DANNY ONEIL

Huskies back where they belong: Among Pac-12 elite

Sep 27, 2016, 11:44 AM | Updated: 11:44 pm

What happened after UW's 2012 win over Stanford marked a low point in the program, writes Danny O'N...

What happened after UW's 2012 win over Stanford marked a low point in the program, writes Danny O'Neil. (AP)

(AP)

The biggest game for Husky football since … ?

That’s the question that best illustrates the importance of Friday’s matchup between No. 10 Washington and sixth-ranked Stanford on ESPN. The answer to that question, however, depends entirely upon your criteria:

1. You can focus on the national magnitude of this game. This is only the fourth time Washington will host a game featuring two top-10 teams, and only the second in the past 30 seasons. The last time it happened was 1997, Huskies vs. Huskers. Somewhere Brock Huard just winced in pain because that’s the game in which Nebraska defensive end Grant Wistrom took him out at the ankles while Washington failed to knock the Huskers off stride.

2. You can look at the importance for Washington’s program. If that’s the case, think of Steve Sarkisian’s first season in 2009 when the Huskies upset USC, which was then ranked No. 3. That 16-13 game deserves a footnote, though.* While this is Chris Petersen’s third season, a victory over Pac-12 heavyweight Stanford would announce the Huskies’ return as a legitimate conference contender for the first time in more than a decade.

*Aaron Corp started at quarterback for USC in place of the injured Matt Barkley. Corp was absolutely brutal. Like, non-functional in the Huskies’ 16-13 victory.

3. You can measure the significance of the opponent. Stanford has played in three of the past four Rose Bowls, becoming the conference powerhouse while USC has become a coaching carousel. The best home win by Washington in the past 20 years? Well, that was a defeat of Miami – then ranked No. 4 – during the 2000 season, which was also when the Huskies last went to the Rose Bowl.

But amid all those factors, I’ll be thinking about a different precedent heading into Friday’s matchup. It was a game that marks the low point of Washington football in my mind. Not because the Huskies lost. They didn’t. Washington beat a tough Stanford team 17-13 in 2012, a season in which the Huskies squatted at CenturyLink Field because Husky Stadium was under renovation.

It’s what happened after the game that bothered me, and not because some students rushed the field and the team came out to celebrate with them.

What bothered me was the T-shirts that were sold on the athletic department’s website after the victory. “Game Day Champions.” That was the banner across the top, one that appeared every bit as ridiculous at the time as it does in hindsight.

I should pause for a moment of perspective. After all, I’ve lived through the Huskies being on NCAA probation and the stupid purple helmets. I’ve seen Washington lose to Nevada-Reno – at home, no less – and then was personally held hostage by Tyrone Willingham through that 2008 season in which the Huskies not only failed to win a game but the coach insisted on showing absolutely no sign of emotional angst as it occurred.

So maybe I shouldn’t be so upset about a stupid T-shirt commemorating what very well might have been the high point of Sarkisian’s coaching tenure.

I was embarrassed. Not by the victory, certainly. That was the only conference loss that season by a Stanford team that had treated the Huskies like a speed bump in the previous three meetings, Washington losing those three games by an average of 35 points.

That T-shirt symbolized to me just how far our football program had fallen. This school won three straight conference championships in the 1990s. It ended the longest home winning streak in college football history with the “Whammy in Miami” in 1994. And four years ago, it sold T-shirts to celebrate a regular-season victory over Stanford. Not only that, but they were doing it after a game in which the Huskies wore all black to play in an NFL stadium.

It’s an image that I hope to flush from my memory on Friday when a Washington team wearing gold helmets runs onto that stadium that’s built so close to the lake for a game the whole country will be watching.

It’s an opportunity for Washington to plant its flag on the national landscape. And even then, I don’t think it’s anything to make a T-shirt over. This is the kind of game that Washington should be expecting to play in.

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