I've watched 9 udub games this year -- all of the conference games. See, I don't look at the games like a homer. As the saying goes, I "put my money where my mouth is" if you catch my drift.
Here's what I've seen from udub... great team speed. Quick team who makes up for technical deficiencies with pace. Untested. Udub has been fortunate to not really play many good, healthy teams. Cake non conference all at home. Shaky against anyone who shows competence.
How many CU games have you watched?
I doubt the number to be very high. Otherwise, you'd be a lot more concerned since udub has had great difficulties against above average defenses. Hidden within your copious notes is the assumption that CU's players simply aren't very good or fundamentally sound. Teams have made this mistake this season. The metrics disagree with your notion that we don't have highly skilled players or that we can't game plan to confuse your relatively inexperienced QB. You mentioned the USC game. We have a better defense than USC. Why wouldn't you envision problems? Just because you use flawed metrics and assume we aren't athletic or skilled....
Interesting you mention Stanford. I'd hardly compare us to them since their passing attack is extremely remedial. It's pretty easy to stop a one dimensional team, especially one who has a piss poor receiving group.
You're set with the YPC metric, which is a bad one. If a team sees a ton of volume (as both teams have) the better route would be to look at their effiency in denying catches. We'll have to disagree about how we play defense since your concept is based in some awful assumptions noted above.
I also think that your preference here exists to cover up for the fact that udub concedes far more completions than Colorado. Even including the cupcakes, udub allows >10% higher completion percentage per game. At a clip of a 1/2 yard more per attempt than Colorado, I'd say it's the udub defense who ought to be concerned with explosive plays.
I'd also have great concern since we don't let teams complete passes at a high rate (<49%). Picking up first downs on throws Browning makes against scrubs will probably not be available tonight. You're mistaken to think Browning will automatically complete 55% of his passes. Think more like 49-50% for 5ish per attempt.
Just out of curiosity, how many UW games have you watched this year?
A couple of things with the way that I look at metrics ... first, I look primarily at conference games in trying to compare teams in conference ... it's apples to apples that way. Part of the reason that I also look at YPC and YPA is because I want to see what kind of explosive play potential you are getting in the passing game. In conference, the Buffs rank 3rd in yards per attempt (behind UCLA and UW) but 7th in yards per attempt. That tells me that there are opportunities for big plays when you make a completion and that matches what I saw with the coverage ... press short and intermediate while forcing shots over the top. I haven't seen much of Colorado playing in prevent ... if they are it's likely in the games where they are up big playing inferior teams. By and large the YPC has been in the 12-13 yard range for most of the games for Colorado. Actually, UW and Colorado are basically identical in yards per attempt in the passing game at 6 yards per attempt. The big difference is that UW gives up on average about 2 yards less per completion as predominately teams are forced to throw check downs on UW without the ability to hit explosive plays over the top ... that stems from IMO UW trusting their athletic talent and fundamentals to come up and make tackles whereas Colorado plays more aggressively. Both strategies have worked well for each respective team. Come tomorrow night though, the data would tell me that UW has the better chance to make explosive plays in the passing game.
Regarding UW not seeing a pass defense like Colorado, the metrics would tell me that USC is very comparable in the passing game. I'd definitely say that USC's CBs are more athletic than Colorado's ... and that's not slighting Colorado's DBs. The biggest issue that UW had against USC was their inability to run the ball that turned them 1 dimensional as UW had 27 carries for 17 yards and got hurt with sacks. It was definitely a below average passing game at 17 for 37 for 259 (7 yards per attempt, 15.2 yards per completion). It wouldn't shock me tomorrow if Browning's completion percentage was in the 50-55% range ... the bigger question is whether or not the yards per completion though is in the 14-16 yard range (on the season in conference UW is averaging 15.3 yards per completion).
From what I've seen of Colorado's front, I don't think that they'll be successful 7 on 7 in the run game. I could be wrong ... but if Colorado doesn't bring an 8th man down to the box to account for the RB I don't see a lot of success for them in trying to slow down the run game with 7 in the box versus 7 run blockers in 2 TE sets. With the exception of the USC game, UW in conference has run for at minimum a 4.8 yard per carry average. You mention the coverage sack ... and that's worth discussion. Browning has shown an ability to step up in the pocket and extend plays ... it often can create a number of explosive plays. I don't disagree with you that if Colorado can get you behind the chains that that's where their defense has shown the ability to be very successful and turnovers become an issue. To me, it's one of the primary reasons why UW needs to make sure that they are fully embracing the run game and stay in situations where they are no worse than 3rd and 7 or less ... anything in that range puts you in a spot that it's a doable pickup with something as simple as a quick slant or out route.
The part where I am a little confused is saying that UW hasn't stopped a good running game ... clearly haven't watched UW play. Stanford is all about the run game ... 30 carries for 29 yards. USC was 3.1 yards per carry. Utah was at 4.5 yards per carry ... Troy Williams had a series of nice scrambles that helped (and I consider Troy much more mobile than Sefo). The problem when looking at our run stats is understanding context of the game. If you look at what Oregon did on the ground to UW, it looks nice. They also lost 70-21 and a lot of those yards came in the 2nd half. Oregon St ran the ball 30 times for 177 yards ... pretty sure 75 of those yards came on a fly sweep in the 2nd half of a game that was in bed by halftime. Running the ball has not been a successful strategy against UW unless you basically have an elite athlete at the QB position ... which Sefo isn't.
