Where Was This Team All Season?

I have to admit I was more than a little worried going into last night's University of Washington Huskies football game against the Oregon Beavers.  Both teams had the same records: 6-4.  But the Huskies had not won a game on the road against a Pac-12 opponent in recent memory.  Add to that that starting quarterback Keith Price was not going to start due to an injury he sustained in last week's horrible loss to UCLA (adding injury to insult).

Apparently I needn't have worried.  From the opening kickoff the Huskies dominated.  Back up quarterback Cyler Miles (a redshirt freshman) performed exceptionally well (much better then when we took over at UCLA) and Bishop Sankey ran for 179 yards and three touchdowns.  Toward the end of the third quarter Miles was using an arsenal of weapons: up and coming players who will help the Huskies be a better team next year.

The hapless Beavers didn't score a point until the fourth quarter when the Huskies had who-know-how-many second and third-string players on the field, including their third-string quarterback.  And the Huskies still managed to score, almost without trying very hard, it seemed.  The final score was 69-27.

If this team has shown up at UCLA last week, they could have won.  They would have had a chance against Stanford or Oregon and maybe not have lost to a resurgent Arizona State (who last night won the Pac-12 South championship with a victory of UCLA).  If this Husky team shows up next week, an Apple Cup victory against Washington State will be a assured.

The Huskies have gone 7-5 the past four years.  They are now 7-4 so a win Friday against WSU would improve their record to 8-4.  Not a great improvement but as good as Cyler Miles and other young players looked last night, the Huskies might be in for great things next year, even against what will probably be still, a very strong Pac-12 North.

Last night's win puts Washington in the third position in the Pac-12 North behind top-10 teams Oregon and Stanford.

(In other good news, the Phil Knight Ducks lost to Arizona yesterday, which should knock them out of BCS contention.  Yes, that's pure schadenfreude but when it comes to Oregon, I'm guilty.)