Pete Carroll: Huskies aren’t out of their league against No. 1 Alabama

If anybody knows about the position the Washington Huskies are in as one of the four teams in the College Football Playoff, it’s the man who coaches the team on the other side of Lake Washington.

Seahawks coach Pete Carroll has some experience playing top-ranked teams in games with national title implications — he turned USC into a perennial contender in the 2000s and led the Trojans to back-to-back championships before coming to Seattle, after all.

So, what does he think of the 12-1 Huskies’ chances against undefeated Alabama on New Year’s Eve in the Peach Bowl, one of the CFP semifinals?

“I don’t think you should think that they’re out of their league at all,” Carroll told 710 ESPN Seattle’s “Brock and Salk” on Monday morning. “Alabama’s a great team and (it has) great coaches and they’ve got a great program, but this (Huskies) team is well balanced and they’re able to take on a lot. They won’t be surprised by the style of offense. They’re gonna see a really, tough, strong, physical defense – it’s gonna be hard for them in that regard – but they have a lot of stuff that they can do, a lot of places they can go with this thing, so it’s going to be a heck of a matchup.”

Washington almost certainly wouldn’t be in the CFP if it weren’t for their convincing 41-10 win over Colorado on Friday in the Pac-12 championship game, and it wasn’t just the committee that was left impressed by that showing.

“I watched all of it. It was great. What a great performance,” Carroll said of head coach Chris Petersen’s Huskies. “Just a beautiful game, in so many different areas, too. They’re really a well-equipped team.”

Equipped enough to go toe-to-toe with the Seahawks in a scrimmage before the playoff in four weeks?

“Our boys will be ready for them,” Carroll quipped about that possibility. “You wanna bring them out here? Come on, bring ’em over here, Coach.”

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