Huskies didn’t come close to beating Alabama, but they showed they belonged in College Football Playoff
Jan 1, 2017, 3:09 PM
(AP)
The Huskies were beaten, but they were not embarrassed.
They did not come all that close to beating Alabama, but Washington deserved to be on that stage playing against that team, and that’s no small thing.
But the Huskies belonged in this game. They may not have been entirely ready for Alabama’s size and its speed on defense, and the offense committed the mortal sin of giving away points, but Washington deserved to be in the four-team playoff and on the field against Alabama.
Peach Bowl recap | ‘They beat us at our own game’ | 710’s reaction | Photos
Now, a national semifinal is not the time to be looking for victories of the moral variety, and as far as Washington has come in Chris Petersen’s three seasons, this was a game that – like the November loss to USC – shows how far the Huskies still have to go especially on offense and specifically at quarterback.
It takes a great quarterback to beat a defense like that, and Jake Browning is not great. Yet. He will get there. In fact, there was nothing from Saturday’s game that shook my faith in that fact. Not even that interception that was returned for a touchdown with just over a minute remaining in the second quarter, which was the decisive moment of the game.
It’s the kind of mistake a quarterback can’t make. Not in a game like that, and it’s the kind of mistake Browning won’t make again.
Remember, he played as a true freshman, so he hasn’t even been on campus for a full two years. It’s best to look at this as a step in the process and not a referendum on where he’s at. Browning was not as effective beginning in November as he was the first two months of the season. His arm needs to get stronger. He could get bigger, but don’t let one throw in the biggest game of the year overshadow everything.
And that throw wasn’t the reason the Huskies lost. It significantly reduced any chance that they would win, and I think everyone will spend the offseason wondering how differently things might have been if Washington got to halftime trailing 10-7 instead of being down 10.
There was no evidence that Washington’s offense was going to move the ball against Alabama, and while it’s possible to argue that the 10 points Alabama scored off turnovers made the difference, the reality is that Washington’s offense didn’t do nearly enough to win this game.
That’s not a shock. This is a historically great Alabama defense.
The surprise is that it wasn’t Alabama’s defensive line that overwhelmed the Huskies so much as a secondary that blanketed all of the receiving options. The belief was the Huskies had the playmakers to challenge Alabama in a way it hadn’t been all season.
And that appeared to be true. For one possession. Specifically, Washington’s second possession when the Huskies became the first team to throw a touchdown pass of more than 15 yards against Alabama this season.
Washington got the ball to midfield on the next possession when John Ross was stripped of the football. Alabama recovered. Washington’s offense did not.
The Huskies gained 103 yards on their first three possessions. They gained 91 yards on the next 11 possessions and had the ball in Alabama territory only once over the final three quarters, which was really too bad because the Huskies’ defense showed it was championship caliber.
They kept it close. They made it respectable. They showed that Washington deserved to be in this game, which isn’t as empty a compliment as it seems.
After all, this was a down year in the Pac-12. The teams from the conference who are in bowl games have made that pretty clear, and Washington had a non-conference lineup that resembled a pastry tray: it was a bunch of empty calories.
Even as Washington prepared for the Peach Bowl, there was a nagging insecurity that the Huskies would be outclassed.
They weren’t. They were beaten. Defeated in much the same way that they lost at home to USC.
Those two defeats to bigger, faster opponents showed the limits of this Huskies team, but they will be lessons going forward.