Four days after what was one of the worst defensive plays in college football history, Washington defensive coordinator Nick Holt addressed the media and formally accepted the blame, which was already piled high on his shoulders.
According to the Everett Daily Herald, Holt put his Huskies in a “Cover-3" defense as Arizona State began a series at midfield with the game tied at 17-17 with only 13 seconds remaining.
Even though the scheme is a good choice to defend against a deep ball, Sun Devil quarterback Danny Sullivan had a choice of TWO receivers running free toward the end zone. He chose wide receiver Chris McGaha, who latched on to the bomb and waltzed into the end zone for the game-winning score with five seconds left.
Since the contest kicked off in Tempe at 10:15 p.m. ET, much of the country hasn’t seen how awful the defense was that resulted in Arizona State’s 24-17 victory. If you haven’t been amazed by it, click HERE.
Holt did not speak to the media after the game.
Washington linebacker Donald Butler told the Daily Herald that Holt did speak to his players in the locker room after the game and simply said: “Blame me.”
On Wednesday, Holt finally met with the media, publicly taking a little bit of pressure off free safety Nate Williams, who appeared to be the defender who initially allowed McGaha to run free.
“We were playing a little prevent defense, three-man rush, drop eight,’' Holt told the Seattle Times. “A call that our guys have executed really well all season. And we just had some assignment errors, and unfortunately at the wrong time we didn’t play it as well as we have. The kids played hard the whole night. It was just too bad we didn’t finish up the game.
“Obviously hindsight is 20-20 and good,” Holt added. “I wish we had that play over again and maybe do something different, whether it’s a different call or reminding our guys of what we could do here. And that’s more than anything (what he might do differently) just keep reminding them when we go out there ‘you guys got to do this really good on this last play.’ We had just punted and then a couple of guys were late getting out there. Unfortunately we just didn’t finish the game.
“I feel really bad for the guys, putting them in that position and having something like that happen. Especially in the second half, our defense played really, really well, played really hard. I just felt really bad for them and I was frustrated with myself.’'
