What most believed would be at least a semi-beat down against the Cal Bears, turned into the ugliest Husky performance in Chris Petersen’s tenure at Washington.
For the first time in his career, Jake Browning was benched after having trouble completing passes. Doesn’t matter that he was running for his life all day and receivers were dropping more balls than fans were dropping F-Bombs. Back up Jake Haener went in late in the third quarter and Browning was kept on the sidelines.
Washington had a 7-6 lead when Haener went in — and he thew a pick-six.
The Huskies struggled all day up front blocking for Browning, although they were able to get a little bit of a ground game going, and the Husky defense kept the Dawgs in the game despite a lack of execution on offense.
The Huskies just couldn’t get anything going all day on offense, aside from the first quarter touchdown from Browning to Ty Jones.
Chris Petersen is a great coach, without question — but even great coaches have games that leave fans and pundits scratching their heads asking, “Why did he do that?”.
With Stanford coming to town next weekend, there’s no reason not to believe that this could have been a trap game for Washington — and that’s exactly how it looked.
Kamari Pleasant led all rushers with 62 yards on 12 carries, and Browning posted 148 yards and the one lone touchdown.
It was a perfectly awful performance by the Huskies’ o-line — and this is part of what was wrong with Browning; most of the day the Cal defense was already in the backfield before a play had time to develop. Senior tackle, Kaleb McGary had two false starts called on him despite the fact that Memorial Stadium was half empty.
So why did the Huskies lose? Was it mental?
Petersen made a very poor decision in pulling Browning out when he did. But head coaches are entitled to atleast one really bad decision every couple of years. But this has been an issue with this Husky team all season; they just don’t execute on a consistant level.
Right now they will be in a tie for first in the North if (and only if) Washington State or Oregon loses a game. Even if the Huskies win the rest of their games and beat the Cougars in the Apple Cup, if there’s a three-way tie the tie would go to whoever hasn’t been to the Rose Bowl last.
The fact is: This 2018 Husky Football team has not produced what most believed they would produce. They will have to lick their wounds and try to come back swinging next weekend against Stanford.
The Huskies now move to 6-3 overall, and 4-2 in the Pac-12.
