Some Musings On a Husky Football Team Twice Beaten

Jedd Fisch has seen his guys drop 5- and 3-point losses.

The Rutgers Scarlet Knights celebrate a home win over Washington. / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

People got spoiled last year. Until the very end against the much better Michigan Wolverines, Kalen DeBoer's University of Washington football team always found a way to win. It was uncanny. It was unprecedented in six decades.

Those Huskies pulled out a certain loss to Arizona State. Beat Washington State on the last play of the game. Won a pair of shootouts with Oregon and another with USC. Ran the table with 20 consecutive victories over two seasons.

Kalen DeBoer had those much more veteran Huskies believing anything was possible. Who would ever doubt him? After all, he's a guy from Podunk, South Dakota, who now coaches at Alabama.

Meantime, Jedd Fisch is little more of a coaching pragmatist, repeatedly warning everyone that he and his staff are repeatedly dealing with the great unknown because this younger football team was thrown together so hurriedly and haphazardly.

He knows about first-year horror shows, suffering through a 1-11 debut season at Arizona while envisioning all along what the Wildcats could become with more experience and his own guys on the roster.

We actually picked these Huskies to go 8-5 after watching all of the extraordinary skill players paired up with a patchwork quilt of an offensive line and what appears to be a somewhat stout defense. However, we did so thinking the Huskies would open 5-0.

The UW now might be hard-pressed to win six games and become bowl eligible.

On Friday evening, the Huskies at times looked as if they were two touchdowns better than Rutgers. They were more physical. They had the better quarterback, Their running back Jonah Coleman outplayed the Scarlet Knight's exceptional rusher Kyle Monangai.

Yet with the Rutgers loss, twice-beaten UW likely was eliminated from another playoff run, though it was never a reality, even with the 12-team system. The Huskies probably have had their last national ranking for awhile. They can't keep their best players on the field -- i.e., see Zach Durfee.

The Huskies must now regroup to face Michigan. After that, they play Iowa, Indiana, USC, Penn State and Oregon among their closing opponents, wondering if they can win any of those remaining games. It could get ugly before things turn around.

Worst of all, this UW team actually finds ways to lose football games. Vincent Holmes' illegal substitution penalty was nothing short of tragic if not hilarious, with the redshirt freshman safety rushing on to the field to celebrate a Husky blocked punt -- before the play was over. And Holmes was a DeBoer guy brought in. Given this reprieve, Rutgers went in and immediately scored rather than turn the ball over.

It's as if the Huskies are paying it back for all of the breaks they got last year in winning 14 of 15 games.

All is not lost with this UW team, as long as people don't try to compare it to the previous two DeBoer entries, which weren't always perfect either.

Nearly two years ago, the Huskies lost 45-38 to a big underdog in Arizona State, similarly stumbled around -- or do you not remember the ball ricocheting off Jaxson Kirkland's helmet for an interception? -- and had quarterback Michael Penix Jr. momentarily injured and in tears following the game in the desert before things turned magical.

What's wrong with the Huskies? Why do they have one more loss than all of last season? After winning 25 of 28 games, why have they dropped three of their past six.

The fact is DeBoer removed patience from the game plan whereas Fisch is trying to restore it.

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