Road to 1991 Perfection: Jones, UW Made Beavers Pay Dearly for their Earlier Mistake

The Husky outside linebacker and his teammates were so focused on running the table they barely celebrated the fact they had clinched a Rose Bowl berth.

Donald Jones and his 1991 University of Washington teammates were 9-0 when they showed up at Oregon State to play the 0-9 Beavers.

What was memorable about this late-season football game was the Huskies never once took it for granted. 

They never once counted it as an automatic victory. 

They put their foot on the gas and firmly kept it there until the clock ran out on a 58-6 victory. 

There would be no giveaways, such as the year before in game 10, when the then second-ranked Huskies took on a 4-5 UCLA team at Husky Stadium and got upset 25-22, blowing a chance at an earlier national championship.

"We weren't going to have any kind of letdown because UCLA really wasn't all that much better than Oregon State," said Jones, seated for this interview in front of a oversized and impressive backdrop of himself in action.

This is another in series of vignettes about the UW's 1991 national championship team, supplementing the conversation for the pandemic delayed and shortened season. We're in week 10 of this throwback series, when the Huskies traveled to Oregon State and clinched a Rose Bowl berth and the then-Pac-10 title.

The UW concentration on the ultimate prize never wavered against the Beavers. Jones and his teammates made sure of that. They permitted just six first downs by the home team. That was generous considering how many OSU pass completions they allowed.

Zero.

"We were not going to allow that game to be close," Jones said. "I think it was over by halftime."

Once it was over, the school handed out roses to the players because they had clinched a second consecutive trip to Pasadena, where they would face Michigan, with the Apple Cup still to be played.

However, that celebration on a gray day in central Oregon was somewhat subdued for the Huskies, maybe the least excited UW players ever were in clinching the Rose Bowl berth. The players were fully cognizant of what happened the year before when they blew it against UCLA and let a national title slip away.

"Looking back at it, I wish I had enjoyed it more," said Jones, a businessman who lives in North Carolina. "But I never relaxed. I was so intent on winning that chip, on winning that national championship. Anything else didn't matter."

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