Chris Petersen on practice this week: ‘We’ll see if we were working the right way on Saturday’

Huskies coach Chris Petersen met with reporters for about 10 minutes this morning to discuss Saturday’s game against Arizona State, and other things. Here is everything he said:

(How has the team responded this week?) “I think we’ve had a good week. But we’ve got to go play. The games are so much different than practice. You work hard during the week and we’ll see if we were working the right way on Saturday.”

(On DJ Beavers stepping up) “He’s played quite a bit. Over the years we’re talking about game 11 or 12, he’s played in every game. He’s gotten meaningful reps. He’s gotten a lot of practice reps. It’s time for him to go.”

(What does he bring to the team?) “I think he’s a good football player. He’s one of those guys that understands the game, he feels the game. We can only coach so much in terms of getting them in the right places and then guys gotta go out and make plays. And I think he’s one of those guys.”

(Difference between him and Ben Burr-Kirven?) “They are different. They are both good players. Coach Gregory will have a rotation in there to get all those guys work. But they play different positions. I know it looks like they are both inside ‘backers, which they are. But there’s significantly different roles and assignments from the WIL ‘backer to the MIK ‘backer. There’s cross-training that’s always been going on but that’s the real difference.”

(And how has Brandon Wellington responded?) “I think they’ve all done a good job. Brandon’s a true freshman that’s got some reps and has played in all the games, so excited to see what he can do.”

(Four sacks in last four games. Is that a concern going forward?) “I thought we got pressure last game, especially in the second half. You’d like to be able to sack ‘em but you’ve got to get pressure. You’ve got to make sure the ball is coming out of their hand. We’re always paying attention to it: that’s the name of the game. When the offense has the ball and the quarterback has it, how do we get to him and if it’s the running back we’ve got to stop him. So that’s always an area we’re trying to figure out.”

(What did you and Jake Browning talk about with what went wrong with USC?) “He and I had no individual conversation. This is a team game and it starts with everybody. Everybody wants to go right tow the quarterback and they have when it’s all gone good. But there have been a lot of guys up front that have done some really good things for him to allow him to do his job. So there’s no need for us to go to him. It starts with everybody else and everybody else needs to do their job a little bit better and Jake (Browning) will do his job a little bit better.”

(What do you want to see from the offensive line after the loss to USC?) “We have to play better. That’s the bottom line. It’s definitely a different challenge because it’s a completely different scheme. You move on fast because it’s just a whole new set of challenges. In some ways that game seems like it was a long time ago because we’ve been studying so hard on this next opponent.”

(On ASU and their schematic differences) “I think everybody is different. Everybody brings soothing different. They really do. There’s nobody that - that’s the beauty of college football. They might look to the average person from the stands like ‘oh this is kind of similar.’ There are some similarities but this isn’t a game of similarities; this is a game of details. Their defense is different. Their offense is different than what we’ve seen. They have really good players. They have really good skill across the board. A lot of these guys we played against last year. We know what we’re getting ourself into.”

(How important was the current senior class in your transition to head coach at Washington?) “I think there are some guys in there that have been critical for us to take the next step around here. I’ve talked about those guys before. Not only some of those guys that have been for the whole duration, four and five years. Really proud of those guys. But also just all the seniors to go through this thing four or five years. I think they’re much different people now and have been through a lot of hardship, adversity. That’s how it goes. I say that in a good way. I think they look back and go ‘wow, that was hard but that was good.’”

(On Psalm Wooching’s marriage proposal at yesterday’s practice – ever had a guy do that on the practice field?) “I’ve had it all. I’ve done this long enough, you can bring up whatever, I’ve seen it. Practice field, I don’t know.”

(Did he talk to you about that beforehand?) “Well, we talked a little bit about it. We did. When would the best time be. We were in cahoots a little bit. Congratulations to Psalm. I’m excited for him.”

(What advice would you give Psalm?) “Well, I will tell you this. It is the most important decision you’ll probably ever make in your life. So we talk to these guys about being great decision makers. And usually that decision is down the road, but some of the guys, it happens now, and that is the most important decision that they’re going to make for their overall happiness, effectiveness, and you just look at the guys that have really good lives, I think they’ve got really good wives.”

(On the idea of college teams using alumni as scout-team players – were you aware of that?) “No, I really wasn’t. I wasn’t.”

(If you could pick one former player to bring back on the scout team, who would it be?) “We have so many good players, that’s not a fair question. But just in general, I don’t think it’s quite as easy. I think if you got into a bind at a position and there was a guy around that could help you out – but if you’re counting on a guy every week, they’re going to have other lives. They’re not college students anymore. And so he can help you out in a unique situation, but to say hey, we’re going to have those guys show up every three days a week and grind it out with us, I don’t know if that’s going to happen.”

(On Arizona State freshman receiver N’Keal Harry, who UW recruited) “Oh, we know him. We do. He’s an excellent player. He does a great job. There’s always players in this league that play as freshmen, and you’re like, ‘wow, that guy’s going to be something tough to defend for the next few years,’ and he’s one of them.”

(On progress of freshmen this season) “I think all the freshmen who have played for us — I always marvel at that. It is just so hard. Everything. Freshmen in college — it’s hard to be in college, let alone come to this thing with the intensity and the learning and all those things. So I think all those guys have done a really good job. Obviously, Taylor Rapp jumps out — he’s been amazing since he’s got here. But what I also think is, even if there’s guy that maybe haven’t gotten a ton of playing time as freshmen, what it really does for them down the road, like next year — they’ll be a completely different type player than had they redshirted.”

(What’s the toughest position to play as a true freshman? And would Nick Harris fall into that category on the O-line?) “I think quarterback’s the hardest position. It’s all the positions we’ve never played before (until) last year (with Jake Browning and Trey Adams). The O-line is very hard. They always say this: The closer you are to the ball, the harder it is to play right away. I think that’s a good general rule.”

(Tedford down in Fresno full time now?) “He is, yeah. He’s down there, taking care of business, getting things right.”

(You’re obviously excited for him to get that opportunity) “Oh yeah, awesome. It was such a win-win, this whole thing how it played out. For him to get a job and to be able to go early and not put us in a huge bind or anything like that, like (it would be with) a coach on staff getting a job. So we’re excited for him — he’ll do a tremendous job.”

(Did the whole experiment with him work out as well as you could’ve expected?) “Probably better. Because of him. I think he’s a special guy in terms of, he was just here trying to help us, just like I said from the start. He fit in awesome with the offensive guys in terms of what his role was. It was really good.”

(In the meeting room, does it feel like something’s missing now without him around?) “You know, a little bit, it does. Just having him around, he’s such a great guy. So that feels a little bit different. But you’re so focused on getting your job done … and we’ll have a reunion with him later.”

(What did you learn from Tedford here?) “The big thing for me was, he’d bring up stuff for me as a head coach that maybe I was thinking about but maybe I wasn’t. If I was, just to compare notes on that to say, ‘Yeah, I was thinking about that.’ Just to keep me thinking on different stuff, and I think he did the same thing for our offense: ‘Have you thought about this? What about that?’ Just really a guy with a lot of wisdom. There’s no substitute for experience, and he’s had a lot of it in so many different ways. So that was a unique opportunity for us.”

This story was originally published November 17, 2016 at 11:09 AM with the headline "Chris Petersen on practice this week: ‘We’ll see if we were working the right way on Saturday’."