Pass rush puzzles UW

SEATTLE – The University of Washington football team will face the Pac-10’s hottest player Saturday afternoon, and the Huskies know just what they have to do to stop him.

Knowing and doing are two different things.

The key to slowing down Oregon State quarterback Sean Canfield, who has thrown for more than 300 yards in his last three games while completing an incredible 72 percent of his passes, is to apply pressure. How, exactly, the Huskies plan to do that is the question of the week.

“We’re still battling,” defensive coordinator Nick Holt said. “It’ll come. It comes in a lot of different shapes and sizes, whether it’s good coverage or pass rush. You need them both at the same time. It’s all four guys working together in their pass rush. There are a lot of different variables. You’ve just got to keep working.”

In last Saturday’s loss to UCLA, a trio of Bruins quarterbacks combined for 371 passing yards while looking as comfortable in the pocket as a retired man on the couch. Seconds ticked by while UCLA quarterbacks patiently waited for receivers to get open.

“It’s frustrating, because I thought we had a good bead on what they were doing,” head coach Steve Sarkisian said this week. “We had a good bead on what they were going to run at us, and we were able to attack them, but we just weren’t able to get it done. It is frustrating, especially when it was a third-and-12 or things of that nature.”

It served as a good reminder as to what’s been ailing the Washington defense all season.

Only 25 teams nationally have fewer sacks than the Huskies’ season total of 13. While seven of those have come in the past three games – all losses – UW still struggles to find consistency in its pass rush.

“We’re continuing to find a way,” Sarkisian said. “We just have to keep digging, keep trying to improve and keep finding a way to find a way to get to the quarterback.”

The coaching staff has tried to be proactive.

The starting defensive line has included five combinations, with eight players getting at least one start there through nine games. The coaches seem to put in a new blitz package every week, but too often the opponent neutralizes it with a big play over the middle.

Last week, the Huskies tried to use defensive end Daniel Te’o-Nesheim, who has six of the team’s 13 sacks, as an interior lineman. The two freshmen who played defensive end for most of that game were unable to generate much of a pass rush, and the plan was ditched in the second half.