By Rick Anderson
For the Grays Harbor News Group
University of Washington football fans contend that the Huskies were three plays away from an unbeaten regular season and a probable berth in the college football playoffs.
Washington State boosters are upset that the Cougars — perhaps a missed call against USC and adverse weather conditions in the Apple Cup away from a perfect record of their own — have been excluded from a New Year’s Day bowl.
Those folks should chill out. While their seasons contained a few bumps in the road, the Huskies and Cougars wound up in a good place for both programs.
Pac-12 Conference champion Washington will face Ohio State in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1. Sporting a 10-2 record, Washington State opposes Iowa State in the Alamo Bowl four days earlier.
Victories in those bowls, in my view, easily would trump a probable beatdown at the hands of Alabama or Clemson in the playoff semifinals.
The Alamo Bowl selection rankled WSU athletic direct Pat Chun, who told ESPN that a negative national perception of the Pac-12 kept the Cougars out of the New Year’s Six bowls.
He is undoubtedly correct. A couple of national writers recently referred to the Pac-12 as an increasingly irrelevant conference for college football.
On the flip side, however, the Cougs could turn that negative into a positive.
Aside from the lack of a dominant team, perhaps the biggest factor in the disrespect for the Pac-12 was the conference’s woeful (1-6) bowl record last season. There’s little doubt that the Cougars have a better shot at winning against Iowa State than they would against Louisiana State in the Fiesta Bowl, WSU’s postseason destination of choice.
To an outsider, it is difficult to perceive how far the Cougars exceeded expectations this season. Seemingly hit hard by graduation, they were actually underdogs against Wyoming in their season opener.
Sparked by the arrival of national passing leader Gardner Minshew (a graduate transfer from East Carolina), the Cougars not only blew away their critics but possibly established a template for years to come.
With his Air Raid offense, WSU coach Mike Leach is uniquely positioned to use more liberalized transfer rules to attract quarterbacks and receivers who would otherwise fly beneath the radar of NFL scouts. Leach used that sales pitch to woo Minshew away from Alabama (where the quarterback had originally committed).
Frankly, there are aspects of the colorful Leach’s personality that I’m not crazy about. Most high school coaches would sooner attribute losses to global warming than throw individual or small groups of players under the bus. Leach does the latter all the time — and invariably excludes himself from post-game criticism.
Make no mistake, however, the man can coach. Considering what he had to work with, Leach deserves the national Coach of the Year award. Unfortunately, that’s an honor that will likely not come his way.
In contrast to its cross-state rival, Washington had lofty preseason expectations. In retrospect, the Huskies clearly were overrated at No. 6 nationally entering the campaign.
The Huskies, in all honesty, were a frustrating — often agonizing — team to watch.
Opponents that can contain running back Myles Gaskin can usually stall the UW offense. Once regarded as a Heisman Trophy candidate, Jake Browning has morphed into a decent but far from superlative college quarterback.
The Dawgs were mediocre at best in the Red Zone and struggled mightily with their kicking game. Their generally solid defense had the annoying habit of surrendering big plays in third-and-long situations.
Since I’m no expert on defensive schemes, I once asked former Hoquiam and Aberdeen head coach Rick Moore (a highly regarded defensive coordinator at both high schools) to explain the latter shortcoming. He speculated that teams vulnerable in such situations probably are not varying their pass rushes and defensive looks enough to make opposing quarterbacks uncomfortable on passing downs.
The Huskies were inexplicably shut down by a far-from-imposing California defense, were victimized by poor time management in an overtime loss to Oregon and dominated very few of their remaining foes.
For all that, they displayed enough grit in close games to earn their first trip to the Rose Bowl since the 2000-01 season.
That accomplishment came despite one of the most unfavorable schedules the UW has experienced in recent memory. The Huskies faced Oregon, Cal, Utah, UCLA and WSU on the road and opened the season against Auburn at “neutral” Atlanta. To make matters worse, Oregon was coming off a bye week before hosting Washington.
In some respects, this Washington team can be compared to one of the most storied clubs in school history — the 1960-61 squad that won a second consecutive Rose Bowl.
After falling to Navy (then a national power) on a last-second field goal and losing All-American quarterback Bob Schloredt to a broken collarbone, those Huskies scratched and clawed their way to four conference victories in games decided by two points or fewer. That included one-point wins over all three of their Northwest rivals.
But, with Schloredt back in action, they went on to upend top-ranked Minnesota in the Rose Bowl.
They won’t be favored, but the current Huskies have at least an outside shot at duplicating that feat.
They’ll need an improved pass rush to slow down Ohio State’s mega-talented quarterback Dwayne Haskins. They should be able to move the ball, however, against a Buckeye defense that has allowed tons of yardage to the likes of Purdue, Northwestern and even Pac-12 cellar-dweller Oregon State.
The college football landscape has changed a lot since 1960. But even the Pac-12’s critics might concede that a Washington Rose Bowl win would still be relevant.
