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OK, What's Ryan Grubb's First Husky Play Call?

The UW could go after Kent State right away with a go route.
Dan Raley|
OK, What's Ryan Grubb's First Husky Play Call?
OK, What's Ryan Grubb's First Husky Play Call?

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Washington Huskies

Sometime after Saturday night's 7:30 kickoff, the University of Washington football team will break from the huddle, line up for its initial play in the Kalen DeBoer era and have a stadium full of people on the edge of their seats wondering what's coming first.

This week, new offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb revealed how he prefers to script the first series of plays and had a pretty good idea of what he wanted to do for this Kent State opener.

Of course, Grubb wasn't offering any clues to what that might be.

"I do have an opening series," he said. "They're just openers and they're not necessarily in order. There's a couple of plays I like to use to get us off and rolling. Once we're off and running, it's based on how we feel moving forward."

After watching glimpses of DeBoer's Huskies in spring and fall practice, we wouldn't be surprised to see new quarterback Michael Penix Jr., the Indiana transfer, take the snap on first down from the UW 25, wind up and left it fly for Rome Odunze on a 75-yard go route.

DeBoer has said his Huskies will be attacking at all times on each side of the ball.

The personality of these coaches, foremost Grubb, seems to suggest these guys want to be aggressive and hit their opponent in the mouth right from the start and get the other side back on its heels from the outset.

Or this staff, known for its offensive creativity, might want to try and confuse Kent State with something highly deceptive. Last year against San Jose State, for instance, Grubb and Company pulled off a double-reverse flea flicker pass that brought and instant and easy touchdown.  

The ball goes from Penix to Jalen McMillan to Odunze, back to Penix and then downfield to McMillan. It worked against San Jose State with former Husky quarterback Jake Haener calling the play and executing it to perfection.

Or, not wanting to be a spoil sport, the Huskies might have Penix take a snap and dump the ball off for a modest gain to running back Wayne Taulapapa, which will be a staple play throughout the evening but used here to simply get things started. 

Expect the UW to throw the football 40-plus times. Deep. Short. Clever. 

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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