Washington Football: What we learned from Coach Petersen’s 9/17 presser

A happy Washington football head coach Chris Petersen held his weekly Monday morning press conference. Here are three things we learned from it.

Washington Huskies Head Coach Chris Petersen spoke to the media after a hard-fought 21-7 win at Utah. It was clear to see how delighted he was to escape a tough environment with a conference win.

He mentioned how difficult it is to play in Utah and how good the Utes are defensively right from the top. Here are three things we learned from Coach Petersen, as the team improves to 2-1 ahead of another challenge coming against Arizona State this Saturday.

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The Huskies want to play physical football

Coach Petersen spoke passionately about how hard the team played. You could tell from the way he spoke that he has been preaching to his team to play hard and physical.  When asked about the secondary, Petersen mentioned that the team works hard on playing physical and it is not easy to do.

The physical play has been a major reason the Huskies stayed in the game against Auburn and pulled out a win at Utah. The secondary is a strength of the team and Petersen said he hopes to maintain this style of play going forward.

The offense still needs work

Coming into the season, Washington had an experienced senior quarterback and the FBS active career rushing leader on offense. You would think that offensively the Huskies would be in great shape and difficult to stop.

Through the first three games, the offense has had some good moments, but the consistency seems to be lacking. Petersen mentioned the contribution RB Myles Gaskin made with 143 yards and a touchdown. He said that Gaskin has a unique ability to be both slippery and physical with his running style and that was a big factor against a good defense.

Petersen also talked about QB Jake Browning and seemed to defend his quarterback some. Browning has had some good moments but has also made some careless throws behind a makeshift offensive line. Coach talked about Browning’s undervalued ability to use his feet to make plays. A good example of that was his touchdown pass on the run to Ty Jones. He did say that the offense does need to tighten up things as he realizes anybody can beat anybody in the PAC-12.

College football coaches have been adjusting to targeting rules changes

Coach Petersen was a little testy when discussing targeting. Utah was flagged for a couple of calls which coach deemed “great calls” in the game. As physical, as the Huskies defense plays, they have not had any targeting penalties called on them.

Petersen has this to say about rules changes to promote safety in the game, “the rules are changing, the rules have changed for the better of the game.”  The Huskies coach did mention it is hard on players to make adjustments on the fly to avoid penalties.