Huskies play without stars
Keith Price, Kasen Williams, Bishop Sankey and many of Washington’s offensive stars sat out half of the Spring Game, which wasn’t much of a game.
Injuries and the suspension of star tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins thinned the roster, which forced the Huskies to turn the annual football game into a showcase featuring four scrimmages and passing and kicking competitions.
No one kept score, however, the defense dominated Saturday due to the absence of the offensive stars, a vanilla game plan on both sides of the ball and cold, damp conditions at Memorial Stadium.
“When you’re the head coach, you’re rooting for both sides,” coach Steve Sarkisian said. “More than anything, I wanted to see a game played the right way. I was a little disappointed that we had some issues with the snap towards the end of the scrimmage and I was a little disappointed we didn’t catch the ball as well as we had this spring.
“But that being said, we didn’t have breakdowns in coverages where guys were allowed to run wide open. It was a bit of a simplistic game plan on both sides of the ball and that’s what should happen. If everybody does their job, the defense should have the upper hand and I thought that’s the way the day went for the most part.”
Many of the 7,000 spectators who came out to get a glimpse of Washington’s ballyhooed fast-pace, no-huddle offense instead witnessed an attack that was purposely slower than advertised.
“The QBs, starting with myself, could have pushed the tempo a little more,” said Price, who was 5 of 14 passing for 56 yards. “But, of course, spring games are a little vanilla. We didn’t have a lot of our best (plays) dialed up. That’s no excuse. I feel that the quarterbacks should lead the tempo and I don’t think we did a good job of that today.”
Price, who engineered one scoring drive, said he felt “a little jittery” being in front of the crowd. “You get a little adrenaline rush,” he said. “Then you have to settle down and do what you do.”
The defense didn’t allow a touchdown when the offense started more than 25 yards away from the end zone. “That’s what you’d hope to expect,” Huskies defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox said.