Inside The Huskies

Even With Michigan Win, Huskies Barely Make Dent in Polls

The UW wasn't much of a vote-getter following big victory.

Dan Raley

Husky fans rush the field to celebrate beating Michigan.
Husky fans rush the field to celebrate beating Michigan. / Skylar Lin Visuals

Everyone seemed to be duly impressed by a University of Washington football team that beat Michigan 27-17 on Saturday before a sellout crowd of 72,132 in Seattle that rushed the field and an NBC national TV audience watching at home -- except for poll voters.

On Sunday, the Associated Press and AFCA Coaches polls both had the Huskies (4-2 overall, 2-1 Big Ten) buried deep in their vote-getters outside of the Top 25, where they garnered barely any attention at all.

There was no real expectation that Jedd Fisch's team would be ranked this week, only that it might be much closer to cracking the Top 25 than it is.

Instead, the UW drew just four points in the AP poll, leaving it 36th among everyone in the balloting, and just five points in the coaches list, putting it tied for 35th with Liberty.

Granted two losses at the midway point of the regular season won't necessarily open a lot of doors for anyone in terms of national attention at this juncture. In fact, just one two-loss team showed up in either the AP or Coaches poll.

Michigan.

The same outfit that lost in Montlake this past weekend.

Apparently not everyone has given up on the Wolverines, who turned up 24th in the AP poll, 21st in the Coaches poll, even with their glaring quarterback problems.

The brand name always counts for something extra.

The Huskies even find themselves four slots behind in the AP poll to their next opponent, Iowa (3-2, 1-1), which is coming off a 35-7 loss to unbeaten Ohio State on the road.

Texas, Ohio State and Oregon were ranked 1-2-3 in each poll, while former UW coach Kalen DeBoer's Alabama team, upset by Vanderbilt 40-35, fell from the top spot to No. 7 in each list:.

Nine unbeatens appear in each poll: Texas, Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State, Miami, Iowa State, BYU, Indiana and Pittsburgh. The Huskies will play the Ducks, Nittany Lions and Hoosiers in the coming weeks.

Beating a couple of those teams would go a long way in getting the UW ranked again.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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