The Washington Huskies walked out of their 17-10 win over the Nebraska Cornhuskers in Lincoln on Saturday night with 2 sacks and 4 tackles for loss. While those weren't the most gaudy numbers that Ryan Walters' defense has posted this season, they were enough to contain quarterback Anthony Colandrea, who has proven to be one of the most dynamic signal callers in the Big Ten this season.
According to Jedd Fisch, the defensive front played one of its best games of the season and executed Walters' game plan to perfection.
"They did exactly what we asked them to do," Fisch said on Monday. "We had a certain game plan for this team, and when we watched the film, I think the defensive staff did an amazing job of putting together is; we were not going
to let their quarterback beat us with his feet. So, there was a lot of just holding the edges, setting the edges, not using the pass rush and get outflanked. You saw there was a lot of times our ends and our edges were kind of just standing there and disengaging from their tackles, but keeping the pocket, keeping the cup."
The same could be said for the linebackers, who did an impressive job of executing their assignments, led by sophomore Zaydrius Rainey-Sale, who had a team-high 10 tackles in the win and did an impressive job not losing contain on Colandrea while acting as a quarterback spy on several plays while the coverage held up behind him.
"Our linebackers were kind of hanging right there in the middle, so he might've had 8-9 seconds at times to throw the football, but our coverage was so good at the back end that the d-line was able to not get greedy. The biggest thing we told the defense is like, 'Hey, don't get selfish...don't feel you have to make a play. Your job might be just to spill every single time that that tight end comes at you, but understand that if you spill, that will allow Jacob (Manu) or (Rylon Dillard-Allen) to make a tackle.'"
"Then in pass rush, we're not going to win this game with sacks by you beating their tackle, Colandrea's too nifty, too crafty. We were going to win this game on defense by keeping the cup and making sure that the defensive line had incredible patience and confidence and were able to keep him in the pocket."
Now, after effectively executing their assignments all game long, the pass rush will have an opportunity to get after a much less mobile Penn State quarterback in Rocco Becht behind an offensive line that's tied for No. 8 in the Big Ten with 13 sacks allowed on the year.
This article originally appeared on Huskies Wire: Washington football's defense executed at a high level vs. Nebraska
