Previously: Washington Offense 

After profiling the fearsome Washington offense, we now pivot to the much less glamorous defense. Ranked 44th in SP+, Washington's defense has spent a lot of the year doing just enough to give them a win in each and every game. They have a couple stars and also some major worry spots. What should we make of them? Let's take a look: 

 

The Film: Going with Texas for the charting yet again, but drawing upon Oregon, USC, and other games as additional tape to factor in in our evaluations. 

Personnel: Click for big. [both FFFF charts available in PDF format for the laminators here]

Washington mostly plays a standard 4-2-5 in terms of personnel. Their EDGE who rarely comes off the field is star Bralen Trice, the Dangerman of this piece. The 6'4", 274 lb. rusher is more power than speed, but he's by far their best player at getting organic pressure on the QB, while being not a particularly spectacular run defender in my view. Texas largely had no issue dealing with Washington's four man rushes, except for the moments that Trice made something happen. His efforts have moved him up into the late first rounds of some NFL mock drafts. Trice is the heavier EDGE while the other side of the formation usually features the lighter Zion Tupuola-Fetui or Sekai Asoua-Afoa. Not a huge fan of either, with the latter nearing cyan territory for me. 

Defensive tackle is the weakness of the defense, players that were uniformly crushed by Texas in the Sugar Bowl. The best tackle they have is multi-year starter Tuli Letuligasenoa, who has dealt with a knee injury this season, which has limited his snap count. He played 39 of 73 snaps against Texas and that's probably the ballpark we're looking at for Monday. He is by far the highest graded DT to PFF... I thought he was pretty pedestrian against Texas but still probably better than the others. Those others include Faatui Tuitele, Voi Tunuufi, and Ulumoo Ale. All of them get the cyan, as I have major concerns after watching them get paved repeatedly by Texas.

More promising perhaps is Michigander Jayvon Parker, who they've beefed up to 297. He didn't play much and is not ready to hold up against the run but had a little bit of pass rush juice in his eight snaps. Jacob Bandes has played quite a bit at tackle this season with okay grades from PFF. He didn't play much against Texas so I don't have too many notes on him. Jacob Lane is a true freshman who was listed at 230 as a recruit and is up to 250, more of an EDGE but Washington has been lining him up at tackle on rush packages. He played 19 snaps against Texas, 17 of them pass rush snaps and had a little bit of jump but his miniature size makes it an odd fit. When opponents go heavy, Washington goes into a 5-2 so there are definitely snaps where they will have three DTs out there. Probably often given what we know Michigan likes to do. 

At linebacker the Huskies usually have two on the field, Edefuan Ulofoshio being the headliner of the group. If you're a real FFFF sicko, you may recall that Ulofoshio was starred by this column in the 2021 Washington Defense piece (Letuligasenoa was also a starter on that team). Yeah, he's been around and been a major contributor for a looong time. Interestingly, he isn't an every snap LB like most stars at the position, only playing 55% of snaps this season in totality and 66% of snaps in the Sugar Bowl. It wasn't the best performance against Texas but he had some moments of his strong play and the full complexion of his season suggests he's still a star.

[AFTER THE JUMP: ehhhhh]

Next to him is our name of the week winner, Alphonzo Tuputala. He rotates out even more than Ulofoshio and hasn't been particularly great this season (and was quite rough against Texas). Carson Bruener rotates in, strong PFF grades this season but he was BRUTAL against Texas. Speaking of brutal, Ralen Goforth had a rough go of things against Texas and his season grades are more on the negative side. I didn't get much confidence in watching the linebackers besides Ulofoshio against the Horns, if I'm being honest. 

The secondary is better, a pretty solid unit that's gone up against some top end passing offenses and lived to tell the tale. They don't have any elite studs in coverage, but a lot of very solid players who aren't near cyan territory. Their two outside corners are pretty consistent, OKST transfer Jabbar Muhammad on one side and Elijah Jackson on the other. Muhammad is a bit undersized but has found a way to make it work, as both are good pieces but not headed for the top of a draft, nor incapable of being burned by a good receiver/throw (as happened some vs. Texas). Their nickel is Misha Powell, also a solid player in the same vein as Muhammad/Jackson. All three of these guys are low 70s PFF grade sort of guys. The three corners don't come off the field often, but if they do, Thaddeus Nixon is likely coming on. He's a clear cut below them and a potential exploitable matchup.  

The player with the most snaps on defense this season is S Dominique Hampton, having played 87% of the team's defensive snaps this season. Another rock solid piece of this secondary, he's a player I didn't have any issues with watching the tape against Texas. Fine piece. Next to him at the other safety slot has been a bit up in the air, currently split between Asa Turner and veteran Kamren Fabiculanan (also on the 2021 FFFF starting diagram). Both have produced good PFF grades and I didn't have any issue with. S Makell Esteen played a lot of this season but didn't feature much in the Sugar Bowl. 

----

Base set: Washington is pretty much a 4-2-5. Everyone has their fancy terms for this sort of thing and distinguishing between the kinds of EDGEs, etc, but let's call a spade a spade: 

When Texas went heavy, Washington loaded up with a 5-2: 

Those are the two main "base sets" that the Huskies ran.  

Man or zone coverage: More zone than man from Washington against Texas, with a number of coverages being used. Match Cover 3 as well as two-high quarters stand out in their tape across this season as the most common coverages but they'll throw different looks at you. Generally zone, but they do run man some when blitzing so you'll get those opportunities from time to time. 

Pressure: Washington blitzed (sending more than four rushers) on 31% of snaps against Texas, a pretty high clip that puts them near the top end of our charting this season. Interestingly, those are pretty varied, a number of five man pressures but also six and even eight man pressures(!) being dialed up. They like to get tricky. On the flip side, they dropped eight and sent three rushers on only 6% of charted snaps in this game. Not something they went to much. 

Dangerman: This was a pretty easy designation. For the second straight time doing an FFFF of Washington's defense, Edefuan Ulofoshio is being snubbed in favor of someone else. This time around it's EDGE Bralen Trice. Working his way up on NFL mocks, Trice has become a legit EDGE talent in the '24 projections and watching the game against Texas, not hard to see why: 

He was Washington's only consistent pass rush presence among the starting down linemen in this game, Trice flashing legitimate talent to get after the quarterback on passing downs. His 90.0 PFF pass rush grade ranks 15th nationally among all EDGE defenders with at least 100 snaps. To put that in context, it's pretty similar to what Dallas Turner and Chris Braswell grade as, and a bit below Purdue's Nic Scourton and PSU's Chop Robinson. His pass rush win rate of 16.4% isn't as high, but is still very very good. 

Trice is more power than speed as a rusher, which may help Michigan out, but he's still a ton to deal with. Don't try to block him with a pulling guard please, Sherrone Moore: 

Trice had both sacks for Washington in this game and that wasn't sheer luck. Nobody else was getting any real organic penetration, meanwhile Trice was stamping his mark on the game. He also made a super impactful play in forcing a fumble from behind that flipped the course of the game around and handed Washington three points: 

I am much more murky on Trice as a run defender and think Michigan can target him in that phase either through doubling on off tackle runs or letting him run by the play on his attempts to get into the backfield, but he's so impactful as a pass rusher he deserves this title. He was the only UW defender who really popped for me against the Horns and he's their defender with the most NFL interest by a wide margin. Trice earns the Dangerman label. 

 

Overview 

What do we think of the Washington defense after watching it against Texas? I know that the Longhorns are a very good offense, but I found myself extremely underwhelmed but what I saw. I didn't come in with high expectations on rewatch, having watched it live (and watched Washington play a lot this season), but there was a lot of ugly. However, like all the big games against elite teams this season that Washington has played, they've managed to put those long stretches of ugly behind them to get just enough stops to let their high powered offense win the game. You've gotta hand that to them. 

A lot of the focus in this matchup has been on Washington's rushing offense getting set to face a Jim Harbaugh coached team that is going to want to run the ball as a feature, not a complement. That's the place we ought to start because yeah, that is what stood out to me watching the Sugar Bowl on replay. The performance put up by the run defense was atrocious, quite frankly. I have very little good to say about what I watched and that includes Steve Sarkisian, the Texas offensive playcaller who didn't run it nearly enough. Texas ran for 6.4 YPC and they didn't get an 80 yard run that distorts that metric. They ran all over Washington time and again, ripping off 10-15 yard chunks in a row in ways that are very concerning. 

The biggest issue are the defensive tackles, who are probably the weakest I've charted since... I have no idea to be honest. Again, they were facing a good offense yes, but most of these guys have PFF grades in the 50s. Washington's run defense is statistically near the bottom of the FBS and it's not hard to see why when you look at the Texas tape. These tackles got relocated out of the hole with regularity: 

Bad! 

More bad! One more: 

Tuli Letuligasenoa has their best PFF grades, with a genuinely great run defense grade, but watching him in this game I did not get the sense he's the knight in shining armor waiting to save the UW run defense. I thought he was a bit better than the likes of Ulumoo Ale and Faatui Tuitele, but he is definitely not Polynesian Mason Graham. Michigan's 2023 IOL sans Zinter is a far cry from its 2022 unit, not the dominant world-wrecking force it was but their PFF run block grades don't look much different from Texas'. My expectation is that Michigan should have a ton of success with these defensive tackles and that Washington will need to devote resources to stop that. 

I also didn't think the linebackers had a particularly great game helping stopping the run. The source of Washington's run defense problems are the defensive tackles (hence why their success rate in run D is so poor) but I thought the LBs turned in a subpar night helping out against Texas as well. Alphonzo Tuputala was quite questionable to me and if you go back to the clip I just showed you, you see one LB blocked easily and then Tuputala (#11) totally away from the play. Go two clips above that and Carson Bruener is blocked while Edefuan Ulofosio (#5) is late to figure out what's going on, then blows the tackle. A lot of these clips had multiple problems, but it does start with the DTs. 

Here are Washington's (sack excluded) run defense performances from this season: 

• Boise: 141 yds on 27 carries (5.2 YPC) 
• Tulsa: 177 yds on 38 carries (4.7 YPC)
• MSU: 69 yds on 25 carries (2.8 YPC)
• Cal: 139 yds on 35 carries (4.0 YPC)
• AZ: 113 yds on 30 carries (3.8 YPC)
• ORE: 212 yds on 39 carries (5.4 YPC)
• ASU: 147 yds on 31 carries (4.7 YPC)
• Stanford: 145 yds on 32 carries (4.5 YPC)
• USC: 233 yds on 24 carries (9.7 YPC)
• Utah: 115 yds on 27 carries (4.3 YPC)
• OSU: 157 yds on 39 carries (4.0 YPC)
• Wazzu: 100 yds on 22 carries (4.6 YPC)
• ORE: 124 yds on 24 carries (6.2 YPC)
• Texas: 189 yds on 26 carries (7.3 YPC)

A really good performance in the MSU "first game post-Mel Tucker scandal" game and otherwise basically everyone else gets to at least 4 YPC, with Oregon, Texas, and USC, the best offenses the Huskies played, eviscerating their run defense. But take a look at those carry numbers: only Tulsa, Oregon (the first time), and Oregon State showed any real commitment to running the football. In a PAC-12 laden with good passing games and elite QBs this season, most all of the teams Washington went up against looked at the run offense as a changeup, not their fastball. 

Michigan represents a completely different paradigm. They are team that is reasonably solid at running the football and WANTS to run the football. If Washington expects their DTs to hold up, I think they may be in for a rough night and so my instinct is that Washington will have to approach this like so many B1G teams did against Michigan this season, loading up in the box to stop the run and then hoping JJ McCarthy won't beat them. 

Looking back at the Texas tape, the point about Sark not running the ball enough really stands out. On their first drive, Texas got a 16 yard run on their second play from scrimmage, then threw on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd down and punted. Three drives later they went three-and-out while passing on all three plays. In the second half they had a drive begin with another 16 yard run, then ran again for five yards on first down. But then? False start backs them up, 2nd & 10 pass, 3rd & 5 pass, ball short of the sticks, punt.

Three factors did Texas in, 1.) choosing not to run it early, 2.) a parade of pre-snap penalties continuously putting them behind the sticks, and 3.) falling behind and needing to throw a lot. That latter point is a major weapon Washington has been able to use on their opposition to get opposing offenses to not target their big weakness. Football is a passing game these days, and especially when you are trailing. That truth has been the UW defense's biggest friend. 

Michigan is not going to do that. If Michigan keeps getting results like this on the ground: 

Then they're going to keep pounding the rock. It will be on Washington to stop it and that's where I like Michigan's ability to attack in play-action, doing something they've generally refrained from doing a ton this season (much to our chagrin). Texas ran a lot of RPO sort of stuff but generally any time they showed play-action, be it true PA or an RPO, the linebackers got sucked in like the football was a blackhole. Example: 

We've seen it in a few clips now, but with that one on display, it's worth pointing out that Washington is a bad tackling defense. Extremely evident on film and the grading backs it up, as Washington ranks 104th in the FBS in team tackling grade in PFF's charting. Bad plays turn into worse plays against this defense way more than you'd like.

Back to the play-action point, watch the following clip. This play runs into pass protection problems and Ewers is hit as he throws but just watch the LBs get sucked in: 

Washington loves to play its safety Dominique Hampton down so the 6'3/220 DB can assist in run defense and if UW defends Michigan like they're terrified of Michigan running duo against their tackles, there should be plenty of room on play-action cleared out for Michigan to feast with Cornelius Johnson and Roman Wilson. 

For Washington's defense to be successful in this game, they're going to need Michigan to play in third & long, but as twitter analyst and occasional provocateur @ThiccStauskas phrased in his film takes of the matchup, the Washington defense will need to earn passing downs. Maybe Michigan will hand them to Washington by frequently taking false start/illegal shift penalties the way Texas did, but regardless, the Huskies need to figure out ways to get Michigan into the passing down situations. 

In those situations, Washington has a much better chance of success because their secondary is respectable. I don't have anyone I'm particularly raving about but they have a bunch of solid players. CB Jabbar Muhammad is the guy I like the most, showing up here with a nice PBU on Xavier Worthy: 

He also pressed Worthy off the field in a later encounter between the two when Texas was looking deep. Make no mistake though, Muhammad is not headed for the first round of the NFL Draft. He's a good college corner but he's not Terrion Arnold or Denzel Burke or Kool-Aid McKinstry. He can get got by a good receiver and a great throw, as he did towards the end: 

Elijah Jackson is the other outside corner and he played hero with a PBU on Adonai Mitchell in the end zone on the final play of the game:

Jackson's a solid player, a step down from Muhammad in my eyes but a totally respectable CB2. But like Muhammad, he can get beaten by a good pitch-and-catch, as Jackson surrendered the only big play Worthy made in the Sugar Bowl: 

That's sort of the nature of Washington's pass defense, I think it's pretty solid, but I don't see any superstar players in the secondary. They're mostly good enough, but they definitely can be beaten. USC torched Washington's pass defense (Caleb Williams was 27/35 for 312 yards and 3 TDs) and Oregon passed for 312 yards and 2 TDs in the first meeting. Washington did better in that second one, but those elite passing offenses they went up against, yeah, they can move the ball on these guys. You can find clips like this one from the Oregon games: 

There were two things that stood out to me as tricks in the pocket that Washington used to beat Texas in their pass defense that are worth mentioning. One was the batted ball, as Washington knocked down four different Ewers passes at the line of scrimmage, most of them going to open receivers. JJ hasn't had the trouble with this that Cade McNamara had, but something to watch out for. Those DTs aren't very good but they do well to put their long arms up there and get in the way. 

The second is the way they blitz. Defensive coordinator Chuck Morrell has a good approach I think, knowing he has a defense lacking talent and thus toying with offenses by lining a ton of guys up around the line of scrimmage passing downs. Washington loved to bring 6 or 7 down around the line of scrimmage, looking like it's an all-out, Cover 0 blitz before either A) totally relenting and rushing four, B) dropping a couple and still blitzing with five, or C) sending the house. It looks like this pre-snap: 

Texas had a bat habit of guessing wrongly. On this one Washington shows 8 and Texas thinks they can catch them dropping back and run right through them, but instead Washington is genuine, sending the house and you've got 6 blocking 8 and it's an easy TFL: 

Here's another instance. Texas wants to run a screen thinking they've got numbers, but Washington's pressure calls for Misha Powell to drop from the line of scrimmage right into where the screen is going to be, allowing for a prompt stop: 

The deception on passing downs where you're never sure who they're sending at the QB is a major asset and it helps paper over the fact that besides Trice, I don't think they have a ton of juice as an organic rush unit. They rated high on our pressure metric and I think it's out of necessity. They need to be blitzy or else they're not going to get a ton of rush to the QB if Trice doesn't do it himself. Jayvon Parker is a DT that has had a bit of jump in him but he plays very situationally on passing downs. The rest of the DL doesn't do much of anything for me. 

When Washington lines up a bunch of guys around the line of scrimmage on passing downs, they also can sometimes go with very creative rush packages. This next one has a hodgepodge of LBs/EDGEs/DTs and the unusual nature of how they line them up gets Texas out of sorts and allows Trice to come right up the gut unblocked: 

Pivoting a bit, I think there will be opportunities for JJ McCarthy to scramble. Ewers had one long one that he got hit late on: 

Among several other scrambles that were frequently open. Bo Nix had a number of long scrambles as well, including this one: 

Washington hasn't shown much interest in spying the QB and while JJ is athletic, I doubt he's the sort of QB that is going to make them start. There should be chances for McCarthy to keep drives going by picking up chunks with his legs. 

While I like the secondary and think the pass defense is solid as a whole, there are some exploitable matchups. Texas targeted their RBs a lot in the passing game and Washington's attempts to cover them had me gritting my teeth. RB Jaydon Blue is open vs. backup LB Ralen Goforth here: 

Texas targeted TE Ja'Tavion Sanders nine times and got six completions for 75 yards out of it. One of the incompletions was a batted ball while he was open as well. This one where he runs out of the slot on a mesh route with Hampton trying to keep up looks like something I'd find a way to engineer: 

Before we wrap up, I do want to give a shoutout to LB Edefuan Ulofoshio, our other starred player. He had an up-and-down game against Texas but still made some impact plays that reminded me why we starred him. If a LB comes flying up and makes a quick stop, it's probably him: 

Good player. I remember charting that Washington team in 2021 and realizing how bad they were going to suck. He was one of the stars of that defense and I'm happy for him that he stuck around and now has gotten to experience the ride of his life on a 14-0 national finalist. Stick with your dreams, kids. 

 

What does this mean for Michigan? 

Much has been made about the matchup when Michigan's defense takes the field against Washington's offense. I get why, that's the marquee matchup. Elite passing offense against one of the nation's top pass defenses. Brilliant offensive playcaller against one of the nation's top young defensive coordinators. Elite corners against elite receivers, talent on talent, skill on skill. I understand. 

But I think not enough is being made of this matchup, between the Washington defense and the Michigan offense, because I think you can make the case this side of the ball will be just as impactful. Michigan's offense ranks 12th in SP+, a bit of a step down from Oregon/Texas/USC who uniformly ripped Washington's defense to shreds, but the Wolverines still have a really good offense. It's been forgotten to some degree, because they've played a murderer's row of elite defenses dating back to the PSU game, featuring nearly every defensive player the NFL has interest in for the first round of 2024. But when they played mediocre defenses in the vein of Washington, they had a ton of success. Michigan gained 6.8 YPP on a solid Rutgers defense and 5.9 YPP on a solid Nebraska defense. I'm not sure Minnesota was in that range (despite their inflated SP+ rank) but Michigan hung 7.7 YPP on them. Some people seem to have forgotten what Michigan was doing to teams offensively before every defense they played was an elite, NFL-laden death machine. 

So yeah, the way I see it, Michigan needs to punish this defense to win the national title. I think you can expect your defense to trade punches with Washington's offense and hope to keep them in the yard. What you then need to do is win the natty by making up for whatever margin that matchup comes out to by thumping the UW defense. Oregon gained 6.2 YPP in the first meeting on a ton of plays and 6.7 YPP in the second meeting on fewer plays. USC was at a sizzling 8.2 YPP and Texas hit 7.0 YPP. The lesser teams weren't as successful but you can still find concerning results, including decrepit Stanford gaining 6.0 YPP.

[University of Washington Athletics/Marc-Gregor Campredon]

The common theme of why those teams couldn't beat Washington is A) defense didn't get enough stops, B.) didn't run the ball enough on offense, and C.) mistakes/empty drives/turnovers. For Texas, you had them drive deep into UW territory three times in the second half and gain only 3 points on those drives, one field goal, one turnover on downs on the final sequence of the game, and one lost fumble. For Oregon in the first game, it was the aggression of Dan Lanning backfiring as they went for it on 4th down and failed three times in UW territory, plus a missed FG to end the game. Michigan needs to play a clean game and find a way to ensure that the gobs of yards they are inevitably going to gain turn into points at a higher clip than the fallen teams who took a swing at UW before them did. 

To do that, JJ McCarthy needs to have a strong game. Like I've mentioned, my expectation is Washington will load up to try and stop the run out of fear of what Michigan will do to their big vulnerability and then it will be on JJ to pick them apart with precision as he did so often in the first half of the season when Michigan played teams who had to stack the box to stop the run. Commit to running the ball, make UW sell out to stop you, and then run play-action, play-action, and more play-action. If JJ is sharp and accurate, Michigan should be able to move the ball up and down the field. Get the ball out in space and test this poor tackling defense and see if you can't rip off some big plays through that. Id' toss in a few jet sweeps and pitches to target the perimeter on the ground as well. And yes, take a few deep shots down the field to Roman Wilson to see if you can take the top of the defense when they've got only one safety deep. 

On paper, this is a mismatch. Washington is a pedestrian defense with a giant weakness that corresponds with what Jim Harbaugh teams want to do the most. It's a middling defense, historically poor for a team trying to win a national title, up against an offense that is pretty damn good. Michigan needs to play like it and run up the score in this phase of the game so such a big edge has been gained that no brilliance from Michael Penix Jr. can close the gap.