get the ball away to the open man has become one of my favorite hallmarks of his game, but it also highlights the one glaring downside that I can see. He rarely slides, instead preferring to take the hit and get extra yards by falling forward. One hopes that as he gets older, he’ll learn that instinct and get down instead of taking the hit. He is still young after all! On the flip side, the line, while protecting Demond fairly well when he dropped back, did give up 3 sacks in pass pro, dropping their grade down to a 7.

The receivers stood out above the rest for me, even though no tight ends were targeted. It seemed like Denzel Boston was the pass offense, hauling in 6 catches for 107 yards and 2 touchdowns on 7 targets, for an 84.3 receiving PFF grade. Omari Evans also made his debut with a bang, hauling in a 51 yarder for a touchdown on his only target of the game. Audric Harris and Raiden Vines-Bright also hauled in their only targets for 7 and 5 yards respectively. Jonah Coleman and Adam Mohammad both proved to be vital outlets in the pass game, with Jonah taking mostly screen passes and short passes out to the flat a long way, finishing with 6 catches, 104 receiving yards and a touchdown. Mohammad caught the one pass thrown his way and rumbled for 16 yards and a first down. There wasn’t too much that I could point to in terms of blemishes in the pass game, so the wide receivers get a perfect score from me!

From the opening kick, it seemed fairly obvious that the Coug defense was keying in on Jonah Coleman, and they bottled him up in that department, limiting him to 59 yards on 12 carries. He however did have 2 touchdowns so that negates a fairly disappointing total yardage number. He finished with a season low 71.2 PFF Rushing grade. Most of the Huskies’ yards came courtesy of both improvised and called QB runs by Demond Williams, who was the team’s leading rusher. When those runs were called, as well as in short yardage, the line did its job, blocking well and asserting their dominance up front. Carver Willis and John Mills were the high points along the line, according to PFF, posting grades of 74.5 and 70.7 in run blocking, respectively. A solid performance with at least 1 highlight worthy moment, but not one that was so special as to be eye popping!

Here is where it’s going to get rough. With the injury to Tacario Davis keeping him sidelined at least for this game, it looked like the Cougs saw an opportunity to pick on what would’ve been Davis’ side of the field. Leroy Bryant was substituted in his place, and gave up 7 receptions on 7 targets for 123 yards and a touchdown, for a brutal 38.4 PFF grade. Deven Bryant was also targeted in the short passing game, giving up 5 receptions on 7 targets. It seemed as though Zevi Eckhaus was taking whatever he wanted in the middle of the field and that’s something that I don’t know that one player will be able to fix. The pass rush was better, tallying 3 sacks, but most of those were in garbage time. On the bright side, Zach Durfee was credited with 11 pressures and a QB hit, and Alex McLaughlin was the high point man for the defense, with a 90.8 PFF grade and a 92.2 Coverage rating. I guess 2 picks and a pick 6 will do that!

The Cougs finished with 28 total rushing yards on 27 attempts. The defense stayed within themselves and flew to the ball, even if it took 2 or 3 guys to bring down the Cougs sometimes. Kirby Vorhees was the Cougs’ leading rusher with 13 yards on 5 carries. Still though, it felt like the tackling wasn’t as crisp as it should be at this point in the year and if we keep needing 2 or 3 guys to bring runners down, that’s an issue that’ll rear its head when we least expect it to!

Ethan Moczulski didn’t allow a kick return, Luke Dunne hasn’t punted since August, and oh yeah, Grady Gross kicked a career long 51 yarder, and made all of his extra points! That gets a perfect score from me!

The Huskies again scored on every possession and it felt as though the game was never in doubt for most of the way. Still, the 5 penalties for 50 yards and the defensive coverage issues persist and will have to be cleaned up if we are to go far in conference play. However, I have no complaints with the offensive play calling, especially when you score on every possession!

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