Stop me if you’ve heard this one before… Washington’s offense looked totally flat in the first half. Outside of two drives, one of which stalled at the two-yard line, John Donovan’s offense was more of the same against UCLA out of the gates. And on top of that, the running game was basically nonexistent. Including an aborted snap that went sailing over the head of Dylan Morris, the Huskies averaged 0.3 yards per carry in the first half. Without that loss of 25 yards, they averaged 2.4 YPC.

The defense didn’t look much better, allowing 7.4 yards per carry to a rushing attack that was spearheaded by Zach Charbonnet, who finished the night with 21 carries for 131 yards. As disappointing as it was that Charbonnet was basically unstoppable on every single carry, the real story of the night is that once again, the coaching staff failed to make adjustments once again. Even though they like to announce Faatui Tuitele as a starter on the defensive line, the 3-4 defense that Bob Gregory said he wanted to implement to be tougher against the run is almost never shown.

The Huskies started the second half strong, but after Dylan Morris tossed a 26-yard touchdown to Rome Odunze to tie the game at 17, the offense flattened out. There seemed to be a direct correlation between Odunze’s snaps in the second half, and Washington’s offense. He was tied for the team lead in catches, and led the Huskies in receiving yards and targets.

Washington’s offense was dwarfed in production by UCLA’s. They were outgained 420-267 on the night, against a defense that came into the game last in the conference in passing yards allowed, giving up over 300 yards per game through the air. Yet, at the end of the night, Dylan Morris finished with 184 yards passing and two interceptions on 30 attempts. The offense also finished with 31 rushing attempts for 83 yards.

That seemed to be the biggest problem on the night, was wanting to commit to a balanced offense. The running game wasn’t working outside of one big drive from Kamari Pleasant, and even though the scouting report showed one thing, the coaching staff wanted to commit to the balanced attack.

With the loss, the Huskies fall to 2-4 on the year, and this downward spiral doesn’t seem to be anywhere near over for this team. The talent is evident on this team, and as Jimmy Lake said in his press conference after the game, “It starts with us coaches putting our players in the best position possible to succeed.”