Keith Heyward is now with the Huskies.
The Oregon State football team faces Washington this year in CenturyLink Field, the home of the Seahawks since Husky Stadium is being rebuilt.
The contest will be Game 8 on Oct. 27. Both teams should be in rhythm at that point. And the Beavers have some experience on that NFL field, defeating Washington State there last year.
Washington is reworking its defense after doing so poorly last year. There are four new defensive coaches, including former OSU player and DB coach Keith Heyward.
It appears things started to turn around for the defense at the spring game. Read about it here.
“When you implement five new coaches, four on the defense, it was developing the continuity on staff,” coach Steve Sarkisian said. “That happened in the spring. Then we implemented the defensive scheme. They taught really well and implemented well.”
The Huskies are going to a 3-4 look, Sarkisian said, but will have 4-3 nuances. “We’ll be interchangeable,” he said.
Here’s a rundown of what came out of spring practice for the Huskies.
This is going to be a tough one for the Beavers, now that the Huskies have established a program. The new defense should be settled by the time the teams meet, so that’s not an advantage.
3 comments
fahlgren says:
May 13, 2012
Sounds like we are going to see a fair number of 3-4 defenses next season. How does that scheme match up with our offensive scheme?
Cliff Kirkpatrick says:
May 13, 2012
OSU had done well against it with experienced QBs. Not so much with rookies.
Mdog says:
May 13, 2012
I think the 3-4 will be better for the Beavs scheme for a few reasons. 1.) with a 4-3, our “in transition”/oft-injured o-line got beat down regularly. Couldn’t get a push up front, and had a rough time picking up blitzes. Against a 3-4, the o-line will likely see more blitzing from lbs/ss’ which if the beavs o-line can pick up, we can then reestablish our zone read running game, run more traps. 2.) more lbs on the field, more mismatches for h-backs/tes/wrs. Storm woods will kill the 3-4.