UW's 3 Best Wins and 3 Worst Losses Against ASU

The good, the bad and the ugly from this longstanding series.

Weird things happen in Tempe to the University of Washington football team. Incredibly bad things. Unbelievably good things. Unforgettable stuff.

This Phoenix suburb foremost has been the scene of the great Frank Kush insurrection, college football martyrdom if there ever was one [see below].

Huge comebacks. Lightning-rod touchdowns. An incredible amount of ill-timed fumbles.

Of the 20 Washington-Arizona State football games played in the desert, most of them held at night, some of them left twisting in high winds, the Sun Devils have captured 12, including the past seven in a row.

In arbitrarily picking out the three best and three worst outings of the entire 37-game series, it wasn't done on purpose, but all of them in our estimation have been held in Tempe. A Pac-12 badlands. Considering the ASU mascot, a football furnace.

 

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3 BEST HUSKY WINS

1982, UW 17, at ASU 13 — The seventh-ranked Huskies (8-1) went into Tempe and upended unbeaten No. 3 Arizona State (9-0), with Don James clearly out-coaching Darryl Rogers, once a UW job candidate. James offset the Sun Devils' menacing blitz with a quick-passing attack from Tim Cowan, who wasn't sacked, and the hard running of Jacque Robinson, who rushed 34 times for 124 yards and the deciding score on a 4-yard TD jaunt. A record crowd of 72,021 showed up, then the largest for a sporting event in Arizona history, and left hugely disappointed. However, the real action was back in Seattle where 8,600 people watched the game on closed-circuit TV in the basketball pavilion and another 4,000 sat in 38-degree temperature and did the same inside Husky Stadium. The fans were so delirious and inebriated by the outcome they tore down the goal posts in Montlake.

1998, UW 42, at ASU 38 — Before a crowd of 72,118 in the season opener, the Miracle in Tempe ended in stunning fashion when Husky quarterback Brock Huard threw a 63-yard touchdown strike to tight end Reggie Davis with a scant 28 seconds remaining. Davis got behind reserve cornerback Phillip Brown, caught the ball on the ASU 40 and avoided a tackle at the 10. The tight end finished with 5 catches for 110 catches and 2 scores. The Huskies were 18th ranked coming in, the Sun Devils were No. 8. The season ended badly with Jim Lambright, Don James' trusty defensive coordinator and replacement coach, getting fired and ending his six years in charge. 

2001, UW 33, at ASU 31 — Beginning on their 10-yard line, the Huskies took possession of the ball with 7:12 left to play and methodically drove down the field for John Anderson's 30-yard field goal  for the win with no time showing on the clock. Husky tailback Willie Hurst ran for 185 yards and a touchdown on 21 carries. The 13th-ranked UW squandered 17-0 and 24-10 leads before pulling this one out in front of a crowd of maybe 40,000 at Sun Devils Stadium. This game was lacking in fan interest because the Arizona Diamondbacks and the New York Yankees were playing a World Series game across town. 

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3 WORST HUSKY LOSSES

1975, at ASU 35, UW 12 — Don James' first game as coach for the UW largely was a disaster in the desert, with the Huskies quickly falling behind 14-0 in the opening quarter, pulling within 14-12 at half and having it get away from them when ASU scored three times over the final seven minutes of play. The UW's new quarterback, identified back then as Harold Moon, fumbled the first snap. The Huskies' only touchdown came on a 52-yard halfback pass from Greg Martin to the late Scott Phillips. The Sun Devils were still three years away from joining the Pac-12.

1996, at ASU 45, UW 42 — The Huskies roared back from a 42-21 third-quarter deficit to tie the game with 5:13 left to play, only to have Geoff Prince shank a punt for just 18 yards and lead to Robert Hycz's game-winning, 38-yard field goal for ASU with two seconds on the clock. A crowd of 73,379 on hand and saw  the debut of Husky redshirt freshman quarterback Brock Huard, who came off the bench to lead the UW to three touchdowns in four minutes, personally running and throwing for scores.

1979, at ASU 12, UW 7 — In a bizarre setting, Sun Devils coach Frank Kush called a news conference before the game to say he was being fired. He then coached ASU to an upset of the 5-0 and sixth-ranked Huskies in his final game at the school and he was carried off the field by some of the 70,912 fans. The UW, which gave up a touchdown by fumbling in its end zone, recovered a fumble at the ASU 29 with 5:29 left, but then coughed up the ball two plays later on another bobble. The Huskies simply did everything they could that night to lose but later on they received a forfeit victory when Kush was determined to have used ineligible players that night.

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