It's Not Worst Husky Football Team, But Might Be Most Disappointing

We have five UW entries that were supposed to be so much better.

The worst team in Husky football history remains Ty Willingham's 0-12 season shutout in 2008, with Keith Gilbertson's 1-10 disaster four seasons earlier not far behind.

Yet those University of Washington gridiron entries weren't supposed to be any good. They might have surprised the fan base by how bad they ended up, but no one ever had much hope for them at the beginning of the season.

The Husky talent levels in 2004 and 2008 were exceedingly low, the schedules were tough and the coaches weren't expecting to be Seattle residents long. 

Which brings us to this 2021 UW squad, which has plenty of NFL-bound players on the roster, an order of games that appeared manageable and at one time a young, energetic coach declaring that anything less than the pursuit of championships was unacceptable. Remember these Huskies, he said famously and often, had unfinished business.

No, this isn't the most awful collection of UW football players put together — but it might be the most bitterly disappointing team to ever come through Montlake in some time. It's hard to remember a group of Huskies making a louder crashing sound, like a stack of plates hitting the floor and shattering into so many pieces. 

"You could point fingers everywhere," cornerback Kyler Gordon said somberly after the UW fell to Colorado 20-17 on Saturday and slipped to a 4-7 record. 

To be the biggest disappointment in Husky football annals means you weren't exactly considered dog meat when the season began, just the opposite, which lends to the overall shock effect.  

The following are five teams, in chronological order, that let down the local football populace in a huge way after so much more was anticipated:

5 MAJOR UW DISAPPOINTMENTS

1951 Huskies, 3-6-1

This was a serious Rose Bowl contender, a team built around a pair of players who would become first-team All-Americans in their UW careers, one of them doing it twice — running back Hugh McElhenny and quarterback Don Heinrich. These Huskies finished 8-2 the season before, losing both games by a touchdown. They were the nation's eighth-ranked team entering the season. Yet while preparing for the opener against Montana, and, yes, that has an ominous sound to it, the Huskies lost Heinrich for the season to a broken collarbone. He was off limits to contact in practice but a lowly scrub tried to play hero, hit him and ended his season. This UW team was a total bust, going winless in its final six games.

1964 Huskies, 6-4 

Coming off three Rose Bowls in five years, these Jim Owens-coached Huskies had nearly everyone returning from their most recent Pasadena adventure. They were ranked seventh nationally by the Associated Press entering the season. Yet the UW somehow lost its opener by the baseball score of 3-2 to Air Force at Husky Stadium. The Huskies next fell to Iowa by 10, to Oregon State by 2 and to Oregon by 7. They ended up beating both USC and UCLA, a rarity in any season, but it was much too late to really console anyone.

1988 Huskies, 6-5

The Huskies were coming off 10 bowl appearances in 11 years, breaking in a hard-throwing quarterback in Cary Conklin and — where have we heard this before? — ranked No. 20 nationally entering the season. However, they matched the 1964 team for just not getting it done, losing to UCLA by 7, to Oregon and Arizona by 3, and to USC and WSU by 1. The biggest shocker of all? No bowl bid. This team forced Don James to change his recruiting approach, by seeking out much faster Los Angeles-area players over more plodding local prospects, and the program alterations led to a national championship three seasons later.

2003 Huskies, 6-6

Content to remain as the UW offensive coordinator in his second stint in the job, Gilbertson reluctantly took over as head coach for the fired Rick Neuheisel in the offseason. Having emerged from Pac-10 sanctions, gone to eight consecutive bowl games and won a Rose Bowl three years earlier, these Huskies were ranked 17th entering the season with no falloff expected whatsoever. They got beat and beat bad, including 54-7 by California, launching the darkest era of Husky football. They lost to Nevada at Husky Stadium. There was no bowl for this team — or for the six that followed it. 

2021 Huskies, 4-7

So here we are with a team that Ryan Leaf predicted would go 12-0 — OK, he's really not a reliable prognosticator at all — but the Associated Press saw something it liked and selected the UW as the nation's No. 20 club in the preseason. The roster has at least five top NFL prospects, possibly one or more first-rounders. While the Huskies were blown out at Michigan on the road by three touchdowns, they lost the other games by 6, 3, 7, 10, 5 and 3. The school fired coach Jimmy Lake and offensive coordinator John Donovan, with their in-season removals after nine games a disheartening first for the program. Did we forget to mention this team won't play in a bowl game for the second consecutive season and might lose eight games?

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