Washington Huskies are 5-1

The University of Washington Husky Football team went on the road yesterday for their first conference away game (and second conference game). The Huskies have enjoyed being at home since their season opener in Hawaii. In yesterday's game, they faced California in Berkeley, and surprised a lot of people by winning against what was described as a "high-scoring" Cal Bear offense.

The Husky defense held Cal to 7 points and recovered two fumbles to add 14 to Washington's score. The defense is looking very good after the loss to Stanford two weeks ago (the Huskies had their only bye of the season last week), a game pretty much lost by ineffective offense.

But yesterday, the Husky offense came to the game, making scoring drives that were impressive. Once they started behind their own 5-yard line and drove all they way down the field to make a touchdown. While the defense was responsible for 14 points. the offense added 17 points for a final score of 31-7.

This despite officiating that seemed to favor the Bears. Ball placement on critical downs was bad for the Huskies, favorable for the Bears. The officials called a Washington player for a personal foul with targeting that pulled back a long run. But looking at the replay, there didn't appear to be any foul. Meanwhile, the officials ignored a blatant personal foul by a California player.

Next week the Dawgs face Oregon (this morning ranked #12). Oregon's national champion hopes are pretty much dead after their upset loss to Arizona last weekend. This shows they can be beat but they are probably not ready to lose again. The game is in Eugene, always a tough venue for visitors.

The Huskies are 5-1 overall (1-1 conference) so one more victory from being bowl eligible. If they can't pull off one more win in seven games left, they're in trouble.  However they do have a rough schedule going forward starting with the Ducks, then #20 Arizona, unranked Colorado, #18 UCLA, and #10 Arizona. But as good as the Huskies looked yesterday, they have a chance to pull some upsets.