UW Football Game 5, Friday night in LA

[Michael K.]

Lots of shit going on, I just realized last night that this is a Friday Night game! This is a tough one, since we have no idea what UCLA is. I have never thought they were all that good under Kelly, but I also hate him, so maybe I am biased? We were the better team last year, but had a vastly inferior QB, and as we know, we were coached by a bunch of half wits, so, there's that. DTR should be a stud at QB, I am just not sure he has flourished in that system. The dual threat guy he was coming out of HS? I sure thought that he would, so I have some fear about that match up. They have thrown it pretty well this year, but that could be a product of the competition. If our defense shows up like they did last week I like our chances.

Back to my Kelly hate, I thought it would take a lot for me to hate a UCLA coach more than Mora, but I guess not. I hate everything there is about Aikman University! LOL

U of W 38
UCLA 21

[D-train]

Lots of shit going on, I just realized last night that this is a Friday Night game! This is a tough one, since we have no idea what UCLA is. I have never thought they were all that good under Kelly, but I also hate him, so maybe I am biased? We were the better team last year, but had a vastly inferior QB, and as we know, we were coached by a bunch of half wits, so, there's that. DTR should be a stud at QB, I am just not sure he has flourished in that system. The dual threat guy he was coming out of HS? I sure thought that he would, so I have some fear about that match up. They have thrown it pretty well this year, but that could be a product of the competition. If our defense shows up like they did last week I like our chances.

Back to my Kelly hate, I thought it would take a lot for me to hate a UCLA coach more than Mora, but I guess not. I hate everything there is about Aikman University! LOL

U of W 38
UCLA 21

Our new HC beat them last year with Jake H. at QB. They barely beat S. Alabama at home a couple weeks ago by 1 point. Their attendance is the worst in the P12 at 37% capacity. They are giving away free tix so will prob be over 50% Husky fans.

https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/uw- ... e-huskies/

[Michael K.]

Our new HC beat them last year with Jake H. at QB. They barely beat S. Alabama at home a couple weeks ago by 1 point. Their attendance is the worst in the P12 at 37% capacity. They are giving away free tix so will prob be over 50% Husky fans.

https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/uw- ... e-huskies/

No argument from me. And, as you see, I have us winning handily, I just worry about that QB and that offense. This is a different defensive scheme we run now, thank GOD, and really, besides desperation time for Michigan State and Stanford, our defense has done a great job. I just watched a lot of DTF from the time he made the Elite 11, back when they used to have that be a series on the NFL Network. Have always wondered if and when he would put it together. Remember when they scored like 35 unanswered on the Cougs a few years back? That was the DTF that most thought Chipper was getting.

I see us jumping out early again though. Man, isn't that fun!? It's like watching the early 90s Dawgs, show up and score right away. So refreshing after the last ten or so years of the Seahawks. And, what ever the fuck I watched for the past two or so seasons here!

[D-train]

Vorel’s prediction
UCLA may not be as good as its record indicates, especially considering it needed a last-second field goal to escape with a 32-31 win over South Alabama. The Bruins’ other wins have come against Bowling Green, Alabama State and Colorado (perhaps the worst Power Five team this season). That doesn’t mean the Bruins aren’t dangerous, though, as Thompson-Robinson and running back Zach Charbonnet should be difficult for the Huskies to consistently contain. But there’s little to suggest UCLA will slow Penix and Washington’s prolific passing attack. As they have thus far, expect Penix to find a rhythm and the UW defense to force a turnover or two. DeBoer will win inside the Rose Bowl for a second consecutive season (though this one won’t be quite so close).

Final score: Huskies 38, Bruins 27

[D-train]

44-23 Dawgs

[Michael K.]

It's also a Friday night road game. It wasn't that long ago that the Cougs beat USC as a home Friday night underdog, Stanford beat the U of W as Friday night home underdogs and Oregon lost to someone else as a Friday night road favorite. The three biggest shots the Conference had that year all lost Friday night road games they were favored in.

The Pac took a lot of heat for basically handicapping it's best Final 4 teams. Could you see Alabama playing at Ole Miss on a Friday Night? I love watching Friday night games, especially if I wasn't planning on going to the local HS game anyway. But they do scare me.

[D-train]

I don't know, I can see the NFL teams having issues when they play Thursday night after Sunday afternoon but Friday night is only 17 hours earlier than a Saturday day game...

[Sibelius Hindemith]

[Captain 97]

UCLA sucks. I say 45-17 Dawgs.

[Michael K.]

I don't know, I can see the NFL teams having issues when they play Thursday night after Sunday afternoon but Friday night is only 17 hours earlier than a Saturday day game...

I don't think it has anything to do with not being ready to play, and everything to do with the emotional roller coaster. They are kids, and it ends up being an event. Remember how we steamrolled Stanford at home on a Friday night when Browning was a Sophomore? We were not THAT much better than them, and sorry, one year later, they were not better than us. The Cougs weren't better than SC, and I don't even remember who beat Oregon, but they weren't the better team. The place will be buzzing all day, well, most campuses would be. You have made a great point about the lack of homefield for UCLA, so might not be the same thing. Still, that place has been a house of horrors for us.

“Haunted” is never a word you want to hear yourself saying 23 years after the event, but that’s the one former Huskies football coach Rick Neuheisel chose Tuesday. He was reliving UW’s road game vs. UCLA in 1999 with Chuck Powell and Bucky Jacobsen on 93.3 KJR-FM, acutely aware that he let a trip to the Rose Bowl slip away.

The contest took place at the Rose Bowl, where Washington has struggled mightily against the Bruins over the past two and a half decades regardless of records. And that year was consistent with results of late, as a 4-7 UCLA squad beat the Huskies 23-20 in overtime, preventing them from returning to Pasadena on Jan. 1.

“We’d have gone to a Rose Bowl that year if we don’t find a way to lose that game,” Neuheisel said.

The backdrop of the San Gabriels may be majestic to the average fan taking in some football at the Rose Bowl, but it’s the Bruins who play mountain to the Huskies’ molehill most the time they square off in Southern California.

Here’s a history over the past 25 years that sledgehammers the point home.

1997: UCLA 52, Washington 28

1999: UCLA 23, Washington 20

2001: UCLA 35, Washington 13

2003: UCLA 46, Washington 16

2005: UCLA 21, Washington 17

2007: UCLA 44, Washington 31

2009: UCLA 24, Washington 23

2013: UCLA 41, Washington 31

And then, finally, in 2018 — when the Huskies won the Pac-12 title: Washington 31, UCLA 24.

That was eight consecutive Bruins victories at home before UW finally broke through. And even that most recent win in Pasadena provided far more peril than most would have expected.

The Bruins were 3-9 that season and 0-4 in the Pac-12 when they took on the Huskies. They were a week removed from losing by 22 to Colorado, and two weeks from falling by 24 to Fresno State. And yet, despite trailing 24-7 at halftime, UCLA got to within seven points of the 10th-ranked Huskies and had a possession to tie the score in the fourth quarter before being forced to punt.

“I’m glad to get outta here,” then-Huskies coach Chris Petersen said after the game.

Current Huskies coach Kalen DeBoer is happy to return. Before being lured to Montlake in late November, he led Fresno State to a win at UCLA last season, when the Bulldogs found the end zone with 14 seconds left to down the Bruins 40-37.

The stakes are higher this time, as his Huskies (4-0, 1-0 Pac-12) look primed to make a run at a title in a Power Five conference. And though his team is favored by two and a half points against 4-0 UCLA, DeBoer knows the odds — just like Fresno State’s victory last year — are irrelevant.

“It doesn’t really mean anything. These are two different teams that are lining up against each other,” he said.

But this Huskies team looks way different than it did last year, when it tumbled to 4-8 in coach Jimmy Lake’s last season as head coach. The Huskies have a quarterback in Michael Penix Jr. — a fringe Heisman Trophy candidate at the moment — whose country-leading 1,388 passing yards are coming on 9.7 yards per attempt and who has thrown 12 touchdown passes against one interception. They have a pancake machine of an offensive line, which has helped running back Wayne Taulapapa rush for 310 yards on 48 carries — good for 6.4 yards a pop. And they have a pulverizing pass rush, which tallied eight sacks last week vs. Stanford and is fifth in the country at 3.7 sacks per game.

The Mariners look all but assured to end their 21-year postseason drought, but the town has to have one eye on these Huskies, who haven’t had a morsel of trouble with any of their opponents. It’s just that SoCal rarely produced Hollywood endings for UW — at least if UCLA is on the other side of the ball.

The Bruins’ four wins this season haven’t come against world beaters. Their 45-17 victory last week was vs. 0-4 Colorado, and they beat South Alabama of the Sun Belt Conference by just a point the week before.

But there is talent on the Bruins sideline. And perhaps as much as anything, there is history in that stadium against UW.

There may not be many fans to intimidate the Huskies on Saturday, but there are plenty of memories that haunt their program — and perhaps another on its way if they lose even the slightest bit of focus.

https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/uw- ... w-huskies/