Huskies Suffer Worst Loss Ever to Montana

UW went from an 8-touchdown victory in 2017 to a shocking defeat to the Big Sky entry.

Husky Stadium was perhaps two-thirds full, with University of Washington football fans either disinterested in the non-conference game against Montana or being extra pandemic careful.

The Husky football team showed up on empty.

It had nothing in the tank.

On a cloudy yet muggy Saturday, the 20th-ranked Huskies opened the season with perhaps the most shocking defeat in school history, losing 13-7 to the FCS Grizzlies — this coming four years after beating them by 56. 

Looking remarkably outclassed, they couldn't run the football. 

The UW likes to say it has the best offensive line in the Pac-12, but in this game it didn't provide the best one in the Big Sky.

The Huskies went without their three usual starting wide receivers.

Rome Odunze was in uniform but unused for unexplained reasons, while Terrell Bynum and Jalen McMillan were on the sideline but not dressed to play.

The Huskies needed more helping hands than these guys could have provided. 

The UW couldn't get a push up front on defense either. They went with a three-man front of veterans Tuli Letuligasenoa, Taki Taimani and Faatui Tuitele. 

They liberally substituted, looking for some muscle that didn't come.

The Michigan game next Saturday in the Midwest on national TV suddenly now looks like a nightmare for this underachieving or grossly overrated team.

Four years ago, the Huskies led Montana 35-7 at half on the way to a 63-7 blistering. 

This time, it was 7-3 after 30 minutes. 

It was still 7-3 after three quarters.

The UW folded in the fourth period, stuck on 7 while Montana smelled FBS blood. 

Griz quarterback Cam Humphrey's 2-yard run with 10:35 left to play was the game-winner, with a Kevin Macias field goal from 22 yards adding to the margin. Humphrey, who completed 12 of 23 passes for 105 yards, comes from Issaquah, Washington, making him another guy enjoying a memorable homecoming over a team that likely never looked at him. 

The Huskies and their followers were left completely stunned by this.

"It stings, it stings," a somber sophomore linebacker Edefuan Ulofoshio said. "Because I know how hard this team worked in the offseason and what we wanted to do. To have an outcome like this is not what we wanted. It stings a lot."

Montana players celebrate their upset / USA TODAY Sports

This marked just the second Montana win in the 20-game series stretching over 101 seasons, with the other Griz victory coming to begin the Roaring Twenties, 18-14 in 1920, a few months before Husky Stadium was completed. 

This result was worse than a 10-7 loss to Hawaii in 1973, previously considered the low in UW annals against a supposedly overwhelmingly inferior foe. Another candidate for most terrible setbacks was a 21-20 upset in 1985 by Oregon State, a 38-point underdog. 

"I don't know if the word is shocked," UW coach Jimmy Lake said. "We told our team all week long it's a formidable opponent."

To open the game, quarterback Dylan Morris drove the Huskies 78 yards in 9 plays and scored on a 1-yard dive with just under 5 minutes run off the clock. It was a promising enough beginning to a new season.

However, Montana was undaunted by this. The Grizzlies responded on their first offensive series with a zippy 75-drive for Kevin Macias' 26-yard field goal. Xavier Harris set it up with a 38-yard run over the right side to the UW 11 that seemed to shock their hosts. Same as last season, there no push from the home team.

The Huskies never recovered. They just prolonged major embarrassment.

"We're not going to make any excuse," Lake said. "Montana played better than we did."

On the other bench, former UW assistant coach Bobby Hauck, a remnant of the Rick Neuheisel staff nearly two decades ago, directed the hard-earned victory and rightfully basked in it.

“This is the Washington Huskies, OK?" Hauck said. "This is App State over Michigan.”

Nothing good happened on offense for the UW after that first possession for the remainder of the contest. Peyton Henry missed a 50-yard field goal, hooking the ball to the right in the second quarter, and that was it.

Morris threw three interceptions, two on tipped balls to Gavin Robertson, an Arizona transfer from Auburn, Washington, playing in his backyard. 

Kyler Gordon tackles Montana's Xavier Harris :: Joe Nicholson/USA TODAY Sports

The Husky quarterback completed 27 of 46 passes for 226 yards and was sacked three times. It was not a game he will care to remember.

Most glaring, Lake's team didn't play physical on either side of the ball, which will prove disastrous against a Big Ten team.

Shortly before halftime, the Huskies even turned to its true freshmen defensive tackles Kuao Peihopa and Voi Tuunifi. Midway through the third quarter, Letuligasenoa and Tuitele paired up with redshirt freshman Jacob Bandes.  

Starting cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and Kyler Gordon kept the Huskies in the game with their heady coverage and pressure on the blitz. They were the only ones who played well in a purple shirt. McDuffie deflected multiple passes and even downed a punt on the Montana 3.

The third quarter settled nothing as the teams traded five punts before Morris threw his second interception to Montana's Robertson at the Grizzly 31. This mistake led to the made the impossible happen.

And left Seattle in a state of shock.

"We can't say we lost to Montana, season's over, right?" Ulofoshio said.

That remains to be seen.

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