• last year
UW coach Kalen DeBoer talked about the risky Apple Cup play
Transcript
00:00 At what point during that sequence
00:02 did you decide you were going to go for it on fourth and one?
00:06 When it was fourth and one.
00:08 Before you sent the punt team out or during the time?
00:11 Yeah, I mean, we sent the punt team out there.
00:14 And I really felt like we were trying
00:18 to get them to jump off sides and see if we get
00:20 a free set of downs that way.
00:23 Coming off of a timeout like that, when the clock stopped,
00:27 it's not quite as good.
00:28 I knew that.
00:29 But figured it was worth the chance.
00:31 And it gave us a little more time, too,
00:32 to talk about what we wanted to do offensively.
00:36 We're going to go for it.
00:38 Hats off to the coaching staff, offensive staff,
00:40 for putting this play in, having it ready to go
00:44 for moments like that, for red zone, short yardage moments.
00:49 And there's some moving pieces to that, too.
00:52 And you've got to trust your players to read things right,
00:55 have great timing, execute.
00:58 And between Michael and, I mean, really everyone,
01:02 and of course Rome, just simple things
01:05 like even catching the ball, doing that.
01:07 And then worst case scenario is he was going to be one-on-one
01:10 with someone for a yard.
01:11 So just proud of the way the guys executed,
01:14 turned into explosive play, and gave us a lot of momentum.
01:18 Where's that rate as far as risky play for the win
01:22 and deep in your end zone?
01:24 It's up there.
01:25 Yeah.
01:26 It's up there.
01:28 There's been, I think, way back there's
01:30 been some risky plays.
01:32 But yeah, I'd say it's certainly up there, given the moment,
01:35 given the situation, field location, time in the game,
01:40 all those.
01:41 It sounded like Penix had the option to give to DJ there
01:44 based on what he saw.
01:45 What was it about the way WSU lined up
01:47 or what he saw that made the flip to Rome?
01:49 Yeah, just the coverage.
01:51 And it's really without motion.
01:54 So it's going to be hard for someone to trail him across.
01:56 And it's a short edge over there.
01:58 And they're playing for the run.
01:59 And a lot of things we did throughout the course
02:01 of the game just naturally set up with the backfield sets,
02:05 the tight end alignments.
02:07 A lot of those things were looks that similar-- not exactly,
02:11 but similar to what we'd shown throughout the game.
02:13 So Mike, you're trusting a guy like Michael to read it.
02:20 And then, of course, he's going to have his back
02:22 to the play at some point as he flips it.
02:24 And he just made a great decision,
02:27 some guts on his end, obviously, the play call and all that.
02:30 But I just wanted to go out at all possible, not be crazy,
02:36 but just really wanted to make sure we had the ball to try
02:40 to win the game.
02:41 And obviously, it took that play to do that.