Washington quarterback Jake Locker made no excuses in light of Oregon’s 44-10 win over Washington Saturday night.
“I need to get the ball out quicker,” a visibly frustrated Locker said postgame. “I just didn’t execute. That’s it.”
Locker completed 12 of 28 passes for 103 yards on the night, adding 57 more yards on 16 carries to lead the Huskies in rushing. The Ducks bothered Locker by placing as many as nine defensive players close to the line of scrimmage in order to stifle the running game and force the passing game. The strategy worked, as Oregon held the Huskies to 95 yards rushing and 242 total while gaining 496 on a Husky defense with myriad questions. Washington was unable to execute a play of more than 20 yards during the game.
“They mixed it up. They were running all kinds of stuff,” Locker said.
Locker threw for 2,062 yards and ran for 986 more, but his ability to make adjustments in his game will be heavily scrutinized in his second year as starting quarterback. He threw for 14 touchdowns in 2007 but also threw 15 interceptions, completing passes at a rate of 47.3 percent-abnormally low for a starting quarterback. Sophomore wide receiver D’Andre Goodwin caught the most throws of any receiver in the game-eight, for 67 yards-and Locker spread completions around six receivers, but his completion percentage stood at 42.8 percent on the night.
“Not good,” Locker said succinctly.
Washington takes on No. 16 Brigham Young, fresh off a 41-17 drubbing of Northern Iowa, on September 6. Facing one of the most challenging schedules in Division I football-the Huskies also host Oklahoma and Stanford in the following two weeks-Locker must forget the Oregon game quickly and refocus himself and his efforts to prove his critics wrong.
“We’re not good enough to come in and just show up and beat teams,” Locker said. “They had a great game tonight and we didn’t come to play. The guys, I think they’re all pretty upset about it and they understand that we didn’t play nearly as good as we can.”
“We left a lot of opportunities on the table.”
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