Chris Petersen says Huskies had ‘really good team effort’ in 52-7 victory at Oregon State
Here’s everything Huskies coach Chris Petersen said after UW’s 52-7 victory over Oregon State on Saturday at Reser Stadium.
(Opening) “Proud of our guys. We’ve been proud all year, to tell you the truth, just in terms of … we’ve had some tough Sundays coming in after some hard-fought games and some losses, and they’ve never backed down and they’ve never flinched, and they just keep working and getting better and I think we saw a little bit of that tonight. I thought it was a really good team effort. All three phases played real well.”
(Nice to have a win like this going into short week?) “The first thing is, it’s nice playing at 3 o’clock, so we’re done by whatever time it is right now, for sure. It’ll be a short week. Tomorrow’s basically Monday for the guys. I think the one thing that’s really nice is being able to get everybody work. The starters work hard, and so do the backups. So does everybody in that locker room. It’s nice to get those guys some work, and I thought there was good work by all.”
(Nice to get some first-quarter touchdowns?) “It was great. Good to see some work in the second quarter, too. I thought … that’s kind of some of the stuff we expect. Maybe not all the drives, but I’ve been saying all along, we see flashes of it. If we get more consistent, we’ll do some really good things. I thought our defense was really, really good. We missed like two tackles and that cost us on that long run, and it was awesome to see Travis Feeney chase him down and our defense swelled up and they missed a field goal. That’s how it goes. So it was good to see those guys play at a high level, too.”
(This as efficient as Jake Browning has been?) “I think he missed two throws, so he was pretty good. Put the tape on to look at it, but just the stats, you can see the stats right there. But he was on pretty good. Being able to run the ball – if we can run the ball, it makes the pass game a lot easier.”
(On next week’s game against Washington State) “I think nobody’s playing better in this conference than Washington State, without question. So we’ve got our hands full. A lot riding on this. So I guess this is how this game is supposed to be. It’ll be fun to hopefully have Husky Stadium packed and rocking, and a lot of purple, and hopefully not too much red in there.”
(Did you see something on film that made you want to run the trick play on the opening kickoff?) “You’ve got to see something on film. We saw a little something in terms of how aggressive they are on kickoff coverage. Great job by Coach Choate dialing it up, and away we go. Got Chico (McClatcher) laying on the numbers and kind of blending in, and Marvin got up in there and threw it back to him. You’re always hoping that one can crease the whole way. Hayden Schuh I think did a nice job blocking two guys, and Chico got us great field position. It was a good way to start the game.”
(And McClatcher had the big punt return too) “He’s an explosive guy. Just try to find different ways to get the ball in his hands. His best days are in front of him, without question.”
(On Dante Pettis’ punt-return touchdown) “It’s funny, because their style of punting is very awkward, very much like Utah, and nobody has done anything … We’re just always looking for that pitch to hit. We talk about it all the time. And so we got one, and I’m really anxious to put the tape on because he creased it and ran right up the middle, but that’s really telling us that everybody else is doing some really great work, so I’m anxious to see how that looks on tape.”
(On Jaydon Mickens’ incomplete receiver pass) “I’m anxious to see that one, too, because that’s not exactly who we were looking to throw the ball to, but you know … the thing kind of got blown up to start with, so I think that was probably a pretty good decision on his part to chuck it out there. We were actually trying – I don’t want to say who we were trying go to in case we come back to it later.”
(Did you think Travis Feeney would make that tackle chasing the guy down?) “Travis is fast, and when I saw Travis take off, I thought he was going to get him, but then I know that ballcarrier is really fast. I watched him last week at Cal and he can really go. I didn’t know if he was going to get him or not. Unbelievable effort, though.”
(On playing with backs against the wall mentality) “I think these kids play like their backs are against the wall. What I mean by that is, I don’t think there’s been a game where I haven’t felt they played really hard, really physical and all that. We got outclassed in one game, when we played Stanford this year, and every other game, we were right there, having a chance to win at the end. So I feel like they’ve always really played kind of like their backs are to the wall. They kind of talk amongst themselves and they know what’s at stake. But I’ve kind of felt all along they play with pretty good urgency. We just haven’t executed all the time like we’d like to, and I thought that was better tonight.”
(On Feeney’s apparent shoulder injury) “We’ll see. A lot of guys are banged up at this time. I think guys have got to be really, really banged up to not play in this next one. So we’ll see.”
This story was originally published November 21, 2015 at 7:21 PM with the headline "Chris Petersen says Huskies had ‘really good team effort’ in 52-7 victory at Oregon State."