The Huskies have made more red-zone trips than anyone in the Pac-12, but rank 110th nationally in converting those drives into touchdowns.
LOS ANGELES — The ugly red-zone issues that surfaced in the season opener have been a consistent theme for Washington’s offense in 2018.
The Huskies played decently enough on offense in the 21-16 loss to Auburn on Sept. 1, finishing with 398 yards and averaging 6.1 yards per play.
But the biggest problem there has been the offense’s biggest problem much of the season: Of the Huskies’ six drives inside Auburn’s 20-yard line, they scored only one touchdown. That included four trips inside the 10-yard line, which netted just six points.
The red-zone struggles didn’t improve much from there.
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In 13 games, the Huskies have actually made more red-zone trips than anyone in the Pac-12 Conference — 59 in all. But they have been among the worst offenses in the country at finishing those drives in the end zone — scoring 32 touchdowns for a 54.2-percent touchdown rate that ranks 110th nationally.
“We’ve left a lot of points down there,” offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said.
The Huskies (10-3) defeated Utah 10-3 to win the Pac-12 championship game Nov. 30, with the game’s lone touchdown coming on Byron Murphy’s 66-yard interception return. That marked the first time the Huskies have won a game without an offensive touchdown since the 2001 season opener against Michigan.
Hamdan said he spent time after the Pac-12 title game examining the red-zone issues.
“The toughest part is, you spend three weeks looking at everything, breaking everything down that normally comes into self-inflicted wounds and penalties, and so it comes to the details,” he said at a Rose Bowl news conference Thursday. “And I think we certainly spent these last three weeks practicing a lot, making sure we get down there as much as possible, and we’ve just got to go and execute it.”
Hamdan, in his first season as the UW play-caller, said the Huskies have succeeded at playing “complementary football,” meaning the offense has done enough — in most games, anyway — to help keep the UW defense fresh and effective. Notably, the Huskies rank second in the Pac-12 in time of possession, at 32:08, and they’re fifth in the conference in rushing offense, averaging a respectable 179.9 yards per game.
And the UW defense, for the fourth season in a row, ranks as the best in the Pac-12, allowing just 15.5 points per game.
Ohio State’s defense, by the way, ranks seventh out of 14 teams in the Big Ten Conference, allowing 25.7 points per game. The Buckeyes (12-1) gave up seven touchdowns in their lone loss of the season, 49-20 at Purdue on Oct. 20, and seven more in a narrow 52-51 victory at Maryland on Nov. 17.
Hamdan knows the Huskies won’t be able to settle for field goals in the red zone in Tuesday’s Rose Bowl.
“We look at what we’ve done this year, and there’s been certainly some good things,” Hamdan said, adding: “But we’ve got to finish.”