Honestly, I didn’t know if I’d ever see this day come. Part of that is from being a heavy drinker and liking to run around in traffic, but most of that is just looking at how far the program had fallen, and the landscape in college football.
Washington’s not a power school. We like to think it is, as we look back at the good ol’ days of Don James and whatnot, but we’re not Alabama. We’re not Ohio State or USC or Texas. Ours is not a destination school; we’re not going to draw coaches like Urban Meyer or Nick Saban. We can pull from smaller schools, or we can elevate up-and-coming coordinators to their first head coaching gigs, but ours is just a stepping stone school. Come here, turn the program around, get a better job somewhere else, as Sark did. Or, come here, make the program worse, and never coach in college football ever again, as Tyrone Willingham did. Oh sure, you might get lucky and have everything click for a season, but that’s when you strike! When the iron’s hot! You parlay that to your dream job where you can compete for national championships every year, as opposed to once in a blue moon!
I would try to console myself from this line of thinking, by pointing to Oregon. They rose from the ashes of nothingness to be a perennial college football powerhouse! That’s true, but they also had a head coach with a gimmick system that it took the rest of college football too long to adjust to. And a benefactor in Phil Knight who doesn’t mind pouring all of his riches into the school. What are we talking about here, a one in a million confluence of wealth and genius? Unlikely to be in the cards for a school like Washington.
And yet, here we are. In Chris Petersen’s third year since coming over from Boise State. He doesn’t strike me as a guy who would cut and run for a bigger job at a bigger school (but, then again, I suppose Boise State fans thought the same way). In Washington, he’ll be able to earn the same as anywhere else; he’ll be the highest-paid coach in the conference at a minimum. And, it’s so early in his run, he can really build a dominant program over the next decade and really bolster his resume! He’s done it without a billionaire putting his name on the stadium and paying for recruits (allegedly). He’s done it without a gimmicky offense that – oh by the way – won’t help you one bit in raising your NFL draft stock, because they’d rather go with guys who’ve run a pro-style offense. I mean, this is as old school as it gets! Solid recruiting on a foundation of recent success, building your team up in all areas, and then going out there and beating the snot out of everyone you play. This is how Alabama stays so good every year!
WE’RE PAC-12 CHAMPS!!!
I just can’t say enough how cool that is. Started from the bottom in 2008; now we’re here in 2016. I couldn’t be more proud and more happy that I was so wrong about all of that I wrote above.
Last night, we beat Colorado 41-10, in spite of the fact that Jake Browning had a God-awful game. Nevertheless, we were able to run the ball at will, gobbling up 265 yards on the ground, including 100-yard games for both Gaskin and Coleman. Sheer domination up front, with some smart, powerful running by those two backs.
John Ross had one of the most impressive TD catches I’ve ever seen. Browning was about to be sacked, trying to throw the ball away, and Ross ended up jumping as high as he could, snagging it with one hand, breaking a tackle, and scampering for 19 yards to paydirt. Darrell Daniels had the other receiving TD on a nifty little catch inside the 10 yard line, breaking a bunch of tackles on the way to the endzone.
Game MVP Taylor Rapp had two interceptions right after halftime, one returned to the house. The rest of our secondary played to their usual brilliance as we held Colorado’s QBs to a combined 81 yards passing. Our guys up front were just as good, as we held their ground game to 82 yards and a 2.9 yards per carry average. Just a totally dominating performance from a world-class defense.
The Huskies are 12-1, 12-game winners for the first time since our national championship in 1991. I just want to sit here and bask in this for a while, as we only have until tomorrow morning at 9am before we know our fate. Playoffs or Rose Bowl. The Huskies are back!