Huskies' Regular Season Wrapup

The University of Washington Huskies' regular season ended Saturday, November 29th with a brutal 26-14 loss to the #6 (#5 AP) ranked Oregon Ducks at home. Our quarterback only hit 50% of his passes but the Oregon defense had him on his heels for most of the game. I won't bore you with why I say Oregon is basically a professional team in college football. Yet, still, no national title for them!

 The Huskies' regular season record is 8-4 which is a lot better than last year's 6-6 season (6-7 including the bowl game we lost).

One of the teams we lost to was Ohio State at home. Ohio State was at the time ranked #1 in the AP poll and undefeated (still is). Another team we lost to was Michigan who we played in Ann Arbor in The Big House. It's very hard to win in The Big House. Unfortunately, Michigan wasn't ranked at the time.

There were some nail-biter games. In the Maryland away game, the Huskies didn't start playing until about the middle of the third quarter and managed to score 24 unanswered points to win the game. We did beat #23 (at the time) Illinois 42-25. 

For one brief shinning moment after beating Illinois, we were ranked: 24 in the AP poll and 23 in the CFP. There was talk about the Huskies making it into the college football playoffs. It looked like we'd have an easy run to the Oregon game which was the last game of the season.

Then we played Wisconsin in Madison. They were 2-6. We were 6-2. It should have been an easy win despite the awful weather conditions. But we lost, 10-13. Nothing went our way and there were dumb mistakes made. That knocked us down to 6-3 and we were no longer ranked. Our star wide receiver and star running back were both hurt in the Wisconsin game making that game a pyrrhic defeat. 

Then the rumors started that head coach Jedd Fisch wanted out. His family didn't like Seattle and his wife had moved back to Arizona. At first, Fisch didn't say anything and the rumors were everywhere. At his weekly press conference, he denied that he wanted to leave. But the rumors persisted. And after that loss at Wisconsin, maybe no one wanted him.

Then we played Perdue at home. They were 2-8 and in last place in the Big Ten. We beat them handily 49-13. One of our freshman receivers left the game in an ambulance. The Perdue players were jerks. Awfully cocky for a last-place team.

Next we played UCLA in the Rose Bowl. UCLA was 3-7 overall and I was a little nervous because the Huskies had struggled with away games. I needn't worry; we beat them 48-14. (At one point it was 34-0.)

One thing that I didn't like was the number of teams we played that were coming off of bye weeks. They were:

• Ohio State
• Maryland
• Rutgers
• Illinois
• Wisconsin

That's almost half the games we played and 55.5% of the conference games we played. We won all but two of those. And for the Wisconsin game, we were also coming off a bye week.

Years ago when the Huskies were not very good, I came up with the criteria for me to call it a good year. They were:

• Have at least an 8-4 record (did that)
• Beat Washington State (they did)
• Beat Oregon (they didn't)
• Go to a good bowl game (they likely will)
• Win that bowl game (we'll see)

Now we just wait to find out on Selection Sunday (the 7th) what bowl we're going to play in and later if our coach is going to leave. He was rumored to be wanted at Florida, but they hired someone else.