Road to 1991 Perfection: McKay Said Attitude was Everything in Title Run

Mario Bailey and Billy Joe Hobert set a competitive tone for the Huskies on the way to a national championship.

Rose Bowl practice was no excuse for lowering the intensity.

All-American wide receiver Mario Bailey reminded everyone on the 1991 University of Washington football team of the necessary wild-man approach, beginning with the Husky defensive backs.

One-on-one drills brought out the beast in him.

"Mario used to go crazy in that drill," McKay said. "He used to start yelling at the defensive backs, telling them they were all trash and 'You can't hold me, I'm the greatest ever.' "

One day as they prepared for the New Year's Day game against Michigan, Bailey took it up another notch. 

He informed the Husky DB lined up opposite him that he was going to run a fade route and dared him to stop him. 

Bailey made the other guy look silly, caught the ball, turned and spiked it in his face.

"I wasn't really like that," McKay said. "I wish I was more like that." 

This is another in a series of vignettes about the UW's 1991 national championship team, supplementing the conversation for the pandemic-delayed and -shortened season. We're dealing with game 12 of this throwback series, the '92 Rose Bowl against Michigan.

For these Huskies, quarterback Billy Joe Hobert and Bailey were the masters of confidence and swagger catalysts, hardly concerned in the least over what anyone else thought of them and admired by all for their petulance.

While self-deprecating and folksy, Hobert greatly impressed McKay with his innate ability to overcome a bad play and never look back. Every time. Hobert never once lingered over an interception or an overthrow.

McKay, a high school teacher and football coach in Memphis, has tried to instill the same attitude in his teenaged players.

On a team full of leaders, Bailey and Hobert were necessary ingredients for the Huskies to run the table and beat everybody in their way. 

"Those two specifically, with their swagger and confidence, were the keys in us being champions — we needed that," McKay said. "If we didn't have that, if we had been all quiet guys like me, I don't know that we would have won the title.

"We would have been a good team, but to win a title you've got to have some of those dudes who are like, 'I'm the greatest of all time.' They had that Muhammad Ali attitude."

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