Coach Erickson on match against Washington State

Opening Statement:

“They are a football team, that as you watch from the beginning of the season till now is unbelievable. You have to give credit to Paul Wulff and his coaching staff. They have done a great job. Offensively they have a lot of weapons. They spread people out and take advantage of the great receivers they have. Jeff Tuel is a good, young quarterback. They are scoring points against everybody. Their front is playing good and they are getting the ball out quick. A lot of the same things we attempt to do offensively. Get the ball out and get it up field. They’ve scored points and been in every football game the last four or five. Obviously, after coming off what happened last weekend against California, we have to take care of our own problems and play better then we did. As you look at the whole season, last week was very disappointing. We didn’t play well in any of the phases, which is very surprising to me. Things went from bad to worse. You can try and shake it off as one of those games, but I have trouble doing that. We have to learn from that experience and deal with adversity better than we have dealt with it. In the games that we have played, we have been competitive till the end, but that wasn’t the case Saturday, which bothers me. As I look through the tape, there are things we didn’t do very well that we have done well all year. We have to get it straightened out. We have to work on getting better and learn from that. Something good will come out of it because it wasn’t very fun on Saturday. Washington State defensively is playing better and they are improved. We’re going to have to play very good to win the game.”

On Quarterback situation:

“Steven [Threet] has a concussion. He has tests that he will have to pass. I’d probably flunk the test myself right now being normal. He took a test today and they think he will be able to go tomorrow. He can run and do some stuff today. He should be ready to practice tomorrow. Brock Osweiler is a 100 percent right now, and we feel good about where he is health wise. He will be our second quarterback. “

On the teams’ injuries:

“Oliver Aaron is the same situation as Steven Threet. He should be ready to go. Shelly Lyons is out for the year, as he broke a bone in his foot. He is going to have surgery on it Friday. They say it takes 6-8 weeks to heal. Other then that we are okay health wise.”

On why Brock [Osweiler] didn’t play on Saturday:

“He wasn’t ready. He practiced one day. They still weren’t sure about his back, so I made the decision to go with Samson [Szakacsky] because he had practiced. Brock [Osweiler] will be ready to go and get all the turns with the seconds this week. If something were to happen, we will play him.”

On Steven Threet’s play:

“Brock  hasn’t been playing enough to warrant the position being looked at. He hasn’t practiced for two or three weeks and maybe even longer then that. He wouldn’t be ready to go in and start right now. Obviously, if the quarterback situation continues to go like this and Brock practices well then we would consider looking at that, but right now no.”

“It wasn’t [Steven’s] best game. There were some other things in our offense that we have to do better. We put a lot of pressure on our quarterback to see some things and he missed some, which he will be the first to admit. We have to look at that too. We have to look at not putting the pressure on him every down, within what we do. We’re looking at some things right now where he doesn’t have to make a decision every play. We can do that in our running game, without taking away what we do offensively. Same thing with Brock, if he got in. We have to do what ever gives our team the best chance to win. Steven Threet gives our team the best chance to win the last 5 football games. That is the most important thing to me.”

On the inconsistency of the defense:

“I’m surprised, without a question. We are not playing defense like we are capable of playing it. We are not nearly as consistent as Coach Bray, the defense or I want us to be. It boils down to the big plays. We gave up three big pass plays in the second quarter that created problems for us. We didn’t tackle very well and we are better than that. We have to get that straightened out. We have to deal with it and get better. There are guys this year that aren’t playing quite as well as they did last year. We have to get better and there is no question about it. There were plays to be made on defense and we just didn’t make them. We have to look at who we are putting in these positions to make these plays. There were plays we should of made on defense and we didn’t make them. We all have to be accountable and Saturday we weren’t. We have to look at what we have to do, because we are better then that.  There’s no excuse for us to play like we did Saturday.”

On the team turning things around:

“We have good leadership and good character. We played pretty well all year. Had this been happening all year, then we would have a problem. That’s not the case and it has happened one time. We’ve been playing pretty good and have been competitive. We should of won a few more games. We know what it takes and we have guys in the locker room that can do that and they will. I look for them to respond very well. If this happens to us five other times then we have some issues. I don’t see that right now. Our guys will step up and they have a lot of pride. It was hurt and it should have been hurt. I see leadership down there that will step up and continue to get better and play well.”

On Washington State defense:

“They are pretty basic, but they are pretty smart in what they do. They are very solid and they don’t do a lot of things. They play a lot of young players that are playing really well. They have a safety, Deone Bucannon, a true freshman who is playing really well as well as C. J. Mizell. There down guys are good and they are getting better all the time. If you watch them against Oklahoma State and now against Stanford they are a lot better team, especially defensively. They played Stanford, Oregon, and Arizona pretty good.”

On pursuit of bowl game:

“It is one of our goals. Till they tell us we don’t then we keep going. We can’t make to many mistakes, but obviously that is our goal. In the mean time, winning our fourth game is the goal that’s in front of us. We have to prepare for one game at a time. Washington State is on our schedule and then it continues on. The good thing is we get to play at home which is nice.”

On Jamaar Jarrett:

“He has played extremely good. Right now, defensively, he is playing as well as anybody we have. The great thing about Jamaar is he has stepped up in all aspects of his life, including academics. Everything he has done has improved over the last six months. On the field he is playing really well. I am proud of him and he is becoming a leader out there who is stepping up.”