Only you can prevent forest fires, so says Smokey the Bear.
Step 1: don’t let 2016 Washington football onto the grounds.
The Huskies smoked the Stanford Cardinal to the tune of 44-6 Friday night, announcing the fact that they’re damn well for real, and the Pac-12 as well as the nation had better heed notice. The Huskies punted twice all night and held the Tree to under 200 total yards. Three main points from the Washington roll up.
1. Washington is back, at long last, and this was far more about them than it was about Stanford
The proud Huskies have won more than 8 games once since 2000. They’ve won 8 games or more only three times since then. College football junkies long for the early 90’s, when Washington and their rabid, record-loud fan base was boiling over every Saturday over football. It appears that that wish has been granted. Jake Browning is the real deal, no more evidenced than on a late-first half throw across the field while getting destroyed by a Stanford defender which drew a roughing the passer call. Folks, this wasn’t much about Stanford … who came in with a deeply depleted secondary that killed itself further by refusing to EVER turn around looking for the football in the rare times they had coverage. This was about Washington. The Pac-12 champ has an inside into the CFB Playoff, and Washington has the inside to the Pac-12 championship.
2. The Huskies are late-2000s SEC fast
The one thing that stuck out in this game was the massive speed gap on both sides of the ball. Every time Stanford dropped back to throw, the secondary looked like rush hour traffic with a wreck two miles up closing a lane. There was nowhere to go. Then, along the line, the pass rush was a major cog in holding the Cardinal to a staggering 2-11 on third down. By contrast, the Huskies were 9-12 on the same down. Ahem, 9-12. Anyways, it didn’t get much better on offense. John Ross and Dante Pettis did whatever they wanted, and Myles Gaskin rolled for 100 yards on 18 carries. The rest of the Pac-12 had to notice just how overmatched Stanford looked from the drop of the coin.
3. Don’t start with the “Chris Petersen to …” junk. It isn’t happening, but his biggest challenge is coming up
Petersen marches to the beat of his own drum. He has no interest in doing what everyone else thinks a normal coach would do. He hung out in beloved Boise until the perfect opening came around for him, and he’s not a job jumper just looking for the next shot at success. Washington fits him, and he fits Washington. That said, the biggest challenge that comes along with success is convincing your team that has not had this type of success before that they still need to be starved, like everyone still doubts them. That will be part of the battle going forward, not fielding calls from whichever big jobs come open. You may as well not even dial.
Bonus Point:
Kudos to David Shaw in the third quarter for not taking the “we don’t want the optics of being shut out, so let’s take a field goal in a hopeless situation” route. They were rewarded with their only score the next drive, and even though that only made them less hopelessly down, I can’t get behind the “people won’t think this was as bad if we lose 42-3 versus losing 42-0.” Swing your sword, always.
Other Bonus Point:
Saw a few shots of early 1990s Washington gear in the crowd worn by fans. Love that kind of stuff. Genuine retro fan gear is the best.
