It Could Have Been Worse . . . It Could Have Been Better

Last Saturday's college football game between the University of Washington Huskies and the Stanford Cardinal (it's a color) could have been worse. Stanford, ranked #16 at the time, came into the game with the best defense in the FBS. The Huskies had a defense that had not distinguished itself in the first four games of the season (despite the Huskies managing to win all four). I was worried that Stanford would have no trouble scoring and the Huskies would not be able to move the ball against the Cardinal defense.

But it actually turned out better than expected. The Husky defense held Stanford to 20 points. Of four trips to the red zone, the Huskies held Stanford to two field goals, one touch down, and force a fumble. Without the Husky defense stepping up, Stanford could have easily scored a lot more points.

And, yes, the Huskies managed to score 13 points against Stanford's supposed brick-wall defense. But it could have been more. Coach Chris Petersen repeatedly took gambles including trick plays, faked punts, and one time had great field position after a kickoff and (and I'm not quite sure how this worked) asked for another kickoff in the hopes of getting great a run-back. We didn't.

As I tweeted during the game, gambling only works if it pays off. And it didn't.

So while it could have been worse, it could have been much better. But the positives are that the defense showed up for this game, and we did manage to move the ball against Stanford. Now if Coach Petersen would be a bit more cautious, we might win more games.

Next week we have a bye. The week after (October 11th) we play Cal in Berkeley. Then we hit the meat grinder of #2 Oregon in Eugene and Arizona State at home. Arizona State was looking good this year (they were ranked until they lost to #8 UCLA 64-27). Later we play UCLA at home.

We're two wins from being bowl eligible. We should manage to squeak out two wins in the eight games left (we'd better beat WSU!). But we play a lot of very good teams in the interim. It's going to be tough.