Huskies are 7-3

Last night in a kind of late game (started at 6:00 PM PDT), the University of Washington Huskies hung on to beat the Stanford Cardinal (it's a color) by a score of 23-27. This keeps the Huskies' hopes of winning the Pac-12 North alive (but it is on life support).

The game was at home in Husky Stadium and keeps the Huskies' home winning streak alive. I believe it's 19.

The Dawgs looked great in the first half, both offense and defense. Stanford never managed to score in the first half. So the score was 21-0 going into halftime. Jake Browning was hitting his marks and Myles Gaskin was back and making good runs again. The defense even manged to get two interceptions.

Then something happened at halftime. The Cardinal came out to play. They scored 23 points in the second half while the Huskies only got two field goals for 6 points. Suddenly our defense could barely hold them and our offense couldn't do much. Thankfully, kicker Payton Henry hit every field goal (unlike the Oregon game). Stanford's kicker missed a PAT so that put the Cardinal 4 points behind. Which meant a field goal wouldn't tie it. They needed a touchdown. It came down, literally, to the last second of the game when the Stanford quarterback threw a hail Mary into the endzone and it was intercepted by Husky Taylor Rapp.

The Huskies are now 5-2 in conference, 7-3 over all. They have a bye next week, then on November 17th play Oregon State (a game they had better win) at home. They time and network have yet to be announced (probably next Sunday it will be). I suspect it'll be on the Pac-12 Network unless Washington is ranked when the CFP rankings come out on Tuesday.

Elsewhere in the Pac-12

Also last night the Washington State Cougars beat the California Bears. This keeps the Cougars at 5-1

in conference, 8-1 overall. Their one loss was to USC in their first in-conference game. But that record keeps them on top of the Pac-12 North.

If the Huskies win the Apple Cup against WSU, and WSU loses to somebody else in the meantime (they play Colorado next week, then Arizona the week after that, then comes the Apple Cup), they the Huskies' Pac-12 North Championship hopes are still alive. If WSU doesn't lose to Colorado or Arizona, then the Apple Cup will only be for bragging rights and the Cougars will be the Pac-12 North Champions and probably play in the Rose Bowl.

The Utah Utes are still on top of the Pac-12 South, barely, after losing to Arizona State yesterday. They are 4-3 in conference and 6-3 overall. USC and Arizona are also 4-3 in conference but USC is 5-4 over all and Arizona is 5-5 overall. So the Pac-12 South is in contention, still.

Bowl Eligibility

To be "bowl eligible" (to go to a post-season bowl game) a team needs to win six games. This is, to me, kind of ridiculous because that's a .500 record (the regular season is usually 12 games). But there are so many bowls so they need lots of teams.

In the Pac-12 North, only Washington, Washington State, and Oregon are now bowl eligible.

But in the Pac-12 South, which is sort of like a bucket of crabs (one starts to crawl out and the others pull it back down), only Utah is bowl eligible (sorry USC). Most teams have three more games to play unless they have a bye in the next three weeks (like Washington). So there should be more bowl eligibility by the end of the season.

The Polls

When the CFP section committee announced their rankings last Tuesday, WSU was at #8 (but at #10 in the AP poll). Washington wasn't in the top 25 (same as the AP poll; they were #26, actually, in the AP poll). With this win (and #3 LSU losing to #1 Alabama), will WSU move up in the polls? We'll have to wait until Tuesday to find out about the CFP. But in the AP poll, WSU stays at #10 (LSU drops to #9).

The only other Pac-12 team in the AP top 25 is...Washington. They are #20!